Feminism, Women’s Stories: The Creative Process: Empowering Stories, Inspiring Women, Gender Equality, Women's Rights & Empowerment

What can turtles teach us about time, patience, and wisdom? What can we learn about the mysteries of consciousness by observing animals? How can we open our senses and embrace the interconnectedness of all life on Earth? Author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson are naturalists, adventurers, and creative collaborators. Montgomery has published over thirty acclaimed nonfiction books for a...

"The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about  knowing  the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together...

How can we create positive change? What does it mean to have an ecological mind? How can interdisciplinary collaborations help us move beyond educational silos and create sustainable futures? Paola Spinozzi is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ferrara and currently serves as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation. She is the coordinator of the PhD Programme in Environmenta...

How would the life of Jesus be told through the eyes of his mother? How can literature help us understand history and the nature of identity? Maciej Hen was born in 1955 in Warsaw. He graduated from the Cinematography Department at the Film School in Łódź. For years he has been trying his hand at diverse activities, from music to all fields of journalism and television lighting design. As a p...

"I was so excited to be offered that role in  Little Bird.  They sent me the scripts, and I read them, and I wept so much just reading those scripts because the story is so profoundly sad. And I was really very honored to be playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor caught up in a very difficult story. I was also honored to be on set. And a good part of the time that I was there, we were on In...

How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world? From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits includ...

"So this idea that we can present ourselves as works of art, that we can create ourselves has always had a particular sort of aristocratic coding, historically associated with monarchs, who create their public image and their public persona, including through fashion. Today, if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand, will we find the right partner? Get into the right college? Even secu...

What are we willing to give up to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging? What happens if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand on social media? Will we find the right partner? Will we get into the right college? Or find the best job? Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfic...

How can we reimagine a world with plastic? How can we push governments and companies to admit what they know about the health impacts of plastics and change public policy? Kathleen Rogers is the President of EARTHDAY.ORG. Under her leadership, it has grown into a global year-round policy and activist organization with an international staff. She has been at the vanguard of developing campaigns and...

Microplastics and nanoplastic pollution are currently blanketing the planet. They are in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink, infiltrating our bodies and even brains and human embryos. Coca-Cola alone sells 100 billion+ single-use plastic bottles each year, ending up in landfills and the ocean. Earth’s population will reach 9.8 billion people by 2050. Two-thirds of humans w...

“I grew up in Virginia in the United States, and I faced a lot of racism in school and bullying when I grew up. And that experience put me on the path of recognizing what's wrong with other isms, not just racism, you know, sexism... Unfortunately, all women have experienced some form of sexism in their lives at some point. Also speciesism. All of these types of isms have the common theme of o...

How can we improve animal-human relationships? How can we increase our sensitivity to the other animals who share this planet with us? Poorva Joshipura is PETA U.K. Senior Vice President. She is the Author of Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals is Key to Human Existence and For a Moment of Taste: How What You Eat Impacts Animals, the Planet and Your Health. “I grew up in Virginia in th...

“I think it's kind of important to think about the fact that originally, neural networks were inspired by neurons, really by our brains, but fundamentally, brains are really different than AI models, currently. Brains are quite efficient. For example, we won't be using all of our neurons all the time. If we're recognizing a face, or if we're speaking, or if we're drawing, or if we're watching a mo...

What are the pros and cons of AI’s integration into our institutions, political systems, culture, and society? How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? Dr. Sasha Luccioni is a leading scientist at the nexus of artificial intelligence, ethics, and sustainability, with a Ph. D. in AI and a decade of research and industry expertise. She spearheads research, co...

“I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but yo...

How does the place we’re born influence our beliefs? What would it be like to live in a world run by women, where it’s perpetually night, and the dead can speak to the living? In this episode, we discuss the new season of HBO’s True Detective: Night Country with award-winning cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister. Known for his work on Tár, Pachinko, Great Expectations , and most recently, the new s...

Author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age Professor of Political Science at University of British Columbia One of the things that we need to remember is that we are data stakeholders and not data subjects. We're often called data subjects if you look at the way legislation is written and tech companies talk about the users of their technology as data subjects. Being a subject casts t...

Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold? Wendy H. Wong is Professor of Political Science and Principal's Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She is the author of two award-winning books: Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights and (with Sarah S. Stroup) The Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of Interna...

How do some people face incredible tragedies and find within these experiences inspiration to improve the lives of others? Our guest today lost her grandfather, who was the assassinated Prime Minister of the Buganda Kingdom, and her father, who was disappeared by Idi Amin, and yet she went on to become a leading conservationist. Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is Uganda's first full-time wildlife veter...

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with legendary climate activist Bill McKibben and scholar Caroline Levine. McKibben relates his long struggle to get companies to divest from fossil fuels and for the world in general to act immediately to seriously and substantially address this existential crisis. Levine tells of her efforts to get the giant...

A recent UN report shows that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide. They say that women in executive government positions and gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years. How can we close the gender gap and achieve true representation? With a distinguished career in public service, Mary Hayashi has spearheaded substan...

"So when I say that I am a conscious creature, I mean that I don't only analyze information about the world, or not only even respond to the world because you can think about, your thermostat response to the world, but when I sense the world, I don't only process information. I also have a qualitative experience, adopting Thomas Nagel's famous title of his paper. It feels like something in his cas...

How we think, feel, and experience the world is a mystery. What distinguishes our consciousness from AI and machine learning? Liad Mudrik studies high level cognition and its neural substrates, focusing on conscious experience. She teaches at the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University. At her research lab, her team is currently investigating the functionality of consciousness, try...

"Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and thos...

Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term “Intersectional Environmentalism.” She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her ar...