Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest with DR. SUZANNE SIMARD - Highlights

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest with DR. SUZANNE SIMARD - Highlights

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Professor of Forest Ecology
Author of Finding the Mother Tree

Think of yourself as a tree. You’ve got neighbours that you live beside for hundreds if not thousands of years, and none of you can move around, so you just have to communicate in other ways. And so trees have evolved to have these ways of communicating with each other, and they’re sophisticated, they’re nuanced. They include things like transmitting information through these root networks that link them together. They transmit information to each other through the air, so they perceive each other, they communicate and then they respond to each other. And that language is complex.

DR. SUZANNE SIMARD - Professor of Forest Ecology & Author of Finding the Mother Tree

DR. SUZANNE SIMARD - Professor of Forest Ecology & Author of Finding the Mother Tree

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Professor of Forest Ecology
Author of Finding the Mother Tree

Think of yourself as a tree. You’ve got neighbours that you live beside for hundreds if not thousands of years, and none of you can move around, so you just have to communicate in other ways. And so trees have evolved to have these ways of communicating with each other, and they’re sophisticated, they’re nuanced. They include things like transmitting information through these root networks that link them together. They transmit information to each other through the air, so they perceive each other, they communicate and then they respond to each other. And that language is complex.

PETER SINGER - Philosopher, Author of Animal Liberation - The Life You Can Save - Highlights

PETER SINGER - Philosopher, Author of Animal Liberation - The Life You Can Save - Highlights

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Most Influential Living Philosopher
Author · Founder of The Life You Can Save

I would like young people to recognise that they are part of a long tradition that has been trying to the make the world a better place. A tradition that goes back as far as we have recorded history, that there are people who tried to–like Socrates, but also like Buddha and many other figures in different cultures–think more about how we ought to live in accordance with their thinking. Tried to do good in the world and that’s a tradition they can be part of. This generation really does hold the future of the planet in its hands.

PETER SINGER - Most Influential Living Philosopher - Founder of The Life You Can Save

PETER SINGER - Most Influential Living Philosopher - Founder of The Life You Can Save

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Most Influential Living Philosopher
Author · Founder of The Life You Can Save

I would like young people to recognise that they are part of a long tradition that has been trying to the make the world a better place. A tradition that goes back as far as we have recorded history, that there are people who tried to–like Socrates, but also like Buddha and many other figures in different cultures–think more about how we ought to live in accordance with their thinking. Tried to do good in the world and that’s a tradition they can be part of. This generation really does hold the future of the planet in its hands.

RICK MOODY: From The Ice Storm to The Long Accomplishment – A Literary Journey

RICK MOODY: From The Ice Storm to The Long Accomplishment – A Literary Journey

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Novelist & Memoirist

Words are the oldest information storage and retrieval system ever devised…The written word will remain, scribbled on collapsed highway overpasses, as a testament to love and rage, as evidence of the wanderers in the ruin.

Championing Neurodiversity in the Workplace with MARCIA SCHEINER - Highlights

Championing Neurodiversity in the Workplace with MARCIA SCHEINER - Highlights

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President & Founder of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors

For autistic individuals, there’s really sort of two paths. There are those today, about 35% percent of 18 year olds with an autism diagnosis who do go on to college or some form of post-secondary education, and then those who don’t. Of those who don’t and want to work, there’s about a 55% unemployment rate. And those who go to college and then look for employment afterwards, there’s about a 75 to 85% underemployment rate. So you can see the unemployment rates whether you go to college or not are astronomical, but they’re even higher if you go to college, which is sort of counterintuitive.

MARCIA SCHEINER - President & Founder of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors

MARCIA SCHEINER - President & Founder of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors

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President & Founder of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors

For autistic individuals, there’s really sort of two paths. There are those today, about 35% percent of 18 year olds with an autism diagnosis who do go on to college or some form of post-secondary education, and then those who don’t. Of those who don’t and want to work, there’s about a 55% unemployment rate. And those who go to college and then look for employment afterwards, there’s about a 75 to 85% underemployment rate. So you can see the unemployment rates whether you go to college or not are astronomical, but they’re even higher if you go to college, which is sort of counterintuitive.

Reimagining Learning Through MAHATMA GANDHI's Principles w/ ANANTHA DURAIAPPAH - Highlights

Reimagining Learning Through MAHATMA GANDHI's Principles w/ ANANTHA DURAIAPPAH - Highlights

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Inaugural Director · UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace & Sustainable Development

I’ve always found that science and evidence has to be the guiding force in the way that we design our programs. Of course, understanding people as humans. People as not just rational human beings. That’s another thing that I also learned during my journey is that the whole notion of a rational human being is used as an assumption to make our economic models simple.

ANANTHA DURAIAPPAH - Director - UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development

ANANTHA DURAIAPPAH - Director - UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development

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Inaugural Director · UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace & Sustainable Development

Colombian Jazz Harpist Virtuoso EDMAR CASTANEDA on Family, Faith & the Creative Process - Highlights

Colombian Jazz Harpist Virtuoso EDMAR CASTANEDA on Family, Faith & the Creative Process - Highlights

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Jazz Harpist

The harp or the instrument that I play is a traditional instrument from Columbia (I’m from Bogota, Columbia). We have traditional music there called Janetta music. It’s the music from the plains of Colombia and Venezuala. It’s like the cowboy music… I met the harp when I was seven years old. That’s the first time I saw this instrument. I was like–Wow! I knew I was born to play the harp that day!

