The Experiment
A show about people navigating our country's contradictions
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Episodes
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The End of This Experiment
For The Experiment’s final episode, a meditation on our strange, sometimes beautiful, often frustrating country
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The Experiment Introduces: How To Start Over With Olga Khazan
Olga Khazan and Julia Longoria sit down to announce The Atlantic’s new How To series: How To Start Over.
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The 50-Square-Mile Zone Where the Constitution Doesn't Apply
Deep in Yellowstone National Park, Mike Belderrain stumbled into an area where, technically, the law couldn’t touch him.
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Fighting to Remember Mississippi Burning
At the height of Freedom Summer, the KKK killed three civil-rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Now, reporter Ko Bragg searches for memories in a town that would rather forget.
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Teenage Life After Genocide
The Experiment revisits the story of Aséna Tahir Izgil, a Uyghur teen adjusting to life in the U.S. after escaping China’s genocide of her people.
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Judge Judy’s Law
For decades, Americans have been bypassing the court system and settling their disputes on Judge Judy. But can people really find justice in a TV courtroom?
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The Resurgence of the Abortion Underground
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade in June, the reporter Jessica Bruder speaks with activists prepared to take abortions into their own hands.
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Should We Return National Parks to Native Americans?
The Experiment revisits a conversation with the Ojibwe writer David Treuer, who believes we can make our national parks, sometimes called “America’s best idea,” even better.
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Who Belongs in the Cherokee Nation?
From the time she was a child, Marilyn Vann knew she was Black and she was Cherokee. But when she applied for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation as an adult, she was denied.
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An Engineer Tries to Build His Way Out of Tragedy
The engineer James Sulzer spent years building robots to help people recover from brain injuries. But then a tragic family accident changed his work—and life—forever.
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One American Family’s Debt to Ukraine
The story of one Jewish American family debunks a myth that Putin tells about Ukraine.
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El Sueño de SPAM
Thirty years after the Hormel strike, a mysterious disease spreads among SPAMtown’s new workforce.
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Cram Your SPAM
How SPAM built a town—and tore it apart
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Uncle SPAM
In World War II, the American Dream was exported across the world, one SPAM can at a time.
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SPAM on the Range
The Experiment presents a new, three-part miniseries: SPAM: How the American Dream Got Canned. New weekly episodes start February 3.
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In Between Pro-life and Pro-choice
Rebecca Shrader had always thought of abortion as a black-and-white issue. But when she became pregnant, she started to see the gray.
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Protecting the Capitol One Year After January 6
Nearly one year after commanding the D.C. National Guard during the January 6 insurrection, Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker is helping ensure the Capitol will never be attacked again.
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Is There Justice in Felony Murder?
In April, The Experiment explored a legal principle that disproportionately puts youth of color and women behind bars. But is it the only way to hold police accountable when they kill?
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The Wandering Soul
On many nights during the Vietnam War, if you listened closely, you’d swear you could hear a ghost. Today, The Experiment explores the story of that ghost and how it still haunts us.
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How ‘Passing’ Upends a Problematic Hollywood History
Hollywood has a long, problematic history with movies about racial passing. But actor-writer-director Rebecca Hall is trying to tell a new kind of passing story.
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A Friend in the Execution Room
The Experiment revisits our March conversation with Yusuf Ahmed Nur, a Somali immigrant and business professor who volunteered to witness the U.S. government execute someone.
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What Does It Mean to Give Away Our DNA?
As excitement about genetic testing grows, one Navajo geneticist considers the future of the field and whether her people should be a part of it.
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Justice, Interrupted
The highest court in America isn’t safe from mansplaining. A new set of rules for oral argument may change things.
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Who Would Jesus Mock?
The Atlantic’s Emma Green sits down with the editor-in-chief of Christian satire site the Babylon Bee to talk about mockery and the line between making fun and doing harm.
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The True Cost of Prison Phone Calls
Phone-call fees from incarcerated people generate millions of dollars for states, but children pay the price.
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The Original Anti-Vaxxer
Where does bodily autonomy end and our duty to others begin? In March, The Experiment considered one answer, the story of a 1905 Supreme Court case about government-mandated vaccines.
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The Unwritten Rules of Black TV
The short, uneven history of Black representation on television—from Julia to The Cosby Show to today’s “renaissance.”
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What 9/11 Did to One Family
Grief, conspiracy theories, and a family’s search for meaning in the two decades since the attacks.
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A Uyghur Teen’s Life After Escaping Genocide
The Uyghur refugee Aséna Tahir Izgil escaped the genocide of her people in China. Now she’s trying to be a teenager in America.
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Can America See Gymnasts for More Than Their Medals?
USA Gymnastics has been undergoing a reckoning over widespread abuse. The Atlantic's Emma Green asks former gymnast Rachael Denhollander whether the sport can shake off that grim legacy.
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Why Can’t We Just Forget the Alamo?
The Texan writer Bryan Burrough set out to debunk the myth of the Alamo, only to find himself igniting a fierce ideological battle over the state's founding legend.
