City Arts & Lectures

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and author, and one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals working today. In books like Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Harari examines topics like the future of humanity, and the connections between biology, myth, and power. His latest book is Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks, from the Stone Age to AI. On October 1, 2024, Yuval Harari appeared at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to technology journalist, author, and podcaster Kara Swisher.

Even before her explosively popular Substack Letters from an American, which has grown to more than two million subscribers since it began in 2019, historian Heather Cox Richardson was an important voice in discussions around post-Civil War American history. The author of seven books, Richardson’s writing has focused on race, economics, and political ideology, including the story of the Republican Party and the Wounded Knee Massacre. Most recently, she published the book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, a deep dive into how a small group of wealthy people pushed the government towards authoritarianism, and how understanding the real history of America’s most marginalized people can help us move back towards a real democracy. On September 19, 2024, Heather Cox Richardson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Steven Winn.

This week, we'll hear an encore broadcast of a 2016 appearance by Steve Silberman, a technology reporter whose work helped change the public perception of autism - and popularize the concept of neurodiversity. Silberman’s 2015 book “Neurotribes - The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity” uncovered a “secret history” of autism. Silberman also found surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years. Steve Silberman died on August 29, 2024, at the age of 66. This conversation with Roy Eisenhardt was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on March 28, 2016.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as the 116th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court in 2022. She earned both her undergraduate and law degrees with honors from Harvard University, before serving as a clerk for three federal judges, including Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat on the Supreme Court she would ultimately go on to take. Jackson's career spans both the private and public sectors, including serving as Vice Chair and Commissioner of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and as an assistant federal public defender. On September 10, 2024, Jackson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to University of California, Berkeley Professor john a. powell on the occasion of her just-published memoir, Lovely One. The book traces her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation as the first Black woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

Our guests today are Daniel Handler and Sarah Manguso. Daniel Handler has written dozens of books – from adult novels like “The Basic Eight” and “Why We Broke Up”, to picture books and other collaborations with visual artists. But, he’s best known as the author of “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” Handler wrote the best-selling children’s novels – 13 in total – under the pen name Lemony Snicket. On July 24, 2024, Handler came to the KQED Studios in San Francisco to talk to his friend and fellow writer Sarah Manguso. Both Handler and Manguso had recently published new works - Handler's is a memoir titled “And Then? And Then? What Else?” Sarah Manguso’s newest book is a novel called "Liars".

Ann Patchett is best known for her award-winning novel Bel Canto, “a book that works both as a paean to art and beauty and a subtly sly comedy of manners” (New York Times). She is also the author of the novels The Patron Saint of Liars, The Dutch House, Commonwealth, and the non-fiction books Truth and Beauty and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Her new novel, Tom Lake, is about the lives parents lead before their children are born, the choices we make that inform who we become, and what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. Patchett lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is co-owner of Parnassus Books, a popular independent bookstore. On September 8, 2023, Ann Patchett came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by writer and critic Steven Winn. This program was originally broadcast on September 17, 2023.

This week, our guest is David Brooks. As an Op-Ed contributor to The New York Times, Brooks writes about subjects ranging from politics and foreign affairs, to cultural trends and spirituality. Brooks started as a humorist, penning satires for his college paper, before becoming a film critic and then a reporter at The Wall Street Journal. You can see him regularly on the PBS Newshour. He’s also the author of bestselling books like Bobos in Paradise and The Social Animal. Like several of his more recent books – including The Second Mountain – his newest is more personal in nature. It’s called How To Know A Person, and it’s a guide to fostering deeper relationships, at home, in the workplace, or elsewhere. On November 18th, 2023, David Brooks came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk to Steven Winn about what it means to really see each other. This program was originally broadcast on December 23, 2023.

Long before he directed Wicked, In The Heights, or the groundbreaking film Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu was a movie-obsessed first-generation Chinese American helping at his parents’ Chinese restaurant in Silicon Valley and forever facing the cultural identity crisis endemic to children of immigrants. Growing up on the cutting edge of twenty-first-century technology gave Chu the tools he needed to make his mark at USC film school and to be discovered by Steven Spielberg, but he soon found himself struggling to understand who he was. In Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen, Chu questions what it means when your dreams collide with your circumstances - and how it’s possible to succeed even when the world changes beyond all recognition. Writer, actor, comedian, and rapper Nora Lum, aka “Awkwafina,” is best known for her roles in Crazy Rich Asians (directed by Jon M. Chu), The Farewell, for which she was the first Asian American to win a Golden Globe award for best actress in a musical or comedy, and Ocean’s 8. In 2020, Awkwafina wrote and executive produced the Comedy Central series Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, in which she plays a fictionalized version of herself.

Journalist and podcaster Carvell Wallace regularly contributes to the New York Times Magazine, and has written cover profiles for Rolling Stone, GQ, and Esquire. His intimate, often heartbreaking essays address everything from the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, to the connections between cowboy poetry and forgotten histories of Black people, to the possibility that his mother would have wanted an abortion. Wallace’s new memoir, Another Word For Love, looks back on his own life, from experiencing homelessness with his mother to raising two teenagers in a disturbingly violent and precarious world. In 2019, Wallace co-wrote The Sixth Man with Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors. On May 16, 2024, Carvell Wallace came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by artist and visual journalist George McCalman, whose books include Illustrated Black History.

Best known for her 2022 novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin has moved across many genres and topics, writing young adult novels, dystopian speculative fiction, and stories centered around video games, all exploring modern technology, slut-shaming, and the oppression of women. She has written for The New York Times Book Review and NPR, and received an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best First Screenplay for the feature film Conversations with Other Women. As Zevin’s career has continued to expand, she has become a stronger voice for the rights of women and the power of fiction, celebrating independent bookstores and young authors. On June 25, 2024, Gabrielle Zevin came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with writer Rebecca Handler.

