Student Protests in India: Breaking the Media Blackout w/ Suchitra Vijayan, Raaz & Sarthak

Student Protests in India: Breaking the Media Blackout w/ Suchitra Vijayan, Raaz & Sarthak

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I think one of the things that we have to acknowledge and repeat over and over again is that the general narrative that there has been no resistance or protest to the current regime is absolutely untrue. People in India have been protesting and protesting consistently across the country. What we've seen is a lack of media attention. But what you've also seen is a kind of violent, disproportionate crackdown by the state, accompanied by a legal regime that now makes it absolutely possible to disappear anyone into the legal system.

Breaking ICE: Community Defense Against State Terror & MAGA Fascism w/ SONALI KOLHATKAR & VIET THANH NGUYEN

Breaking ICE: Community Defense Against State Terror & MAGA Fascism w/ SONALI KOLHATKAR & VIET THANH NGUYEN

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You can see how important storytelling is to fascism and to MAGA and to ICE. And that type of narrative is seductive to a whole lot of people, not just white people but to a lot of other people as well, and it's yoked to many other narratives around what is the United States, what is American power, what is going to benefit American power, what's going to erode American power. So there's a tremendous amount of phobia around who constitutes the other or the others to the United States, and it goes way, way back, obviously, to the origins of the country.

Benjamin Moser on Anti-Zionism, Jewish History & Reclaiming Tradition


Benjamin Moser on Anti-Zionism, Jewish History & Reclaiming Tradition


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BENJAMIN MOSER · Pulitzer Prize-winning Author of Sontag: Her Life and Work · Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector · Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History

I think that Jews have become extremely solipsistic in a way that is embarrassing. It's very much contrary to the way I was brought up, which was not to talk about yourself, which was to talk about other people and to serve other people. That was part of the heritage that I received from the Holocaust and from my family's background as refugees was, “You're not a refugee. You've got it pretty good. You live in America.” We were very much exhorted against that and exhorted to serve other people and to try to do something good in the world. And so I hope this will be one tiny little part of something that will make a change for the Palestinians.

AQUA: A Story of Water & Lost Dreams w/ Author, Screenwriter CHIARA BARZINI

AQUA: A Story of Water & Lost Dreams w/ Author, Screenwriter CHIARA BARZINI

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I think first of all that in order to have disillusion, you need to have illusion and I really want to sort of take a stand in the name of being a delusional person, you know? I do think illusions are necessary to our sense of creativity, and we need to fall in love with extreme projects, and we need to have ideas that are sometimes unsustainable. We need to dream big in order to be creative and feel alive. The illusions that are a part of Aqua are larger illusions. They're illusions that have to do with my adult life. They're connected to nature and the presence or absence of water, the illusion that we can keep sustaining a city even though the water has run out.

Water Scarcity, Environmental Justice, Los Angeles & the End of Empire - A Road Trip w/ CHIARA BARZINI

Water Scarcity, Environmental Justice, Los Angeles & the End of Empire - A Road Trip w/ CHIARA BARZINI

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I think first of all that in order to have disillusion, you need to have illusion and I really want to sort of take a stand in the name of being a delusional person, you know? I do think illusions are necessary to our sense of creativity, and we need to fall in love with extreme projects, and we need to have ideas that are sometimes unsustainable. We need to dream big in order to be creative and feel alive. The illusions that are a part of Aqua are larger illusions. They're illusions that have to do with my adult life. They're connected to nature and the presence or absence of water, the illusion that we can keep sustaining a city even though the water has run out.

Literature as Resistance: Combating Propaganda and the Weaponization of Nostalgia - Highlights

Literature as Resistance: Combating Propaganda and the Weaponization of Nostalgia - Highlights

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We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way.  Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.

Time, Memory & the Art of Translation with GEORGI GOSPODINOV & ANGELA RODEL

Time, Memory & the Art of Translation with GEORGI GOSPODINOV & ANGELA RODEL

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We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way.  Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.

