City Arts & Lectures

Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from the previous three years discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Crosstalk is produced by Juliet Gelfman...

Our guests are a chef and a scientist who are tackling climate change through creating sustainable food.  Pat Brown is a biochemist and founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming. Traci Des Jardins is the chef-owner of several restaurants, from fine di...

Our guest is chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi, whose best-selling cookbooks have earned him a cult following among home chefs around the world.  Born in Israel, Ottolenghi now lives in London where he operates six restaurants and delis.  On October 15, 2020, Ottolenghi spoke to Isabel Duffy from his test kitchen in London.  The two discussed his latest book, “Ottolenghi Flavor”, which includes mor...

This week, we’re broadcasting a conversation with Alicia Garza and Megan Rapinoe, recorded four days before the presidential election.  Alicia Garza is an activist and writer.  In 2013, she posted a Facebook response to the murder of Trayvon Martin in which she used the hashtag “Black Lives Matter”, and it sparked a major social movement.  Garza has now written a book, “The Purpose of Power: How W...

This week, a conversation with Bruce Springsteen, originally recorded in 2016. The legendary rock star, referred to by his countless fans as “The Boss”, had just published his autobiography, Born to Run. It took Springsteen seven years to write the memoir, covering everything from his childhood and early days performing to his fear of failure and his ambivalence about success. Bruce Springsteen ca...

This week, disability activist Alice Wong talks with comedian and journalist W. Kamau Bell. Wong is founding director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating and amplifying disability media and culture.  She has edited an anthology of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers to mark the 35th anniversary of the ADA, “Disability Visibility: First-Perso...

Chanel Miller was just twenty-seven years old when she published her memoir, Know My Name, the book recounts her experience as the victim of sexual assault. It’s a keen examination of gender, power, and the failures of our criminal justice system. It’s also exquisitely written. Among the book’s many fans is her interviewer for this program, Jia Tolentino, a contributor at the New Yorker and the au...

This week, a conversation with poet and essayist Claudia Rankine. Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric and four previous books, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. Her newest book, Just Us: an American Conversation, weaves together essays, poems, and images. Some of its most memorable scenes are those where Rankine examines the moments of discomfort between herself and those around he...

This week, a conversation with novelist Yaa Gyasi.  Gyasi was just 26 years old when her debut, Homegoing, was published.  It spans eight generations, tracing the lives of two half-sisters and their descendants from eighteenth-century Ghana to present-day America.  The book garnered major critical acclaim and praise from fellow authors like Zadie Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Four years later, Gyas...

Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard University and also a staff writer at The New Yorker. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, her many books include the international bestseller These Truths and This America. Her latest book, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, is a revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first...

This week, we present an encore of a 2014 conversation on the neuroscience of music and creativity with Dr. Indre Viskontas, a cognitive scientist and opera singer. Viskontas has published groundbreaking work on the neural basis of memory and creativity. She is the author of "How Music Can Make You Better" and co-host of the podcasts "Inquiring Minds" and "Cadence". Viskontas came to the Sydney Go...

From the City Arts & Lectures archives, a conversation with Trevor Noah originally recorded November 21, 2016…. just following Donald Trump’s election. Noah is the host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” He first joined the show as a contributor in 2014 and succeeded Jon Stewart as host in 2015.   Trevor Noah spoke in 2016 with Laurene Powell Jobs, the founder and president of Emerson Colle...

From the City Arts & Lectures archives, a conversation with Whoopi Goldberg, originally recorded in 1987, just after Goldberg’s explosive performance in the film adaptation of The Color Purple. Even before Goldberg achieved celebrity status and critical acclaim, she never shied away from voicing her incisive and irreverent perspectives on race, sexism, the film industry, and American politics....

Our guests this week is Jeffrey Toobin, whose latest book is “True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump”.  How is it that so many close associates of President Trump have been convicted of federal crimes – some, like his campaign chair and personal lawyer, even going to jail – yet Trump himself has survived to run for reelection.  Toobin is a staff writer for the New Yorker,...

For 30 years, renowned Buddhist thinker Jarvis Jay Masters has lived on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison. His spiritual practice has helped him deal with violent and difficult experiences in prison, inspiring Masters to teach meditation to many of his fellow inmates. In his new book, The Buddhist on Death Row,  David Sheff explores Masters’ gradual transformation from a man consumed by violen...

Maria Bamford uses comedy to confront her lifelong struggles with OCD, bipolar disorder, and suicidal thoughts. She is the star of “Lady Dynamite”, a surrealist series based on her life, as well as several comedy specials. Bamford’s deeply personal comedy goes well beyond self-deprecation, using genuine vulnerability to examine mental health issues rarely discussed. On November 15, 1999, Maria Bam...

Steve Kerr, head coach for the Golden State Warriors, is one of the most important figures in basketball today. A former NBA championship player, Kerr was named head coach of the Warriors in 2014, leading the team to win three championships in four seasons and set a new record for most wins in a season. Kerr is also an activist, who uses his platform to talk about politics and human rights issues...

One of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time, Charlie Kaufman is best known for movies like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His unique style, sometimes labeled surrealist, features characters that reflect back on themselves, stories within stories that blur the boundaries between dream and event. Now, with his debut novel “Antkind”, Kaufman continues to explore...

How might substances like LSD, psilocybins, and other hallucinogens provide relief to people suffering from conditions such as depression, addiction, and anorexia?  Robin Carhart-Harris is a neuroscientist and head of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research, which builds on over a decade of pioneering work including a clinical trial that has kickstarted global efforts to develop psilocybin th...

Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to  The New Yorker , covering Silicon Valley, startup culture, and technology. In her mid-twenties,as the tech industry was rapidly transforming into a locus of wealth andpower, Wiener left a job in book publishing to join the startup workforce. Part memoir, part cultural analysis, her book Uncanny Valley , reflects on the absurdities, excesses, and aspirations...

Brian Greene is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, widely recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of superstring theory. His ability to clearly communicate cutting-edge science - even bringing humor to abstruse mathematical concepts -- has made Greene a sort of rock star physicist. On February 25, 2020, Brian Greene came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Fra...

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic.  Abdurraqib’s writing fuses cultural commentary with intimate poetic language.  His subjects – everything from A Tribe Called Quest to his own childhood in Columbus, Ohio, Bruce Springsteen to Muhammad Ali.  Abdurraqib’s latest collection is “A Fortune for Your Disaster”, which wrestles with histories both personal and shared, the process...

Ruha Benjamin studies the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine.  In books like “Race After Technology”, and “People’s Science”, Benjamin examines how racial inequality plays out in every corner of civic, scientific, and social life.  Meredith Whittaker co-founded the AI Now Institute, a research center examining the social implications of artificial intelligence in criminal justi...

This week, a conversation between two of today’s most fearless writers, addressing topics of addiction, spirituality, and existence. Mary Karr is the author of "Lit" and "The Liars Club" -- memoirs that have come to define the genre as we know it today. Her poems bear the same markers of intelligent observation, humor, and visceral emotion. Kaveh Akbar is a major voice in contemporary poetry and a...

This week, we present a conversation between two of today’s most incisive thinkers and creators. Rebecca Solnit is a writer, activist and public intellectual. Her broad curiosity has fueled over twenty books on topics ranging from the environment to feminism, literary criticism to social change. Brit Marling is best known as the star and creator of the television series, “The OA”. It’s just one am...