Anthropology and Sociology

As he tries his hand at baking, brewing and braising, acclaimed food writer Michael Pollan explores how cooking transforms food and shapes our world. In the first espisode, with help from Aboriginal hunters and a barbecue pit master, Pollan shows how fire shaped human gastronomy, and weighs our duty to the animals we eat.

Michael Pollan looks to the kitchens of India for a lesson in the value of pot cooking and examines the consequences of eating highly processed food.

Of the four elements, air is the most elusive because we can't see it. There's something very magical about it. One of the ways we transform food is by getting air into it. Think of the soufflé, think of the loaf of bread. These things are elevated by the fact that they now contain air. They're ethereal. Visit food labs and Moroccan fields as Michael Pollan delves into the science of bread-making and the nature of gluten.

All cooking is transformation, and in that sense, it's miraculous, it's alchemy. But of all the different transformations we call cooking, fermentation is the most miraculous and the most mysterious. And that's because it doesn't involve any applied heat at all. Discover how microbes help turn raw ingredients into delicacies like chocolate and cheese as Pollan tackles the mysterious process of fermentation.

American exchange student Amanda Knox is convicted and eventually acquitted for the 2007 death of another student in Italy. Was she a cold-blooded psychopath who brutally murdered her roommate or a naive student abroad trapped in an endless nightmare? Directors Rod Blackhurst (Tribeca Audience Award-winner Here Alone) and Brian McGinn (IDA Award-winner Chef's Table) and producer Mette Heide (Peabody Award-winner India's Daughter) explore the notorious case that made headlines around the world.

Lurking in the shadows of the Internet, a faceless modern-day bogeyman has attracted the attention and fear of a young generation who whisper his name online. Slenderman lives on the dark pages of the web, where impressionable youth create and cultivate his mythos in message boards, YouTube clips and various other digital incantations. But the online fairy tale becomes a shocking real-life horror as two 12-year-old girls, guided by their devotion to Slenderman, lure their friend into the woods to attempt a seemingly inexplicable, brutal murder. From the depths of one the Internet's most unsettling creations to the court case that must consider the consequences, Beware the Slenderman brings to light questions of accountability in an age where young, growing minds are only a few clicks away from creating and consuming something that may influence them to commit unspeakable crimes.