One of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time, Charlie Kaufman is best known for movies like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His unique style, sometimes labeled surrealist, features characters that reflect back on themselves, stories within stories that blur the boundaries between dream and event. Now, with his debut novel “Antkind”, Kaufman continues to explore the absurd – and often lonely – nature of human consciousness. On June 15, 2020, Charlie Kaufman spoke to Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel Less, about the freedoms, and challenges, of writing a book.

How might substances like LSD, psilocybins, and other hallucinogens provide relief to people suffering from conditions such as depression, addiction, and anorexia?  Robin Carhart-Harris is a neuroscientist and head of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research, which builds on over a decade of pioneering work including a clinical trial that has kickstarted global efforts to develop psilocybin therapy into a licensed treatment for depression. On June 29, 2020, Dr. Carhart-Harris spoke with Dr. Mellody Hayes, an anesthesiologist and founder of a psychedelic wellness clinic, by videoconference during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, covering Silicon Valley, startup culture, and technology. In her mid-twenties,as the tech industry was rapidly transforming into a locus of wealth andpower, Wiener left a job in book publishing to join the startup workforce. Part memoir, part cultural analysis, her book Uncanny Valley, reflects on the absurdities, excesses, and aspirations of the startup world.  It’s also a coming-of-age story, with Wiener charting her own disillusionment with and complicity in work she frequently found empty and inauthentic. On March 12, 2020, Wiener came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Robin Sloan about her memoir, and where tech has – and hasn’t – taken us.

Brian Greene is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, widely recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of superstring theory. His ability to clearly communicate cutting-edge science - even bringing humor to abstruse mathematical concepts -- has made Greene a sort of rock star physicist. On February 25, 2020, Brian Greene came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Gina Pell about his newest book “Until The End of Time: Mind, Matter and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe”.

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic.  Abdurraqib’s writing fuses cultural commentary with intimate poetic language.  His subjects – everything from A Tribe Called Quest to his own childhood in Columbus, Ohio, Bruce Springsteen to Muhammad Ali.  Abdurraqib’s latest collection is “A Fortune for Your Disaster”, which wrestles with histories both personal and shared, the process of rebuilding after heartbreak, and the people and things that helped us heal. On May 29, 2020, just as protests were breaking out across the country after the death of George Floyd, Hanif Abdurraqib spoke via videoconference with the journalist and music critic Jeff Chang.  

Ruha Benjamin studies the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine.  In books like “Race After Technology”, and “People’s Science”, Benjamin examines how racial inequality plays out in every corner of civic, scientific, and social life.  Meredith Whittaker co-founded the AI Now Institute, a research center examining the social implications of artificial intelligence in criminal justice, law enforcement, housing, and education.  On June 1, 2020, Ruha Benjamin and Meredith Whittaker spoke via video conference. The two talked about biases built into every day technologies, how COVID-19 disproportionately harms marginalized communities, and ethical concerns over the increased power tech elites now have over our educational systems.

This week, a conversation between two of today’s most fearless writers, addressing topics of addiction, spirituality, and existence. Mary Karr is the author of "Lit" and "The Liars Club" -- memoirs that have come to define the genre as we know it today. Her poems bear the same markers of intelligent observation, humor, and visceral emotion. Kaveh Akbar is a major voice in contemporary poetry and author of the collections "Pilgrim Bell" and "Calling a Wolf a Wolf". On May 20, 2020, Mary Karr and Kaveh Akbar spoke and read poems via video conference on the occasion of the paperback release of Karr’s newest poetry collection, “Tropic of Squalor.”

This week, we present a conversation between two of today’s most incisive thinkers and creators. Rebecca Solnit is a writer, activist and public intellectual. Her broad curiosity has fueled over twenty books on topics ranging from the environment to feminism, literary criticism to social change. Brit Marling is best known as the star and creator of the television series, “The OA”. It’s just one among many projects Marling herself created as an alternative to narratives that diminish women’s worth, all too common in Hollywood.  On May 11, 2020, Rebecca Solnit and Brit Marling spoke via video conference on the occasion of Solnit’s newly published memoir, “Recollections of My Nonexistence.” 

This week, two phenomenally smart observers of culture, Jia Tolentino and Jenna Wortham.  Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the essay collection “Trick Mirror”. Wortham co-hosts the New York Times podcast “Still Processing”. On May 6, 2020, what was to be an on-stage conversation at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco ended up being a far more intimate exchange about the logistics and emotional realities of life in self-isolation.  The two spoke by videoconference, discussing their new relationships to productivity, an urgent desire to do good in the world, and some of the lighter aspects of their pandemic lives – such as reality television.

What are some of the insidious designs behind the technology we engage with? How are algorithms designed to convince you to keep scrolling? Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, is devoted to thinking about the tools built into technology that persuade us to keep returning to it. Harris believes the unmitigated race for our attention has multiple and profound negative consequences --- shortened attention spans, increased mental health issues, mass narcissism and other effects are among what Harris calls “human downgrading.” On April 29, 2020, Tristan Harris spoke with Jacob Ward, technology correspondent for NBC News, via video conference while under orders to shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic.