Everything is connected. Everyone is connected. What, then, do we mean by “humanity” and, more specifically, “the humanities”? What are the humanities, anyway? And what are they for? Why might we need them today in an especially acute and practical way? Who thinks like this, and why? These are some of the questions we seek to explore through “Connections: Humanizing the Humanities” — a podcast produced by the Rice University School of Humanities and hosted by Jeffrey J. Kripal, the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought, Associate Dean of Faculty and Graduate Studies, and author of “The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge.”