City Arts & Lectures

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...

Dr. Jessica B. Harris is the preeminent authority on the culinary culture of the African Diaspora.  Harris has spent over three decades studying African food and its migration.  To understand the rich and complex flavors of African American cuisine requires looking at the culinary cultures of the African continent and the slave trade that brought Africans to America. Harris is the author of twelve...

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...

Jemele Hill  is the Emmy Award–winning former cohost of ESPN’s  SportsCenter  and 2018 NABJ Journalist of the Year. Hill is a contributing writer for the  Atlantic , where she covers the intersection of sports, race, politics, and culture. She is also the producer of a Disney/ESPN documentary with Colin Kaepernick. She grew up in Detroit, graduated from Michigan State University, and now lives in...

Anand Giridharadas is the author of the international bestseller  Winners Take All, The True American,  and  India Calling.  His new book  The Persuaders  offers an insider account of activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy–from disinformation fighters to a leader of Black Lives Matter to Bernie Sanders and Alexand...

Actor and activist Jane Fonda has redefined herself again and again.  Born into Hollywood royalty, she’s been an acclaimed actor, an anti-war activist, a fitness guru, and in her seventies and eighties, a comedic partner to actor Lily Tomlin in the Netflix series “Frankie and Grace”.  Now, at 84, she says she’s never been happier, and we’ll hear why.  In early 2022, she founded the Jane Fonda Clim...

As new information emerges about the impacts of social media and screens on young people, so do new strategies to guide and protect teens. Our guests, Harvard University researchers Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, set out to try and understand more about this complex and complicated issue. Their years of research included interviews with over 3500 teens. And much of what they found - from the te...

This week, a conversation with artist George McCalman. His new book, “An Illustrated Black History”, features 145 Black artists, scientists, and public intellectuals whose enormous contributions to US history are in stark contrast with their frequent absence from the public eye. McCalman envisioned the book as a sort of bible - a compendium that’s accessible to all ages, and with vibrant art that...

A native of Oakland, California,  Leila Mottley  uses her writing as a tool to call for social justice reform and advocate for victims of sexual violence. Her acclaimed poetry has appeared in  Oprah Daily  and  The New York Times , and her incandescent debut novel  Nightcrawling  was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her 2022 Book Club, making Mottley - who is 20 - the club’s youngest author ever. Ins...

For the millions of Americans asking “What can I do?” to dismantle white supremacy comes an answer:  Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book.  The revolutionary antiracism workbook by  W. Kamau Bell  and  Kate Schatz  addresses institutional racism in the United States, giving readers a hands-on understanding of systemic racism, white privilege, and Black disenfranchisement–and what to do about i...

Andrew Sean Greer’s novels include T he Story of a Marriage , The Confessions of Max Tivoli, and a satire of the literary world, Less  - which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018.  Now, he’s out with the followup,  Less is Lost , which catches up with the lovable Arthur Less as he and his pug travel across the country in a rusty camper van on a literary tour. Greer is the winner of t...