This American Life

This American Life

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

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  1. 14 hr ago

    Somewhere in the Arabian Sea

    The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been in the news over an extra-long deployment that's taking a toll on its crew. Back in 2002, we explored life aboard another aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, stationed in the Arabian Sea and supporting bombing missions over Afghanistan. Only a few dozen people on board actually fly jets. The rest of the crew — over 5,000 people — keeps them in the air.  Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Alex Blumberg talks with sailor Prevon Scott, who stocks vending machines on the Stennis. (00:04:53) Act One: Aboard the USS Stennis, Ira Glass and Wendy Dorr talk with sailors about life on board. Off duty, people play video games, work out, or practice in one of the ship's many garage bands. Ira and Wendy also talk with sailors about how rumors travel on the ship — conversations that get back to the top brass, who give the producers heat for chasing salacious stories. Ira interviews the captain, James McDonell, and learns the ship is facing a fresh water shortage. (00:18:03) Act Two: As pilots head to their planes for a mission, they explain how hard it is to land on an aircraft carrier. Wendy talks with sailors Cynthia and David, waiting for the 8PM movie to start, and she and Alex talk with sailors in the mess hall. Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Somewhere in the Arabian Sea

  2. 17 Aug

    Label Maker!

    Labels are powerful. They can distill you down to a single word. They can get stuck on you without your permission. And sometimes, when they get taken away, they can upend your entire life. On this episode: labels and the havoc they wreak. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Sara and Ethan have been dating for 10 months. They see each other at least once a week, text pretty much every day, and have been there for each other through hard times. But they refuse to have the “what are we?” conversation. So what gives? Guest host Tobin Low looks into it. (5 minutes) (00:05:14) Act One: Last week, when Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS, was cut off for Haitian immigrants, some 300,000 people had their lives upended. Marie, a Certified Nursing Assistant in Boston, was one of them. Producer Chana Joffe-Walt spent time last week with Marie as she tried to figure out exactly when her very last day on the job would be. (21 minutes) (00:27:57) Act Two: Comedian Janet McNamara was walking off stage 15 years ago when the club owner asked, “Hey, have you ever been tested for autism?” No one had ever asked her this before, so Janet decided to look into it. (17 minutes) (00:44:01) Act Three: When you get down to it, labels are just our way of pointing out what we think is remarkable about other people. That’s Alfred Jung Lee’s argument. He’s been thinking a lot about how we describe each other, especially as he tries to describe his wife, who passed away from cancer. (10 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Label Maker!

  3. 10 Aug

    Amusement Park

    We head to some of the happiest places on earth: amusement parks! Ira Glass takes us behind the scenes at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, where the young staff – coached by a funny, fun-loving boss just a little older than they are – truly seem to love their jobs.   Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Host Ira Glass walks through a Kansas City, Missouri amusement park called Worlds of Fun with Cole Lindbergh, who had a season pass to the park as a little kid, started working there in the summers at 14, and then stayed on. Now he's a full-time, year-round employee who runs the games department. He may do this job better than anyone in the country. (9 minutes) (00:09:26) Act One: Ira continues with Cole Lindbergh and the teenagers who work for him in the games department at Worlds of Fun. We watch them compete against each other to see who can do the most business. (23 minutes) (00:32:26) Act Two: We asked for your stories about amusement parks. Three hundred of you called in, with stories of fear, floating carnies and, um, vomit. (9 minutes) (00:42:15) Act Three: Jonathan Goldstein returns to Wildwood, New Jersey, where he spent one not-fateful summer when he was sixteen. (13 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Amusement Park

  4. 3 Aug

    I Couldn't Help but Notice

    People dealing with new, glaring, massive changes happening right where they live. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Rick Cole, a city councilmember in Pasadena, CA, talks to Ira about how he responded to a surprise nighttime military exercise in his neighborhood this June – complete with helicopters, gunfire, and flash bangs. (5 minutes) (00:05:30) Act One: A doctor trained as a midwife tells the eye-popping story of how she and others came together to save a baby during a birth that suddenly went wrong, in a part of rural Maine where the local labor and delivery unit had closed less than a month before. (26 minutes) (00:34:56) Act Two: Producer Valerie Kipnis never felt inside the jokes and stories her family would tell about growing up in the Soviet Union, until she saw this year's Oscar-winning documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin. The film follows the changes unfolding in one school as Russia rolled out a nationwide propaganda push after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Valerie interviewed the young teacher at the center of the documentary and learned things that never made it into the film. (21 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    I Couldn't Help but Notice

