What's this notion called the sublime? What does it mean to have a sublime response to something, and why has interest in the sublime waxed and waned? According to Iain Boyd Whyte, the sublime can be discussed in connection with natural phenomena, artistic production, and even political ideology and propaganda.

Under capitalism objects are created, bought, and sold as myriad commodities. But if we were to think about life after capitalism, what might our relationship to things be? Art historian Christina Kiaer discusses the innovations of Russian Constructivist artists in the early years of the Soviet Union and their attempts to reconfigure art, everyday objects, and human desire in a new society.

What happens to people in suburbs and exurbs? What kind of political community is produced there? And what role do, and can, pictures and images play in situating humans as isolated and aloof, or communal and democratic? David Joselit shares his perspective on these and other issues. (Encore broadcast.)

What are you looking at? The Spanish artist Juan Munoz called that his first artistic question. Art critic Michael Brenson has been thinking about that question for a decade; it's changed the way he encounters art. According to Brenson, that question leads to many others, all of which can enhance how we go about engaging with, and learning from, works of art.

Why is the San Francisco Bay Area such a hotbed of radical poster making? And why, nonetheless, do outspoken and brilliant artists of the left like Doug Minkler encounter censorship in various guises here? The radical printmaker has been both celebrated and gagged. One of his posters may have even inspired someone to burn down an army recruitment center in the 1970s. He discusses the politics of art.

A number of installations at an exhibition of Renée Green's art address topics like the recovery of unfashionable ideas, the importance of specialized investigation, the relevance of music to political activism, and the search for a meaningful existence.