At a Distance

Historian and speechwriter Jeff Shesol, author of the new book “Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War,” speaks with us about how the space race of the 1950s and ’60s differs from the space flights of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson happening today, the unresolved questions that fuel power struggles in America, and why the pandemic and the climate crisis...

Artist Mary Mattingly talks with us about how “Public Water,” her current installation in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, exposes the various forms of the water crisis; the social, political, and economic mechanisms affecting clean water access; and the truths that tracing the origins of an object or a material can reveal.

Forest ecologist Dr. Suzanne Simard, author of the new book “Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest,” discusses the consciousness of trees; how slow, selective logging can rejuvenate forests; and why being attuned to local ecosystems can lead to a better understanding of global biological communities.

Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the new novel “The Committed,” speaks with us about how the term “the American dream” masks the nation’s colonial history, the importance of distinguishing between identity and ideology, and why the only new aspect of the recent violence and racist rhetoric directed toward Asian Americans is that it’s triggered by Covid-19.

Swiss auctioneer, art dealer, curator, and collector Simon de Pury talks with us about how the pandemic shifted the art market toward increased inclusivity and equality, the NFT phenomenon, and why technology such as blockchain and digital renderings can benefit physical artworks and the institutions that house them.

Peter Adamson, host of the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast and professor of late ancient philosophy and Arabic philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, discusses stoicism, the dangers of rationalism, and the importance of understanding when to think for ourselves and when to seek expertise.

Neurobiologist, author, and professor Stefano Mancuso, director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology in Florence, Italy, talks with us about embracing plants as a path toward planetary survival, humans as an invasive species, and why all living organisms deserve rights.

Lili Chopra, the executive director of artistic programs at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, talks with us about the 2021 River to River Festival, the importance of integrating the creative community within a city’s urban fabric, and the role that the arts can play in rebuilding societies and envisioning the future.

Kathryn Garcia, New York City’s former sanitation commissioner and a Democrat currently running in the city’s 2021 mayoral race, discusses innovating by leveraging relationships of trust, holistic thinking as a tool to evolve municipal programs, and her plan to create “the most climate-forward city on earth.”

Nevine Michaan, founder and creator of the Katonah Yoga Center in New York, speaks with us about honing a craft to save one’s soul, the difference between self-care and healing, and how metaphors can provide a means for mutual understanding.

Austrian-born, New York–based graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister talks with us about the media’s proclivity for negative news, why progress often stems from complexity, and how recognizing humanity’s historical long-term successes can help encourage a more rationally optimistic perspective.

Policy expert and equity advocate Ifeoma Ozoma, founder of the Santa Fe–based consulting firm Earthseed, discusses how companies use nondisclosure agreements as a means of ensuring indefinite constraint on their employees, the effects that the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements have had on the ways in which NDAs serve as corporate cover for illegal behavior, and why holding executives liable...

Writer and producer Katie Engelhart, author of the new book “The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die,” speaks with us about the underground euthanasia movement, the differing perspectives on assisted suicide in countries around the world, and the problems with the media’s portrayal of the elderly.

Austin Whitman, founder and CEO of the climate certification nonprofit Climate Neutral, talks with us about the economic benefits of helping brands reduce their environmental impacts, the difference between facts and strategy, and the importance of holding companies of all sizes accountable for offsetting and reducing their carbon emissions.

Doug Bierend, author of the new book “In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms,” discusses using fungi to clean up pollutants, how mycology can guide conversations around the climate crisis, and mushrooms as a gateway to new ways of thinking about food, nature, and society.

Kim Hastreiter, co-founder of Paper magazine and creator of the pop-up “public service” newspaper The New Now, speaks with us about her friends’ pandemic-induced workarounds, the importance of documenting history, and why New York City may be on the verge of a creative explosion.

Danny Dorling, author of the book “Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration—and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives” and the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, talks with us about geography as a means to understand culture; how and why, despite our sped-up modern lives, the world has been in a global slowdown since the late 1960s; and the...

London-based artist, author, and master potter Edmund de Waal, whose work is currently on view at the British Museum and Gagosian’s galleries in London and Hong Kong, discusses the psychological value of human touch, the intimate relationship between pottery and poetry, and the importance of kindness as a societal response to the pandemic.

Boston city councilor at-large Michelle Wu, a progressive Democrat currently running in the 2021 Boston mayoral race, speaks with us about transitioning cities to a “community-based” leadership model, why governing bodies need to reflect the people they serve, and the role that local administrations can play in the global climate-justice conversation.

Melissa Harris-Perry, the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University and co-host of The Nation’s new System Check podcast, talks with us about the camera’s monopoly on shaping public conversation, having the courage to be wrong, and why personal experience is an apt way to develop hypotheses, but the wrong way to test them.

Dominican artist, curator, and activist Lizania Cruz, whose latest project, “Obituaries of the American Dream,” was commissioned by El Museo del Barrio for “Estamos Bien: La Trienal 20/21,” discusses the difference between integration and assimilation, storytelling as a means for understanding, and why traveling between states in the U.S. should be considered migration in the context of the climat...

Turkish-born, Copenhagen-based activist and former politician Özlem Cekic, author of the new book “Overcoming Hate Through Dialogue: Confronting Prejudice, Racism, and Bigotry with Conversation―and Coffee,” speaks with us about friendship as a vaccination against prejudice, the importance of remembering that people are more than their opinions, and why being on the receiving end of hateful languag...

Scott Smith, founder and managing partner of the Netherlands-based futures consultancy Changeist and author of the new book “How to Future: Leading and Sense-Making in an Age of Hyperchange,” talks with us about why President Trump is a covert futurist, the problems with taking a passive approach toward tomorrow, and why the next generation of leaders will be people who use pragmatic, real-life ex...

Environmental journalist Amy Westervelt, founder of the Critical Frequency podcast network and co-host of the Hot Take podcast, discusses what President-elect Joe Biden should prioritize when addressing the climate crisis, why forgiveness doesn’t entail giving up on justice, and how President Trump, his family and associates, and the mass media—including The New York Times and The Washington Post—...

Economist Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a professor of international affairs at the New School and recipient of a 2019 Grawemeyer Award for her co-authorship of the book “Fulfilling Social and Economic Rights,” speaks with us about the danger of vaccine nationalism, the challenges with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, and why having access to life-saving medication is a human right.