Is your 401(k) plan a personal, individual matter, or is it in fact deeply political, rooted in ideological choices contrary to values of community and solidarity? James Russell talks about the politics of retirement savings and about the rise of what he calls a retirement-industrial complex. Also, Muriel Maffre discusses Igor Stravinsky's antiwar Faustian fable The Soldier's Tale.

August Wilson wrote a 10-play, decade-by-decade exploration of the African American experience in the 20th century -- so did that make the eminent playwright an historian as well? Sandra Shannon describes how Wilson drew inspiration from the Black Arts movement, the blues, and everyday Black experience. And Kent Gash directs a new production of Seven Guitars, which Wilson set in Pittsburgh in 1948.

Why is Franz Kafka's fiction like no one else's? What accounts for what's been called the startling, mysterious, even galvanizing force of Kafka's texts? And if his novella The Metamorphosis is not about a giant cockroach who used to be Gregor Samsa, then what's the real story? Jeff Fort has studied and written about Kafka for years; Mark Jackson directs a current stage adaptation of Kafka's novella.

Michael Paller discusses Jean-Paul Sartre's activities during World War II, which included writing the play No Exit, an expression of Sartre's existentialist philosophy. Tom Ross talks about the Tennessee Williams play The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. And Robert Bray comments on Williams's political views and the playwright's coming-out on national television in 1970.

In this second installment of Ron Hassner's talk, the U.C. Berkeley political scientist addresses, among other things, the notion that religion has motivated most of the wars, or at least the bloodiest ones, throughout history. Also included is more from an interview with the politically inquisitive Lisa Kron.

Ron Hassner confronts the argument that religions are naturally conducive to peace. He emphasizes, among other things, the ambiguous and contradictory nature of religious texts and passages. Also, a new play by Lisa Kron points out blind spots in the political consciousness of many middle-class liberals.