City Arts & Lectures

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 critically acclaimed cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking and The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking. Her most recent book is My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir. Netflix has just made a series based on Harris’s seminal book “High on the Hog”. On May 13, 2021, Harris spoke with chef and author Samin Nosrat, whose book “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” was also made into a Netflix series.

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 knowledge to create new humans. Mukherjee is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher.  On November 10, 2022, Mukherjee came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Indre Viskontas, a cognitive neuroscientist who co-hosts the popular science podcast Inquiring Minds. 

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 Los Angeles. In her new unapologetic, character-rich, and eloquent memoir Uphill, Hill shares the story of her work, the women of her family, and her complicated relationship with God. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, How to Be an Antiracist, and Antiracist Baby. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor and host of the new action podcast Be Antiracist. On November 3, 2022, Hill and Kendi came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation.

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 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more. A former foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times for more than a decade, he has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Time, and is the publisher of the newsletter The.Ink. He is an on-air political analyst for MSNBC. Anand Giridharadas lives in Brooklyn, New York. On October 25, 2022, Anand Giridharadas came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Alexis Madrigal, co-host of KQED’s Forum and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. 

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 Climate PAC, endorsing climate champions at all levels of government.  On October 24, 2022, Jane Fonda spoke to Steven Winn about the liberating effects of aligning her values and her film work.

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 teens’ own fears and concerns, to the unique ways in which they use technology, is surprising. On October twelfth, 2022 Emily Weinstein and Carrie James talked to Lauren Schiller at KQED studios in San Francisco about their new book “Behind Their Screens: What Teens are Facing (and Adults are Missing).”

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 draws the reader in. George McCalman is an artist and creative director based in San Francisco. His studio, McCalman.Co, designs brands for a range of clientele. Additionally, he’s a visual columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, featured in the “Observed” and “First Person” columns. On October 14th, 2022, George McCalman came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with journalist Carvell Wallace. Wallace is a New York Times Bestselling author, memoirist, and award-winning podcaster who covers race, arts, culture, film and music for a wide variety of news outlets including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, GQ, and more. He lives in Oakland and lectures in the Narrative Department at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism.

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. Inspired by true stories of the exploitation of young women by police departments in the United States, including a 2015 case in Oakland and its subsequent cover-up, the book has earned widespread acclaim. “Leila Mottley’s writing erupts and flows like lava,” writes Tommy Orange, “makes hot bright an Oakland that runs the city’s uncontrollable brilliance… Nightcrawling bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole.” On October 6, 2022, Leila Mottley came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Michelle Lee. The program was a co-presentation with Youth Speaks.

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 it all. Kamau Bell is a dad, a husband, and a comedian. He directed and executive produced the 2022 Showtime documentary We Need To Talk About Cosby, and he is the host of the Emmy-Award-winning CNN docu-series United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell. Bell has appeared on just about every late night comedy show, daytime news program, and broadcast media outlet you can think of, and his writing has been featured widely, including in his memoir and manifesto The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6′ 4″, African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama’s Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian. He has two stand-up comedy specials, Private School Negro and Semi-Prominent Negro. Kate Schatz is the New York Times bestselling author of the “Rad Women” book series. She is the co-founder of Solidarity Sundays, a political action network that hosts monthly “activist house parties” in dozens of cities nationwide aimed at showing women how to take meaningful, coordinated political action. After the 2016 election, the group grew from one chapter with fifty members to over 200 chapters with more than 20,000 members. An educator for more than fifteen years, Schatz has worked with a wide range of age groups teaching Women’s Studies, creative writing, and journalism. On September 24, 2022, the two came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with podcaster and author Anna Sale.

Andrew Sean Greer’s novels include The 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 the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and his work has appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and many more. On September 20, 2022, Andrew Sean Greer came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Adam Savage, the host and executive producer of MythBusters Jr. as well as Savage Builds on the Science Channel. The program begins with an excerpt from the audiobook of Less is Lost.