City Arts & Lectures

Siddhartha Mukherjee  is the author of  The Gene: An Intimate History,   The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer , and  The Laws of Medicine . Told in six parts and laced with his own experience as a researcher, doctor, and a prolific reader, Mukherjee’s new book  The Song of the Cell , tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that...

Actor Laura Dern has been captivating audiences since her breakout role in Blue Velvet in 1986. Since then, she’s appeared in dozens of films including  Jurassic Park ,  Wild At Heart, Rambling Rose, The Last Jedi, Little Women, and Marriage Story, for which she won an Academy Award. Her television appearances include Enlightened, Twin Peaks: The Return and Big Little Lies . Her new book,  Honey,...

This week, a conversation with theoretical physicist and futurist Dr Michio Kaku. Kaku is a co-founder of string field theory and he's one of today's most recognizable scientists appearing regularly on news programs, documentary films and as host of two weekly radio programs, Exploration and Science Fantastic. In his latest book, Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change E...

Richard Mosse is a photographer and filmmaker who’s documenting some of the world’s most significant environmental and humanitarian crises – and his work lies at the intersection between journalism and conceptual art. For his recent projects, Mosse used military-grade cameras to create detailed images from miles away. It’s a way to humanize his subjects and give new perspective on urgent issues. H...

The definitive account of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the tragic legacy of Timothy McVeigh, leading to the January 6 insurrection, comes from jourrnalist Jeffrey Toobin  (The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court,The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson).  In  Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right Wing Extremism , Toobin has combed nearly a million previously...

Poets Clint Smith  and Terisa Siagatonu address issues like climate change, while also looking back at American history. Clint Smith is the author of the best-selling narrative nonfiction book,  How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America  and the poetry collection  Counting Descent . His latest,  Above Ground , traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood,...

What is “cheating” in the era of generative AI and cognitive enhancers? What rights do we have against institutional misuse of AI and nanotechnology? These technologies have permeated everything from criminal justice to the future of work – and without proper safeguards, they have the power to wreak havoc on our fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of thought, and self-determination. Forme...

Laurel Braitman  is the Director of Writing and Storytelling at The Medicine and the Muse Program at Stanford School of Medicine.  There, she helps clinical students, staff, and physicians communicate more clearly and vulnerably – for their own benefit as well as that of their patients. Braitman is also the founder of “Writing Medicine”, a global community of health care professionals. Her new mem...

Atul Gawande is a surgeon and author who’s well-known for his clear and eloquent writing on medicine. He was a staff writer for “The New Yorker” magazine from 1998 until 2022, when President Biden appointed him to lead global health at the ​​US Agency for International Development. Gawande is the author of four best-selling books including “The Checklist Manifesto,” and most recently, “Being Morta...

This week, our guest is Jennifer Egan , who writes with nuance on an astounding range of subjects and disciplines. Her novels include  The Invisible Circus, Look at Me,  and  Manhattan Beach , That intellectual breadth also shows up in her journalism, featured in  The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine,  and elsewhere. Her most recent novel,  The Candy House,  is a sort of...

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His many acclaimed titles include How to Change Your Mind , The Omnivore’s Dilemma , and The Botany of Desire . In his recent essay collection, This is Your Mind on Plants , Pollan takes a deep dive...

Tsitsi Dangarembga is a novelist, playwright, activist, and filmmaker. She is the author of the  Tambudzai Trilogy , which traces the life of a rural girl from her childhood in colonial Zimbabwe to her adulthood in a country repressed by political elites. The first novel in the series,  Nervous Conditions , was “hailed as one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature”.  On...

This week, we’ll dive into the curious world of criminals and crooks with journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at  The New Yorker  magazine and author of the bestsellers  Empire of Pain: The Secret of the Sackler Dynasty  and  Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland .  Keefe is also the writer and host of  Wind of Change,  an 8-part podcast which investigates...

This week, our guest is poet Natalie Diaz in conversation with essayist and author Hilton Als.  Natalie Diaz is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community and is the director of the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program, where she works with the last remaining speakers of the Mojave language. Language and loss are explored throughout Diaz’s poetry, in collections including When My Broth...

In a cultural landscape filled with endless pundits and talking heads, Fran Lebowitz stands out as one of our most insightful social commentators. Her essays and interviews offer her acerbic views on current events and the media – as well as pet peeves including tourists, baggage-claim areas, after-shave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. All o...

This week, we have two in-studio conversations. First, Jeremy A. Greene, a doctor and professor at Johns Hopkins University, talks with Hannah Zeavin about his book “The Doctor Who Wasn’t There”. It traces the history and pitfalls of technology in health and medicine – specifically electronic media.  That includes electronic health care records, which can make medical care more efficient and less...

Songwriter, performer, and multi-instrumentalist Thao Nguyen is celebrated for her richly percussive music and her fiercely delivered vocals. She has released five albums with the band Thao & The Get Down Stay Down including the most recent, Temple, a powerful exploration of Nguyen’s identity as a queer person and the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Her collaborations with Joanna Newsom, Andr...

This week – Jeff Chang talks to Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of today’s foremost investigative journalists.  Her reporting on civil rights and racial justice, including school segregation, has earned her numerous awards, chief among them a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the 1619 Project.  It’s an ongoing initiative from the New York Times that reframes the way we understand America’s history by examin...

This week, a conversation with two brothers, both distinguished members of the federal judiciary, Justice Stephen Breyer  and his brother,  Judge Charles Breyer. Stephen Breyer retired in summer 2022 after nearly 28 years as a member of the Supreme Court. Prior to that, he served nearly 14 years as a Court of Appeals Judge. He is especially appreciated for his pragmatism, issuing decisions most of...

Rachel Kushner is the author of novels  The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers , and  Telex from Cuba , as well as a book of short stories,  The Strange Case of Rachel K . Her career-spanning book of essays  The Hard Crowd , solidified her place of authority amongst today’s writers, covering everything from a Palestinian refugee camp to her young life in the San Francisco music scene. Kushner has won th...

This week, our guest is Richard Powers. He’s the author of thirteen novels on everything from neuroscience, to artificial intelligence to the environment. His book, “The Overstory” earned him a Pulitzer prize in fiction. The Financial Times called it “A Great American Eco-Novel.” His latest book is called “Bewilderment”, and it also deals with environmental catastrophe. It’s the story of a widowed...

Our guest is Jeremy Denk, one of America’s foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has recently appeared with ensembles including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to phenomenal technique, Den...

Kim Stanley Robinson  is widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction. In  The Ministry for the Future,  Robinson imagines a near-future where climate change has wreaked havoc, from severe heat waves, to flooding, limited resources, and a global refugee crisis. It’s a terrifying set of circumstances, but it’s not without hope —Robinson brings to life a possible path f...

Patti Smith  is a writer, performer, and visual artist who gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released numerous albums and books including her seminal record  Horses,  hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time;  Just Kids,  a beautifully crafted love letter to her lifelong friend, the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; and  M Train,...

 Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich  is a popular professor at UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and the author of eighteen books, including the bestsellers  The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It ,  The Common Good ,  Saving Capitalism ,  Aftershock ,  Supercapitalism , and The Work of Nations , which has been translated into twenty-two languages. He is co-creator of the 2017 Net...