LINCOLN CENTER: Celebrating the Performing Arts & the Human Spirit w/ SHANTA THAKE

LINCOLN CENTER: Celebrating the Performing Arts & the Human Spirit w/ SHANTA THAKE

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Lincoln Center is multiple stages. I think probably over three dozen stages across 16 acres. It is a vast canvas in and of itself. And then we have this beautiful plaza that leads to this beautiful campus, and that’s the visual I think that most people have when they think of Lincoln Center is this beautiful fountain in the center and these three gorgeous buildings.It’s New York’s biggest plaza, and it feels very vibrant and beautiful. In the summer, we really take that plaza and we transform it into a dance floor. So this idea of also interrupting what people’s notion of Lincoln Center is because it’s a space that is very aspirational, which is a great thing.

Lincoln Center & Spatial Justice: Dismantling Cultural Barriers w/ Chief Artistic Officer SHANTA THAKE - Highlights

Lincoln Center & Spatial Justice: Dismantling Cultural Barriers w/ Chief Artistic Officer SHANTA THAKE - Highlights

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Lincoln Center is multiple stages. I think probably over three dozen stages across 16 acres. It is a vast canvas in and of itself. And then we have this beautiful plaza that leads to this beautiful campus, and that’s the visual I think that most people have when they think of Lincoln Center is this beautiful fountain in the center and these three gorgeous buildings.It’s New York’s biggest plaza, and it feels very vibrant and beautiful. In the summer, we really take that plaza and we transform it into a dance floor. So this idea of also interrupting what people’s notion of Lincoln Center is because it’s a space that is very aspirational, which is a great thing.

Environmental Justice: From Extraction to Regeneration - Redesigning Our Relationship with Nature

Environmental Justice: From Extraction to Regeneration - Redesigning Our Relationship with Nature

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We explore our changing planet, from the melting ice in Greenland to the depleted soils of our farmlands. We’re joined writers, advocates and visionaries to discuss environmental justice, circular economies, and actionable design. Abrahm Lustgarten, Jon Gertner, Liza Featherstone, Rebecca Tickell, Bill Hare, Rob Nixon, Euan Nisbet, Roland Geyer, William McDonough, Carlo Ratti, Jason deCaires Taylor, Jane Madgwick, Paul Shrivastava, Osprey Orielle Lake, Ron Gonen, Louis de Jaeger, Kathleen Rogers, Yolanda Kakabadse, and Ben Goldfarb.

Environmental Justice: Indigenous Wisdom, Climate Action & The Rights of Nature

Environmental Justice: Indigenous Wisdom, Climate Action & The Rights of Nature

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I want to be wowed by the world. I want to gaze at it in awe and wonder.

Clayton Page Aldern, David George Haskell, Yann Martel, Carl Safina, Martín von Hildebrand, Richard Black, Tom Chi, Paula Pinho, Osprey Orielle Lake, Bill Hare, Fred Pearce reflect on Climate Change & The Rights of Nature 

Why Do We Listen to the Talkers More Than the Builders Saving the Planet? - TOM CHI - Highlights

Why Do We Listen to the Talkers More Than the Builders Saving the Planet? - TOM CHI - Highlights

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In the book I spend a bunch of time basically teaching skills and frameworks of thinking. Not to indoctrinate, it's not a framework like an ideology where you need to believe exactly these things. This is a lot more about how does one use their minds effectively to solve problems that have been solved before. I work on things that have to do with investment and climate and the future of the economy and automation. The main things I'm trying to teach in the book are skills around creativity, critical thinking, community compassion and frameworks around how to go and use that on problems that should be relatively portable to a bunch of problems that are meaningful to you. The way that education needs to change is that people need to actively be working on things that truly matter to them so that over time they end up being able to go make that difference.

Climate Capital with TOM CHI - Google X Co-founder, Founding Partner At One Ventures

Climate Capital with TOM CHI - Google X Co-founder, Founding Partner At One Ventures

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In the book I spend a bunch of time basically teaching skills and frameworks of thinking. Not to indoctrinate, it's not a framework like an ideology where you need to believe exactly these things. This is a lot more about how does one use their minds effectively to solve problems that have been solved before. I work on things that have to do with investment and climate and the future of the economy and automation. The main things I'm trying to teach in the book are skills around creativity, critical thinking, community compassion and frameworks around how to go and use that on problems that should be relatively portable to a bunch of problems that are meaningful to you. The way that education needs to change is that people need to actively be working on things that truly matter to them so that over time they end up being able to go make that difference.

