Terry Gross

The Black Swan star describes what it was like to train with members of the New York City Ballet in preparation for her role as a mentally unstable ballet dancer in Darren Aronofsky's psychological thriller.
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After the Civil War, the United States seemed poised to grant equal rights to blacks. But the Supreme Court's rulings in the late 19th century kept blacks segregated for decades, says constitutional scholar Lawrence Goldstone.

Allison Pearson follows up her 2002 best-seller, I Don't Know How She Does It, with I Think I Love You, a novel about a teenage girl's obsession with teen star David Cassidy. The book wasn't hard for Pearson to write. When she was growing up, she was madly in love with Cassidy too.

You may know him from The Matrix, but the French actor portrays a Trappist monk in his latest film — inspired by the true story of seven monks who were kidnapped during the Algerian Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln always thought slavery was unjust — but struggled with what to do once slavery ended. Historian Eric Foner traces how Lincoln's thoughts about slavery — and freed slaves — mirrored America's own transformation in The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

James Franco doesn't just spend his time acting in the movies. The star of Milk, Howl and 127 Hours is also an accomplished writer and graduate student. He explains how he juggles his many roles — and why he continues to take on new challenges.

Tom Hooper's film, The King's Speech, tells the true story of King George VI's stammer and his relationship with an unconventional speech therapist who helped him speak. The movie was recently nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including Best Director.

Journalist Charles Sennott recently returned from Tahrir Square, where he was filming a documentary on the revolution for PBS's Frontline. It focuses on the young members of the Muslim Brotherhood who played an important role in Egypt's revolution.

The co-founder of Twitter talks about how the service was used in Egypt to help organize the protests, and about the rumors that the popular microblogging service could be purchased by Google or Facebook.

British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey watched hours of war footage before writing the songs for her eighth album, Let England Shake. Here, she describes how she translated what she saw into a mournful elegy about the bitter brutality of combat.