City Arts & Lectures

Joy Harjo is a performer and writer of the Muskogee Creek Nation. She’s currently serving her second term as United States Poet Laureate.  Much of Harjo’s poetry incorporates indigenous myths.  She also addresses social justice and feminism.  Her newest book is a memoir, “Poet Warrior”.  On August 16, 2021, Joy Harjo talked with Steven Winn about her work.

Alison Bechdel‘s cult following for her early comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For grew wildly in response to her family memoirs, the best-selling graphic memoir Fun Home, adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical, and Are You My Mother? She has become a cultural household name for the concept of the Bechdel Test, a metric used when considering the representation of women in film. Bechdel has been named a MacArthur Fellow and Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont, among many other honors. On May 7, 2021, she talked to artist George McCalman about her latest book “The Secret to Superhuman Strength”.  It’s a history of exercise trends, from Jack LaLanne in the 1960s to spin classes and yoga studios.  It’s also a very personal examination of Bechdel’s own fascination with fitness.

When journalist Courtney Martin learned that white families in her gentrifying neighborhood in Oakland largely avoided the majority-Black, poorly-rated public school down the street, she began asking why. In Learning in Public: Lessons For a Racially Divided America From My Daughter’s School, Martin examines her own fears, assumptions, and conversations with other parents as they navigate school choice.  The book is part memoir, part investigation into the persistence of school segregation in the United States. It’s a vivid portrait of integration’s virtues and complexities. Courtney E. Martin is the author of five books, including Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists and The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream, as well as the popular newsletter Examined Family. She is the co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, FRESH Speakers, and the Bay Area chapter of Integrated Schools, as well as the Storyteller-in-Residence at The Holding Co.  On August 11, 2021, Courtney Martin spoke with Anna Sale, host of the podcast “Death, Sex, and Money”. 

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”.

This week, we’ll hear how distance has played a key role in psychotherapy – even before the pandemic. Starting with Freud’s treatments by mail, to crisis hotlines, and now mobile phones and Zoom sessions, therapy has long existed outside the doctor’s office.  Hannah Zeavin calls it teletherapy, and she explores its history in a new book “The Distance Cure”.  On July 17, 2021, Zeavin talked to Adam Savage.

Michelle Zauner is a musician who plays indie pop under the name “Japanese Breakfast”.  Zauner grew up in the Pacific Northwest, raised by her mother, a Korean immigrant.  As an adult, she moved back to become a caregiver at the end of her mother’s life.  Her memoir “Crying in H-Mart” grapples with grief and trauma - but also provides delicious detail about her family’s Korean cooking.  On May 6, 2021, Zauner spoke with comedian Bowen Yang of Saturday Night Live.

Lucy Corin is the author of the novel “Everyday Psycho Killers: A History for Girls”, and two short story collections, the most recent being “100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses”.  On June 23, 2021, Corin talked with Daniel Handler just before the publication of her second novel, “The Swank Hotel”.  The book explores mental illness, familial grief, and love.

Poet Victoria Chang’s new collection, “Obit”, is about grief and grieving.  Chang wrote the book in the wake of her mother’s death.  The poems are written as obituaries, and their creation gave Chang a way to process her loss and contemplate her own mortality.  Victoria Chang spoke with Daniel Handler on January 19, 2021.

Dr. Jen Gunter is an ob-gyn and a pain medicine physician who writes on topics of sex, science, and social media. A fierce advocate for women’s health, Gunter is devoted to correcting the misinformation perpetuated by the internet around women’s well-being and reproductive health. She is the author of The Preemie Primer and The Vagina Bible. Her new book, The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism, counters stubborn myths about menopause with hard facts, real science, fascinating historical perspective, and expert advice. On June 7, 2021, Gunter talked with Isabel Duffy about the book and the history of medical understanding – and misunderstanding – about this stage of women’s lives.

Twenty years ago, Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, her debut story collection that explores issues of love and identity among immigrants and cultural transplants.  She went on to write more short stories, poems, essays, and novels, such as The Namesake.  Since moving to Italy in 2011, Lahiri has worked as a translator of Italian literature, and produced her own work in Italian.  For her latest book, Whereabouts, she first wrote the story in Italian before translating it into English. On May 18, 2021, Jhumpa Lahiri spoke with Monica Seger, Program Director for Italian Studies at William & Mary University.