Social Spaces for Collective Wellbeing w/ Architects SALWA & SELMA MIKOU - Highlights

Social Spaces for Collective Wellbeing w/ Architects SALWA & SELMA MIKOU - Highlights

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Architecture should bring a true sensation of wellbeing. We were really lucky to experience that as children, and now as architects, we try to bring all that we learned into our practice.

Listening to the Living World: Biologist DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Flowers, Forests & Songs of Nature - Highlights

Listening to the Living World: Biologist DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Flowers, Forests & Songs of Nature - Highlights

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For at least 150 years biological sciences emphasized individuality and aloneness. So individual species, individual genes, individual organisms. And that's a useful view, up to a point. I mean, it is true that I am an individual organism. I've got a skin, and then the air begins and there's a gap between me and the next person over. But that view is also utterly false in many ways, in that the human body is not just comprised of human cells. There are bacteria, fungi, and viruses, all these other creatures that we now know are essential to our health. Our minds are not solitary. They're formed in relation to other beings. Ecosystems work only through relationship. So relationship and interconnection, not separation. And atomism is in fact the fundamental nature of life. Even from the very, very first fossils that we have of living organisms way back more than 3 billion years ago, these little cells are sitting next to one another.

Palestine & Generational Trauma: CHERIEN DABIS on Directing All That's Left of You - Highlights

Palestine & Generational Trauma: CHERIEN DABIS on Directing All That's Left of You - Highlights

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For me, we Palestinians are so much more than our pain and suffering, and the world often sees only our pain and suffering. I wanted to show other facets of who we are, no matter whether we're on the activist side of the spectrum or audience members who don't know very much about the situation. At the end of the day, we all have to choose humanity. In many ways I was inspired by observing the different generations of my own family and how our identities were shaped by everything happening in Palestine. That became the first idea for this film, to really show how it is a collective trauma for all Palestinians. That trauma is being passed down from generation to generation. Even if you're not a direct descendant of Nakba survivors, you still have that trauma. I wanted to explore that passage of trauma, that inheritance of my own trauma and take a look at how history and political events shape people.

The Psychological & Emotional Impact of Occupation w/ Actress, Director CHERIEN DABIS

The Psychological & Emotional Impact of Occupation w/ Actress, Director CHERIEN DABIS

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For me, we Palestinians are so much more than our pain and suffering, and the world often sees only our pain and suffering. I wanted to show other facets of who we are, no matter whether we're on the activist side of the spectrum or audience members who don't know very much about the situation. At the end of the day, we all have to choose humanity. In many ways I was inspired by observing the different generations of my own family and how our identities were shaped by everything happening in Palestine. That became the first idea for this film, to really show how it is a collective trauma for all Palestinians. That trauma is being passed down from generation to generation. Even if you're not a direct descendant of Nakba survivors, you still have that trauma. I wanted to explore that passage of trauma, that inheritance of my own trauma and take a look at how history and political events shape people.

Trust, Education & Writing as Resistance w/ AL KENNEDY - Highlights

Trust, Education & Writing as Resistance w/ AL KENNEDY - Highlights

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Author · Activist ·  Stand-Up Comedian AL KENNEDY · Author of Alive in the Merciful Country

The thing that puzzled him was why people don't agree to be fully expressed while they're alive. Why does it only happen in their last moment? Why wouldn't you live being fully expressed? If you have love, eventually you're going to win. It's not that people aren't going to die. It's not terrible things aren't going to happen. But if you stay with that and you stay centered in that, you'll get through and you will not have turned into a monster in order to overcome monsters.”

The Art of Fiction, Democracy & Truth with AL KENNEDY

The Art of Fiction, Democracy & Truth with AL KENNEDY

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Author · Activist ·  Stand-Up Comedian AL KENNEDY · Author of Alive in the Merciful Country

The thing that puzzled him was why people don't agree to be fully expressed while they're alive. Why does it only happen in their last moment? Why wouldn't you live being fully expressed? If you have love, eventually you're going to win. It's not that people aren't going to die. It's not terrible things aren't going to happen. But if you stay with that and you stay centered in that, you'll get through and you will not have turned into a monster in order to overcome monsters.”

SIRI HUSTVEDT on Love, Grief & the Future of Democracy

SIRI HUSTVEDT on Love, Grief & the Future of Democracy

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Author SIRI HUSTVEDT Remembers Her Late Husband, PAUL AUSTER

Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.