At a Distance

Food urbanist and architect Carolyn Steel, author of the book “Sitopia: How to Live Well on a Hungry Planet,” talks about how Covid-19 is going to forever alter our planet, why food shouldn’t be cheap, and what’s required for a “good society.”

Journalist and Trumpcast co-host Virginia Heffernan speaks with us about the perils of President Trump’s response to Covid-19, why she views Fox News as “a snuff-and-porn channel passing as news,” and her fascination with microbiology.

Economist Chris Canavan discusses the challenges of rebuilding the economy after the pandemic, why he believes the golden age of the humanities is before us, and the need for us all to think more about our relationship to time.

Philosopher and New School professor Simon Critchley talks about the ways in which the Covid-19 virus may be rewiring our very being, the need to better understand our anxiety, and how the pandemic is revealing how much we don’t know.

Post-traumatic stress expert Bessel van der Kolk, author of “The Body Keeps the Score,” discusses the essential need to befriend your body in this time of quarantine, why social deprivation is “the worst form of punishment,” and the importance of staying connected with others.

Environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben explores the economic shock of Covid-19, the links between the climate crisis and the current pandemic, and how biology and physics can’t be negotiated with.

Spencer Bailey and Andrew Zuckerman, The Slowdown's co-founders and this podcast’s hosts, discuss the Covid-19 crisis and how it led to the creation of this new series, which features long-view conversations with philosophers, psychologists, writers, artists, and other leading minds.