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, 9/10

Hour 1:  How did the U.S. Dollar become the world’s standard currency and what impact will current financial insecurities have on the Dollar’s place in global markets? We’ll talk this hour with Barry Eichengreen, professor of Political Science and Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and author of “Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System” (Oxford University Press, 2012) which is now out in paperback.

Hour 2:  Even before Hurricane Isaac landed on the Louisiana coast last month, residents there already had it tough due to the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, ongoing coastal erosion and wetland destruction, and a general lack of attention from the government and the media. What will it take for these communities to survive? We’ll find out this hour with journalist and photographer Kael Alford who has been documenting life along the Louisiana coast since 2005. Her work was on view at Atlanta’s High Museum this summer as part of the “Picturing the South” exhibit and can be seen in her book “Bottom of da Boot” (Fall Line, 2012).

Tuesday, 9/11

Hour 1:  What happens when people are forced to flee their homes to escape fighting and to whom can they turn for help in rebuilding their lives? We’ll discuss the plight of international refugees this hour with Alexander Betts, the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations at the University of Oxford where he is also Director of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Global Migration Governance project. Betts will address SMU’s Tower Center and Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity this afternoon.

Hour 2:  How are gender dynamics changing in American society and beyond and what is the impact on marriage, sex, children, and work? We’ll talk this hour with Hanna Rosin, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of the new book “The End of Men: And the Rise of Women” (Riverhead, 2012).

Wednesday, 9/12

Hour 1:  Why are average middle-class Americans struggling so hard to just stay afloat and which political and economic policy decisions of the past have led our country to its current state? We’ll talk this hour with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hedrick Smith, whose new book is “Who Stole the American Dream?” (Random House, 2012).

Hour 2:  What makes a character work on the page or on the screen and just how important are those traumatic pre-teen years to a writer and actor’s later creativity? We’ll find out this hour with Bob Balaban who’s appeared in nearly 100 movies – from Midnight Cowboy to Moonrise Kingdom. He’s also just published “The Creature From the seventh Grade: Boy or Beast” (Viking, 2012). It’s the first book in a new series of books for middle grade kids.

Thursday, 9/13

Hour 1:  The conventions are over and all that remains between now and Election Day is a series of debates, many campaign stops and speeches in swing states, and (nearly) countless millions of dollars in ads from the campaigns and super PACs in support of one side or the other. What is the electorate thinking and what is your opinion of the 2012 presidential race at this point? We’ll spend the hour with Bob Ray Sanders of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and William McKenzie of The Dallas Morning News.

Hour 2:  What happens when a New York Times foreign correspondent disagrees with his editor about the invasion of Iraq, quits his job, and then sets out in a drug-induced euphoria to launch a Serbian version of Woodstock on an island in the Danube? We’ll talk this hour with Daniel Simpson, who tells these stories and more in the new book “A Rough Guide To The Dark Side” (Zero Books, 2012).

###