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
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
July 25–August 3, 2027: Cultural Tour: Lewis and Clark
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
In this conversation, acclaimed author Hampton Sides and Clay Jenkinson take a closer look at the complicated legacy of Captain James Cook and the British See more
Listening to America
On this week's podcast Host David Horton asks Clay Jenkinson what we have learned from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, See more
Listening to America
Another quiet day at the Louvre. Thomas Jefferson Cultural Tour in France. Go to Listening to America.org
