Listening to America aims to “light out for the territories,” traveling less visited byways and taking time to see this immense, extraordinary country with fresh eyes while listening to the many voices of America’s past, present, and future.
We invite you to join us on this journey.
“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”
John Steinbeck
“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”
Jack Kerouac
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
T.S. Eliot
“Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Hope, one feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood. . . . A journey, in fact, appeals to the Imagination, to Memory, to Hope—the three sister Graces of our moral being.”
Richard Francis Burton
July 25-August 3, 2026: Cultural Tour: Lewis & Clark Trail
September 13-19, 2026: Cultural Tour: Monumental Decisions: Antiquities Act of 1906
September 20-October 2, 2026: Cultural Tour: Jefferson's France
January 3–8, 2027: Winter Retreat: The Beatles in Four Albums
January 10–15, 2027: Winter Retreat: Thoreau and the American Dream
January 17–22, 2027: Winter Retreat: The Novels of Jane Austen
May 23–June 13: Rewriting the Constitution: A More Perfect Union
Books We’re Reading
A prolific author and noted humanities scholar, Clay Jenkinson is a frequent guest on national media and is regularly featured in documentary films, including several by Ken Burns. Clay is the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Listening to America
On this week's podcast, Clay and his frequent guest, the redoubtable Lindsay Chervinsky, discuss books written about Jefferson’s declaration, arguably the most important document in See more
Listening to America
Wind Cave National Park - Listening To America
Our roving humanities scholar Clay S. Jenkinson is typically dedicated to the truth and nothing but the truth, but his visit to Wind Cave National Park seems to have addled his brain. No other visitor on his recent tour reported meeting Dante and Virgil at the Seventh Circle of the cave.
Listening to America
Sometimes we think great movements end with a single victory. But history rarely works that way. In this sneak peek, Clay speaks with @lchervinsky who See more
