Skip to content
Sign in
Artwork for Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda
Society & CultureScienceComedy

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Alan Alda

Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country. You'll know many of the people in these conversations – they are luminaries in our culture. Some you may not know. But what links them all is their powerful ability to relate and communicate. It's something we need now more than ever.

Play
Open in
  • 22 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 36 min
  • English

Episodes 22

NewestOldestLongest
All20Unplayed20In progress0Played0
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
  • Tuesday · 33 min

    Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 35 Trailer

    Alan and executive producer Graham Chedd introduce season 35 of Clear and Vivid. Topics include how music inspires daydreams, the mind games of championship tennis, a year living with robots, the challenges of an expert witness and the sheer joy of joy.

  • August 18 · 37 min

    Yael Schonbrun: It’s not what you say…

    There is more to successful communication than picking the right words. We need to understand that our understanding of others is shaped by factors we are mostly unaware of, ranging from our upbringing to how well we slept.

  • August 11 · 37 min

    Tom Levenson: Anti-vaxxers are living in the past

    Opposition to vaccines goes back to their invention. And while doubts about vaccine safely may have been justified 300 years ago, those same doubts have lingered among those opposing vaccines today – vaccines that are overwhelmingly safe and have saved millions of lives.

  • August 4 · 37 min

    Nicholas Epley: Talking to strangers

    An encounter on his commuter train led to 20 years of research that changed his life for the better. You too can be friendlier, kinder, more open, more curious – and the first step could be a smile and a hello to the stranger sitting next to you.

  • July 28 · 36 min

    Lisa Genova: She lets us into their worlds

    A neuroscientist who also writes novels – including one that became an award-winning movie – Lisa Genova lets us experience the stories lived by people with brain diseases ranging from Alzheimer's to bipolar disorder.

  • July 21 · 36 min

    Matt Kaplan: They were right after all

    Vivid stories of scientists whose claims were ignored or ridiculed, from Galileo to Kati Karikó – the woman whose work was critical in developing the mRNA Covid vaccine that saved millions of lives.

  • July 7 · 38 min

    Lawrence O’Donnell: Inventing Arnie Vinick

    Today an MS NOW host, in 2004 he was writer/producer on the popular NBC series The West Wing tasked with introducing a new character – a Republican Senator running for president.

  • June 23 · 37 min

    Kate Bowler: Joy is surprising

    A decade on from being diagnosed with a deadly cancer – and eight years since her first visit with Clear and Vivid – she tells of the many ways she has been taken by surprise by joy, as recounted in her new book – Joyful, Anyway

  • June 9 · 36 min

    Chris Duffy: How laughter connects us

    Finding humor in the many absurdities of everyday life – including our own foolishness – can help us see things in new ways, foster understanding… above all, mend our ability to connect with others.

  • June 2 · 26 min

    Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda: Season 34 Trailer

    Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd look ahead to season 34. Episodes include one of Alan’s favorite topics – humor, and its power to connect; finding joy in unexpected places; why telling stories makes for better doctors; and how Alan’s character in The West Wing, Arnie Vinick, came to be.

  • May 26 · 38 min

    Roger Rosenblatt: Aging well

    Alan revisits a conversation with his old friend to compare notes on staying happy when old, as Roger’s new book, More Rules for Aging: Making the Most of Your Ridiculous, Wondrous Life, hits the bookshelves.

  • May 19 · 37 min

    Sonja Lyubomirsky: Lost that loving feeling?

    In her new book she argues that if you want to feel more loved, you don't need to change yourself, you don't need to change the other person (which is sure to backfire!). You just need to change the conversation.

  • May 12 · 37 min

    Julia Minson: Disagreeing agreeably

    Wondering why she and her husband got into frequent spats while practicing competitive ballroom dancing led her to a career in social psychology with a focus on disagreements; not just on why and how we have them, but on how to turn them from toxic to constructive.

  • May 5 · 36 min

    Ina Garten: Cooking to connect

    In her cookbooks and TV shows the Barefoot Contessa uses her early fascination with science to create meals that are not only great to eat but are also ways to connect and communicate.

  • April 28 · 35 min

    Jon LaPook: Empathic medicine

    CBS News’ medical correspondent, he also heads the Empathy Project, creating Hollywood-quality short films that train healthcare providers to be more humane and help empower patients to be effective participants in their own care.

  • April 21 · 37 min

    Valerie Fridland: Yes, you have an accent

    Whether it’s the accent that hints at your hometown, your group, your social status or your ethnicity, the sounds we say reveal a lot about who we are and where we’ve been – even for those who might think they have no accent at all.



  • April 14 · 37 min

    David Haskell: When the world burst into bloom

    Flowering plants were late to evolve, but once they did, they took over most of the planet, connecting and communicating with a network of other living things and making possible our own evolution.

Showing 1–20 of 22 episodes