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Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 26 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below: You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes by clicking here.

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In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss Barack Obama's inauguration, Hua Hsu's Atlantic Monthly piece on the end of white demographic dominance, Daniel Bergner's New York Times Magazine piece on the vexing question of female desire, and the death of author John Updike.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

The Obama inauguration page on Hulu.
Jon Stewart not quite taking down Beyoncé and the Obamas on The Daily Show.
Hua Hsu's Atlantic  article "The End of White America?"
Daniel Bergner's New York Times Magazine cover story "What Do Women Want?"
Troy Patterson's Slate piece on the best of Updike, the worst of Updike, and how they're related.
"The Full Glass," John Updike's final story, published in The New Yorker in May 2008.
An October 2008 conversation between Updike and New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus.
Poetry, letters, and art criticism by Updike, published in the New York Review of Books.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Julia's pick: "The Itch," Atul Gawande's article about how scientists are mapping the brain-body connection in The New Yorker.
Dana's pick: Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock.
Stephen's pick: V.S. Naipaul's travel essay "The Return of Eva Peron," from the book of the same name.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on Jan. 28 by Jacob Ganz at 11:13 a.m.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 25 with Julia Turner, Dana Stevens, and John Swansburg by clicking the arrow on the audio player below: