Think airs Monday to Thursday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. on KERA 90.1 FM. Encore airings of Think can be heard Monday to Thursday nights on KERA FM beginning at 9:00 p.m. Podcasts and streamed video are available online at www.kera.org/think.

Monday, 8/20

Hour 1:  Can a creative approach help mend our country’s troubled economy and the financial and political divides that plague our society? We’ll talk this hour with Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, and author of the book “The Rise of the Creative Class–Revisited: 10th Anniversary Edition–Revised and Expanded” (Basic Books, 2012).

Hour 2:  What does a law school education cost in 2012 and is it worth the investment? This hour we’ll discuss the prospects for law school grads in one of the worst employment markets in decades with Brian Tamanaha, the William Gardiner Hammond Professor of Law at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. He examines the issues in his book, “Failing Law Schools” (University Of Chicago Press, 2012).

Tuesday, 8/21

Hour 1:  In just eleven weeks, the country will either elect a new president or re-elect our current one. How are the campaigns positioning their candidates leading up to the conventions and how is the electorate responding? We’ll spend this hour with William McKenzie, columnist for The Dallas Morning News, Rebecca Deen, associate professor and chair of the political science department at UT Arlington, and Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, associate professor of political science at the University of North Texas.

Hour 2:  What do most parents really know about their teen’s sex lives and what do they only think they know? We’ll examine the lives and stories of real families this hour with Sinikka Elliott, assistant professor of sociology at North Carolina State University and author of “Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers” (NYU Press, 2012).

Wednesday, 8/22

Hour 1:  Is sustainable growth still a possibility for the American economy and what role – if any – should government play in a turnaround? We’ll talk this hour with Brendan Miniter, senior editorial director of the Bush Institute and editor of the Institute’s first publication “The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs” (Crown Business, 2012).

Hour 2:  How did cocaine shape the study and practice of psychology and medicine? We’ll find out this hour with Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan and author of “An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug, Cocaine” (Vintage, Paperback, 2012).

Thursday, 8/23

Hour 1:  How did we come to know the shape of Earth’s landmasses and what was it like to explore and produce the first maps of the unknown regions of the world? We’ll talk this hour with Roger McCoy, professor emeritus at the University of Utah and author of the new book “On the Edge: Mapping North America’s Coasts” (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Hour 2:  How did tuna go from being sold primarily as a fertilizer to almost everyone’s lunch box? We’ll talk this hour with Andrew F. Smith who teaches Food Studies at the New School University in New York. His new book is “American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food” (University of California Press, 2012).

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