City Arts & Lectures

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.

Our guests are Camilla Carper and Janelle Abbott, the co-creators of FEMAIL Forever, a project dedicated to sustainability and zero waste.  The two met in design school, and after graduation, returned to their respective homes of Oakland and Seattle. To continue their collaboration, Abbott and Carper mail garments back and forth through the US Postal Service. Each time that work passes from one to the other, new scraps and remnants are added, sometimes, things are taken away. On April 29, 2020, befitting their long-distance process, the two spoke via videoconference with Avery Trufelman, who  produces original pieces about architecture and design for the award-winning podcast 99% Invisible by Radiotopia.  The three discussed how we can all commit to dressing more sustainably, wearing ugly clothing with confidence, and maintaining a collaborative friendship at a physical distance.

Miranda July is a multi-disciplinary artist with enormous output who has honed an entirely unique voice, one that provides unconventional perspectives on bizarre nuances of human connection. She is the author of "No One Belongs Here More Than You" and "The First Bad Man", and the writer-director of the movies "The Future", "Me and You and Everyone We Know", and the forthcoming "Kajillionaire". On April 20, 2020, she spoke via videoconference with Jenny Odell, a professor at Stanford and the author of "How to Do Nothing".

The pioneering writer and neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015, was beloved for his compassion and creativity. Sacks was deeply invested in the lives and well-being of his patients – people with neurological conditions that included Tourette’s, hallucinations, and autism.  He was a phenomenal storyteller, whose many case studies – he called them ‘neurological novels’ – include “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat” and “Awakenings”.  On April 17, 2020, author Steve Silberman hosted a conversation with Sacks’ longtime collaborator Kate Edgar, and Temple Grandin, one of the world’s best-known autistic adults.  Their memories of Sacks are interspersed with clips from a new documentary about his life and work, “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life”.  

Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” and other books about the cultural constraints that affect young women.  Orenstein has now turned her attention to boys - conducting comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, and academics about consent, vulnerability, hookup culture, and many other issues relating to boys’ emotional lives. These are collected in her new book “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity”. On March 19, 2020, Peggy Orenstein talked to author Daniel Handler via video conference, under orders to shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our guests are Carmen Maria Machado and Namwali Serpell. Carmen Maria Machado’s “In The Dream House,” is a memoir about queer domestic abuse, beautifully and meticulously told through an array of forms, entirely eschewing convention. Machado is also the author of the short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties.” Namwali Serpell is a professor of literature at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel “The Old Drift” tracks three Zambian families across three generations, from the pre-colonial past into the near future. **** On April 8, 2020, Namwali Serpell and Carmen Maria Machado spoke via video conference, under orders to shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other things, the two reflected on writing post-apocalyptic narratives while they themselves live through a time of pandemic.