  5. 27 Jul

    Testosterone

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered everyone over 30 in the military to have their testosterone tested. That inspired us to rerun this classic episode where everyone at This American Life tested their testosterone and compared results. It did not lead to workplace harmony. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Alex Blumberg, who explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells Ira that the reasons go back to a girl in his 8th-grade homeroom. We also hear from a man who stopped producing testosterone due to a medical treatment, and found his entire personality was altered. (10 minutes) (00:10:45) Act One: What’s it like to get injected with testosterone? When Griffin Hansbury transitioned, he got massive shots of it and was surprised at the effect it had on him. (17 minutes) (00:27:56) Act Two: The men and women on staff at This American Life decide to get their testosterone levels tested to see who has the most and least, and whether personality traits actually match hormone levels. (13 minutes) (00:40:16) Act Three: What happens when a man suddenly loses all of his testosterone? We return to Alex Blumberg’s interview from the top of the show with a man who that happened to. He says life without testosterone is life without desire. By that he doesn’t mean sexual desire. He means any desire. (6 minutes) (00:46:47) Act Four: Novelist Miriam Toews interviews her 15-year-old son, someone at an age when boys experience a jolt of ten or twenty times the testosterone they had as children, about all the things she doesn’t understand about what he’s going through. (11 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Testosterone

  6. 25 Jul ·  Bonus • Subscribers Only

    A Bonus Episode We Weren’t Sure About

    And by the end we were like “Wait, that was AMAZING.” Featuring producer Diane Wu, who makes Ira cry.

    A Bonus Episode We Weren’t Sure About

  7. 20 Jul

    Trapped on a Bus

    People on journeys they did not intend — or agree to. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: A woman on a nighttime bus ride wakes up to discover the bus driver is taking the passengers somewhere none of them want to go. (8  minutes) (00:08:11) Act One: Ayman Oghanna was reporting in Syria when he got a surprising call from home: one of his neighbors had been arrested for spying. (13 minutes) (00:21:18) Act Two: Eileen Sosin Martínez describes life in Havana right now, where blackouts have become so constant that it’s nearly impossible to make ice and garbage trucks don’t collect the trash regularly. (11 minutes) (00:33:33) Act Three: A beloved tree in England, more than 100 years old, is mysteriously cut down overnight, leaving the country bereft and enraged and out for justice. (15 minutes) (00:49:31) Act Four: When she was 16, Leticia flew from Sao Paolo, where she lived, to Germany. She was seated next to an older woman who did something so surprising during the flight that Leticia still tells people about it today. (9 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    Trapped on a Bus

  8. 13 Jul

    The Test Case

    Some people in this country think Antifa is a dangerous domestic terror organization. Some think that’s a complete myth. This week, we go to the federal trial where, for the first time, the government sets out to prove that Antifa is real. Zoe Chace reports. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Host Ira Glass tells the story of what happened at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. The government claims this was an attack by an Antifa cell. The defense says it was a protest gone awry. This argument goes to court in a first-of-its-kind trial. (7 minutes) (00:07:00) Act One: Reporter Zoe Chace walks us through one of the worst days for the defense: all these guns. (5 minutes) (00:13:51) Act Two: Zoe takes us through the testimony of the government’s Antifa expert. The defense team is optimistic that things are going well for them. (8 minutes) (00:29:55) Act Three: Zoe goes to jail to talk with one of the cooperating witnesses for the prosecution, a former church lady named Lynette Sharp. She has a lot to say about the events in her life that led her to accept a plea deal and testify against her friends. (24 minutes) (00:55:17) Act Four: The verdicts come in. (12 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

    The Test Case
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Hosts & Guests

About

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

Information

  • Creator
    This American Life
  • Years Active
    2006 - 2026
  • Episodes
    511
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 1995-2026 This American Life
  • Show Website
    This American Life
  • Provider
    AMERICAN WHATEVER LLC

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