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Loneliness as a Way of Life

Just about everyone feels lonely, and yet loneliness is still so often private and difficult to articulate. Tom Dumm is a professor of political science at Amherst College and author of the book “Loneliness as a Way of Life” (Harvard University Press/ 2008).

In his meditation on loneliness, he asks: Is there something basic in our political and social structures that make us lonely? Host Frank Stasio talks about loneliness and politics with Tom Dumm; Duke University Literature Department Chair Michael Hardt, the author of "Declaration" (Argo Navis/ 2012); and Duke University Law Professor Jedediah Purdy, author of "A Tolerable Anarchy: Rebels, Reactionaries and the Making of American Freedom" (Knopf/2009).

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Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Shawn Wen joined the staff of The State of Things in March 2012 and served as associate producer until February 2014.
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