John McWhorter, author of Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care, on the death of formal speech

Douglas Koopman, on the mis-steps and misunderstandings that hampered the Bush administration's implementation of Faith-Based Initiatives

Daniel Ritchie, on the survival of "Great Books" programs at religious colleges

Vincent Miller, on how the commodification of everything affects our sense of religious faith and practice (and on how we can resist)

Barrett Fisher, on the sources of humor in the two versions of The Ladykillers

Barrett Fisher, from the bonus track of the CD edition, on the history of very serious thinking about what makes something funny