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Terry Gross at her microphone in 2018

Terry Gross

Terry Gross is the host and an executive producer of Fresh Air, the daily program of interviews and reviews. It is produced at WHYY in Philadelphia, where Gross began hosting the show in 1975, when it was broadcast only locally. She was awarded a National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016. Fresh Air with Terry Gross received a Peabody Award in 1994 for its “probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insight.” America Women in Radio and Television presented her with a Gracie Award in 1999 in the category of National Network Radio Personality. In 2003, she received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award for her “outstanding contributions to public radio” and for advancing the “growth, quality and positive image of radio.” Gross is the author of All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists, published by Hyperion in 2004. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and received a bachelor’s degree in English and M.Ed. in communications from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She began her radio career in 1973 at public radio station WBFO in Buffalo, NY.

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22:43

French Film Legend Jeanne Moreau.

French film legend Jeanne Moreau. She's best known for her work in the French New Wave films (between 1958 and 1962), working with such directors as Francois Truffaut, Louis Malle, and Jean-Luc Godard. She's probably best known for her role in Truffaut's "Jules et Jim" about a complicated ménage à trois. Moreau has led an admittedly unconventional life, from her choice of movie roles, to her succession of love affairs. She's now 65, and starring the new film, "The Summer House."

Interview
12:20

Independent Film Director Abel Ferrara.

Independent film director Abel Ferrara. He's been described as a film maker who has a quest to "confront issues of salvation, grace and dignity within a context of extreme depravity." His films include "King of New York," (a "stylish(ly). . .contemporary gangster movie,"), and the cult classic "The Bad Lieutenant," starring Harvey Keitel. He also directed a couple of TV's "Miami Vice" episodes. His lesser known films include "Ms.

Interview
15:47

Professor Deborah Lipstadt Discusses Holocaust Deniers.

Professor Deborah Lipstadt examines a chilling new trend in historical revisionism: disavowing the deaths of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps. Her book, "Denying the Holocaust" (Free Press) traces the rise of this reversal: the change in influence of these practitioners as isolated pamphleteers and cranks forty years ago to the point today, where a poll found one fifth of the American public think it seems "possible" that the Holocaust never happened. (REBROADCAST FROM 7/14/93).

Interview
22:48

Rafael Scharf Discusses the Warsaw Ghetto.

This year marked the 50th Anniversary of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Terry talks with Rafael Scharf, one of the founders of "The Jewish Quarterly," a London literary and political magazine. He's compiled a new book of photographs, "In The Warsaw Ghetto Summer 1941," (Aperture). The photographs were all taken one summer day in 1941 by German soldier and have never been published before. He also has papers and diaries from the Ghetto which document daily life there. Scharf was born in Poland, but left the country shortly before World War II.

Interview
16:21

Writer Annie Proulx.

Writer Annie Proulx. She just won the National Book Award for Fiction, for her second novel, "The Shipping News," (Scribner's). Proulx describes herself as "incautious, heedless, reckless, stupid." Her characters are often compared with Dickens', and her books are rooted in a particular landscape: "The Shipping News" takes place in a barren Newfoundland. It's been called, "a strange book, a stunning book, full of magic and portent." (Boston Globe).

Interview
23:00

The Danger of Land Mines.

There are 100 million land mines in place around the world, left over from wars and conflicts. They continue to kill and maim thousands of civilians each year. Human Rights groups are calling for the banning of land mines. Terry will talk with two individuals about this: Eric Stover, Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights. He's one of the authors of "Land Mines: A Deadly Legacy," a study about the medical and social consequences of land mines in Cambodia. And with Stephen Goose, Washington director of the Arms Project, a division of Human Rights Watch.

22:33

Moroccan Sociologist and Koranic Scholar Fatima Mernissi.

Moroccan sociologist and Koranic scholar, Fatima Mernissi. Her new book explores how the sacred texts of Islam are used both by feminists and defenders of democracy as well as the violent fundamentalists which oppose them: "Islam & Democracy" (Addison-Wesley). An earlier book, "The Veil and the Male Elite" (Addison-Wesley) was a feminist interpretation of Women's rights in Islam. Her new book, due out in the summer of 1994 is "Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood".

Interview
16:30

Comedienne Carol Leifer.

Comedienne Carol Leifer. She's been a longstanding regular as a stand up on Late Night With David Letterman, and a writer for Saturday Night Live. This year, she writes for comedy pal (and former boyfriend) Jerry Seinfeld -- some say the character of Elaine is based on Leifer. Last year she produced "Gaudy, Bawdy & Blue", a fictional recreation of the great "Blue" comediennes of the sixties: Belle Barth, Pearl Williams, and Rusty Warren (who's XXX-rated "Knockers Up" album sold six million copies in 1960).

Interview
23:15

Science Fiction Writer Octavia Butler.

Science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Because she is black and female, she's considered an atypical science fiction writer. She's won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, science fiction's two most prestigious awards. Butler often describes her work as "speculative fiction" rather than science fiction. She says, "Science fiction, extrasensory perception, and black people are judged by the worst elements they produce." Her main characters are usually black women, and the fictional world they inhabit are racially diverse. Butler has written nine novels.

Interview
16:07

Charles Kolb on the Bush Administration.

Former Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy in the Bush Administration, Charles Kolb. He's written a new memoir about what went wrong with the Bush administration, how they dropped the ball on "gains" made by the Reagan administration. It's called, "White House Daze: The Unmaking of Domestic Policy in the Bush Years." (The Free Press).

Interview

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