Our guest is writer and philosopher Chloe Cooper Jones, author of the memoir Easy Beauty. Jones was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition that affects her gait and her stature. In Easy Beauty, she details how that informs her experience of the world – and delivers a powerful philosophical examination of how society thinks about beauty. Jones is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2000 for her profile of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the killing of Eric Garner, as well as in 2023 for Easy Beauty. On April 26, 2024, Jones came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Catherine Lacey.

Victoria Chang is the author of 8 books of poetry, including “Obit” and “Barbie Chang”, a work of creative nonfiction, and two children’s books. Her newest collection of poems is called “With My Back to the World.” It’s inspired by the art and writing of Agnes Martin, a painter who was an influential part of the abstract art movement beginning in the 1950s. On May 31, 2024, Chang came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Steven Winn about her creative process and some of the themes in her new collection, including feminism, mental illness, and creative expression.

Serj Tankian, lead singer of the heavy metal band “System Of A Down.” Tankian founded the group in 1997, releasing five studio albums, three of which debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. His solo career also includes work as a painter, composer and filmmaker. The musician’s new book is called Down with the System: A Memoir (of Sorts).On July 21st, 2024, Tankian came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Zack Ruskin about music and activism – particularly his work in support of Armenia, his ancestral homeland.

Since their foundational philosophical critique of gender and sexuality, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler has been a singularly important contributor to our contemporary understanding of those categories, including what it can mean to be queer. Butler’s revolutionary cultural influence and constant drive towards better understandings of our world guarantee that they will remain a widely read canonical writer for decades to come. In recent years, Butler’s theoretical and activist work on gender performance and nonviolence has placed them in conversations around transgender rights, Black Lives Matter, and the Occupy Movement. Their forthcoming book, Who’s Afraid of Gender?, examines why recent authoritarian governments and transexclusionary feminists have focused so much of their energy and ire on gender. On June 13, 2024, Judith Butler came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to be interviewed on stage by Poulomi Saha, the co-Director of the Program in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley.

Artist Kara Walker has investigated race, gender, sexuality, and violence through her installations, paintings, silhouettes, and films. Walker’s art has won awards and is collected by museums around the world. Her work with stereotypes and the history of racial violence has pushed viewers to confront the continuing violence against Black people in America. With beloved writer Jamaica Kincaid, winner of the American Book Award, Walker is publishing An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children, a brilliant collection of essays and illustrations revealing the beauty of the natural world and the terrible history of colonialism. In July 2024, SFMOMA is releasing a site-specific installation by Walker, focusing on the global loss due to COVID-19, trauma, and technology. On June 6, 2024, Kara Walker came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by New Yorker staff writer Doreen St. Félix.

Author and creator Miranda July isn’t bound by medium nor by expectations. From films like Me and You and Everyone We Know and Kajillionaire, to books like No One Belongs Here More Than You and The First Bad Man, to an iPhone app that reroutes text messages to strangers, July’s powers of creativity and observation are wise, surprising, and always delightful. Her second novel, All Fours, is the story of a woman’s artistic cross-country quest that has already won praise from George Saunders, Emma Cline, and Vogue for its intimacy, humor, and boundary defying freedom. On May 23, 2024, Miranda July came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Anna Sale, host of the podcast Death, Sex & Money.

Before his novel Erasure was adapted into the hit film American Fiction, Percival Everett was already one of the literary world’s most acclaimed talents, appreciated for his inimitable characters and storylines, as well as his uncommon variety of genres. Since Everett’s first novel in 1983, he has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, for Telephone, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for The Trees. His newest novel, James, is a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn, and has already been touted as “a canon-shattering great book.” Cord Jefferson made his feature writing and directorial debut with American Fiction, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His television credits include Watchmen, The Good Place, Succession, Station Eleven, Master of None, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. On June 3, 2024, Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed by Jelani Cobb.

Our guest today is Maggie Nelson, an author and academic whose deeply personal and analytical writing has covered such topics as gender, sexuality, and freedom. She’s published nine books of poetry, essays, and memoir, including The Argonauts. Many of her books combine or re-imagine genres, like her 2009 work Bluets, a collection of 240 short pieces – ranging from the philosophical to the lyrical – about the color blue. On June 1st, 2024, Nelson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco where she spoke to Frances Richard about the themes in her newest essay collection, Like Love.

Amy Tan is best known for her novels of Asian American life, such as The Joy Luck Club, the Kitchen God’s Wife, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Now she’s written and illustrated a book inspired by her love of birding. The Backyard Bird Chronicles tracks the thoughts and lessons gathered through birding, mixing memoir with Tan’s own sketches of birds. Tan’s calm focus on watching and drawing the wild birds who visit her home makes for a brilliantly composed breath of fresh air. On May 18, 2024, Amy Tan came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about her book with the teacher who guided her, artist and naturalist John Muir Laws.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer returns to the City Arts & Lectures stage to discuss his first book since retiring from the United State Supreme Court, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism During his 28-year tenure on the United States Supreme Court, which began with his appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1994, Justice Stephen G. Breyer authored 551 opinions. As a liberal voice in the federal judiciary, he has played a key role in reforming criminal sentencing procedures, protecting the environment, and preserving abortion rights. In 2022, Justice Breyer was succeeded by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, his former law clerk. The Justice credits his time at Lowell High School in San Francisco for helping to instill in him a commitment to civic engagement. Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism is his first book since retiring from the Supreme Court. Sarah Isgur is a legal analyst at ABC News and a staff writer for The Dispatch. She was a leader in political campaigns for Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, and Mitt Romney, and was the spokeswoman for The Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump. Isgur now hosts the legal podcast Advisory Opinions and is the “R” panelist for KCRW’s Left, Right, & Center.