EDMAR CASTANEDA - Jazz Harpist Virtuoso

EDMAR CASTANEDA - Jazz Harpist Virtuoso

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Jazz Harpist

The harp or the instrument that I play is a traditional instrument from Columbia (I’m from Bogota, Columbia). We have traditional music there called Janetta music. It’s the music from the plains of Colombia and Venezuala. It’s like the cowboy music… I met the harp when I was seven years old. That’s the first time I saw this instrument. I was like–Wow! I knew I was born to play the harp that day!

JUNG CHANG - Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans - Highlights

JUNG CHANG - Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans - Highlights

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Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans

Writing Wild Swans was the thing that resolved the trauma for me. When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don’t have.

JUNG CHANG - Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans

JUNG CHANG - Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans

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Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans

Writing Wild Swans was the thing that resolved the trauma for me. When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don’t have.

Tony Award Winner JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY on The Normal Heart, The Big C & Beyond - Highlights

Tony Award Winner JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY on The Normal Heart, The Big C & Beyond - Highlights

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Actor and Director

If you are thinking about too much, you're probably not doing it right. Some nights you do it and you're just like, that just felt like it was ten minutes long and I just was on cloud nine. What was I doing? A great, great American actor George C. Scott had a great quote once, he said, "Every actor worth their salt has one good show a week and spends those other seven shows wondering what they did that made them so good that night." And nobody knows. If you could figure that out and if you could bottle that then, of course, everybody could do it.

JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY - Tony & Obie Award-Winning Actor & Director

JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY - Tony & Obie Award-Winning Actor & Director

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Actor and Director

I've been so fortunate to work with such great actors over the years. Laura Linney, Joe Mantello and the entire company of The Normal Heart, Nathan Lane, who I consider one of my great educators. He was a real mentor to me. He was such a professional and he was so devoted to the character and worked tirelessly to make the character in the show as good as it could possibly be. Nathan never ever did it sitting down. He's always full steam ahead and there was a great lesson in that for me to watch somebody's work ethic. It taught me my work ethic.

VIET THANH NGUYEN - Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author of The Sympathizer & The Committed

VIET THANH NGUYEN - Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author of The Sympathizer & The Committed

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Writer

Ever since I was a kid, I see this sign in a window near my parents' store. 'Another American Driven Out of Business by the Vietnamese.' And I thought, That's a story. At ten or twelve or whatever, I knew that was a story. And it didn't include me and my parents. But there's a direct connection between that story and Make America Great Again. That's been my life project to say, 'No, we didn't drive you out of your own country.' You know, there's a much more complicated story here about America, about Vietnam, about me, about my people and as American people and Vietnamese people that needs to be told through the arts and the humanities, right? It's a crucial terrain, which is why we keep fighting about it, whether we're Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals. We know that culture is an important place where we define who we are.

JACQUES VILLEGLE: Pioneer of Street Art & New Realism - English Interview Highlights

JACQUES VILLEGLE: Pioneer of Street Art & New Realism - English Interview Highlights

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Artist & Grandfather of French Street Art

There was the war from ‘40 to ‘45 under the Fascists, so I didn’t have art training at that time. The painter Picasso, we knew the name, the artist who painted an eye in the place of a navel, that’s all I knew at the age of seventeen. I found a book published in 1926, the year of my birth, speaking of the painters Braque, Picasso and Miró. And then all the figurative painters at that time, Van Dongen…so it was a new style that I encountered there.

Full Interview · French · JACQUES VILLEGLÉ

Full Interview · French · JACQUES VILLEGLÉ

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Artist & Grandfather of French Street Art

There was the war from ‘40 to ‘45 under the Fascists, so I didn’t have art training at that time. The painter Picasso, we knew the name, the artist who painted an eye in the place of a navel, that’s all I knew at the age of seventeen. I found a book published in 1926, the year of my birth, speaking of the painters Braque, Picasso and Miró. And then all the figurative painters at that time, Van Dongen…so it was a new style that I encountered there.

VIET THANH NGUYEN - Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author of The Sympathizer & The Committed

VIET THANH NGUYEN - Pulitzer-Prize Winning Author of The Sympathizer & The Committed

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Writer

Ever since I was a kid, I see this sign in a window near my parents' store. 'Another American Driven Out of Business by the Vietnamese.' And I thought, That's a story. At ten or twelve or whatever, I knew that was a story. And it didn't include me and my parents. But there's a direct connection between that story and Make America Great Again. That's been my life project to say, 'No, we didn't drive you out of your own country.' You know, there's a much more complicated story here about America, about Vietnam, about me, about my people and as American people and Vietnamese people that needs to be told through the arts and the humanities, right? It's a crucial terrain, which is why we keep fighting about it, whether we're Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals. We know that culture is an important place where we define who we are.

Remembering PAUL AUSTER - Writer, Director (1947-2024)

Remembering PAUL AUSTER - Writer, Director (1947-2024)

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Writer · Director 1947-2024

What happens is a space is created. And maybe it’s the only space of its kind in the world in which two absolute strangers can meet each other on terms of absolute intimacy. I think this is what is at the heart of the experience and why once you become a reader that you want to repeat that experience, that very deep total communication with that invisible stranger who has written the book that you’re holding in your hands. And that’s why I think, in spite of everything, novels are not going to stop being written, no matter what the circumstances. We need stories. We’re all human beings, and it’s stories from the moment we’re able to talk.