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The Myth of the ‘Student Athlete’
The NCAA was created to protect students, so why have some student athletes gone hungry while their schools have earned millions?
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The Hate-Crime Conundrum
After 50 years of hate-crime legislation in the U.S., hate-motivated violence is once again on the rise. So where did we go wrong?
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The Great Seed Panic of 2020
Last summer, home deliveries of unsolicited Chinese seeds sent Americans into a panic. Writer Chris Heath has discovered an explanation that many, including the USDA, don’t believe.
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America Has a Drinking Problem
Alcohol has been humanity’s social lubricant since 10,000 B.C., but its use as a coping mechanism is distinctly American.
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Dr. Ruth on Hot Vax Summer
After the pandemic, how do we learn to get close to one another again? We ask the renowned sex therapist Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer.
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Life, Liberty, and Drugs
The Columbia professor Carl Hart believes that we can use drugs safely, and that doing so is our American right.
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One Woman’s Quest for an Orgasm
On an intimate journey for her own sexual pleasure, Katharine Smyth found herself navigating a female-orgasm industrial complex long defined by myths about women’s bodies.
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How the Evangelical World Turned on Itself
Christian rapper Lecrae found his faith in a culture where evangelicalism and politics were tightly tied. When he couldn’t live with that anymore, the consequences were devastating.
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How The Evangelical Machine Got Made
White evangelicals have become the most powerful voting bloc in America, one church mailing list at a time. But is the cost of political victory too high?
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Here for the Right Reasons? Lessons From '90 Day Fiancé'
What does a guilty-pleasure reality show teach us about immigration and democracy in America?
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What Makes a Murderer?
A widely criticized legal principle disproportionately puts youth of color and women behind bars. But is it the only way to hold police accountable when they kill?
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The Problem With America’s National Parks
The story of our national parks, sometimes called “America’s best idea,” leaves out a very big group of people. The Ojibwe writer David Treuer is trying to change that.
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The ‘Rock Doc’ Who Prescribed 1.4 Million Pain Pills
Jeffrey Young’s patients say he helped them like nobody else could, but prosecutors indicted him following a huge painkiller bust. His case offers a unique look at the opioid crisis.
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The Crime of Refusing Vaccination
Where do our rights over our own bodies end and our duties to others begin? An answer lies in the story of a 1905 Supreme Court case about government-mandated vaccines.
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The Volunteer
Yusuf Ahmed Nur volunteered to counsel a man on death row. He never intended to witness the execution.
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Inventing ‘Hispanic’
How did a hugely diverse group of people in the United States get lumped together? The answer involves Chicanos, the census, and Celia Cruz.
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Lost Cause
What does it take to overcome one of the oldest disinformation campaigns in American history?
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The Sisterhood
Filipinos make up 4 percent of nurses in the U.S. Why do they account for a third of the nurses who have died from COVID-19 in America?
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The Case for Sweatpants
What a polarizing garment says about America
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56 Years
American democracy is younger, and more fragile, than we’ve been taught. One woman lived through the whole thing.
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The Loophole
Inside Yellowstone National Park, there’s a glitch in the U.S. Constitution.
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Que Viva la Pepa: Introducing The Experiment
Stories from an unfinished country. A new series from The Atlantic and WNYC Studios.
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About The Experiment
It's easy to forget that the United States started as an experiment: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with liberty and justice for all. That was the idea.
On this weekly show, we check in on how that experiment is going. We find answers in doctors' offices, courtrooms, churches, national parks, laboratories, and in cars in the middle of the night. These stories look at the powerful ideas that shaped the United States—and what happens when we try to bring those ideas down to earth.
The Experiment: A show about people navigating our country's contradictions, a co-production of The Atlantic and WNYC Studios, hosted by Julia Longoria. Weekly episodes beginning February 4.
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![]()
Host
Julia Longoria
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![]()
Associate Producer
Gabrielle Berbey
-
![]()
Vice President for Original Programming
Emily Botein
-
![]()
Sound Designer
David Herman
-
![]()
Correspondent
Tracie Hunte
-
![]()
Production Coordinator
Natalia Ramirez
-
![]()
Producer
Peter Bresnan
-
![]()
Intern
Alina Kulman
About The Experiment
It's easy to forget that the United States started as an experiment: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with liberty and justice for all. That was the idea.
On this weekly show, we check in on how that experiment is going. We find answers in doctors' offices, courtrooms, churches, national parks, laboratories, and in cars in the middle of the night. These stories look at the powerful ideas that shaped the United States—and what happens when we try to bring those ideas down to earth.
The Experiment: A show about people navigating our country's contradictions, a co-production of The Atlantic and WNYC Studios, hosted by Julia Longoria. Weekly episodes beginning February 4.
-
![]()
Host
Julia Longoria
-
![]()
Associate Producer
Gabrielle Berbey
-
![]()
Vice President for Original Programming
Emily Botein
-
![]()
Sound Designer
David Herman
-
![]()
Correspondent
Tracie Hunte
-
![]()
Production Coordinator
Natalia Ramirez
-
![]()
Producer
Peter Bresnan
-
![]()
Intern
Alina Kulman