“It's important to imagine, to keep imagining, a world that is free from colonialism, from oppression, from exploitation, also expropriation of nature. And unfortunately this world is not sustainable—we are not living in that kind of world today. But if we want to see the world for our next generation for the future, we need to pass the torch and ask them to imagine, and then perhaps that way the struggle will continue.” Intan Paramaditha is a writer and an academic. Her novel The Wandering (Har...
Apr 25, 2024•12 min
How are writing and travel vehicles for understanding? How can we expand the literary canon to include other voices, other cultures, other experiences of the world? Intan Paramaditha is a writer and an academic. Her novel The Wandering (Harvill Secker/ Penguin Random House UK), translated from the Indonesian language by Stephen J. Epstein, was nominated for the Stella Prize in Australia and awarded the Tempo Best Literary Fiction in Indonesia, English PEN Translates Award, and PEN/ Heim Translat...
Apr 25, 2024•48 min
Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change. 00:00 "The Conditional" by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón 01:27 The Secret Language of Animals: Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA 03:03 A Love Letter to th...
Apr 24, 2024•12 min
“As technology becomes more dominant, the arts become ever more important for us to stay in touch the things that the sciences can't tackle. What it's actually like to be a person? What's actually important? We can have this endless progress inside this capitalist machine for greater wealth and longer life and more happiness, according to some metric. Or we can try and quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts t...
Apr 19, 2024•13 min
How is being an artist different than a machine that is programmed to perform a set of actions? How can we stop thinking about artworks as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences? In this conversation with Max Cooper, we discuss the beauty and chaos of nature and the exploration of technology music and consciousness. Max Cooper is a musician with a PhD in computational biology. He integrates electronic music with immersive video projections inspired by scientific explo...
Apr 18, 2024•50 min
"Our brain is the organ from which our rich experience of the world arises. Brains are responsible for love, for sadness, and these profound experiences are those in which I sought to investigate." Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the Uni...
Apr 16, 2024•13 min
How does a changing climate affect our minds, brains and bodies? Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washingto...
Apr 16, 2024•53 min
“Doubling is kind of a big theme, and maybe it always is in spy literature, but maybe I think that that's why Viet chose to write a spy novel in a way and play with those sort of tropes because it's central and I think it's central to the message of the show and of the book. This idea that there's another side to every question. I mean, that's the central quandary. There's this problem with the whole Vietnam War. It's saying to Americans, at least put yourself on the other side, the Vietnamese s...
Apr 16, 2024•10 min
What are the stories we tell ourselves to justify our actions in times of war? How can the arts convey complexity and foster understanding? Don McKellar is a highly accomplished writer, director, and actor. He has written films including Roadkill, Highway 61, Dance Me Outside, The Red Violin, and Blindness. He won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for his directorial debut, Last Night, which he also wrote and starred in. He is an eight-time Genie Award nominee and a two-ti...
Apr 15, 2024•39 min
"You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance." "Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beau...
Apr 12, 2024•11 min
What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness? Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executiv...
Apr 12, 2024•39 min
"The Judeo-Christian idea is of Adam in the Garden of Eden, where he's given dominion over all things on the Earth, including plants and animals, and he is in a superior position, and the living world is subordinate to him. And you have this idea of a kind of divine approval for this hierarchy. Then, in the 17th century, Descartes comes along, and he takes the idea from Aristotle that what humans have is the capacity to reason, and they have the capacity to speak. And that is what fundamentally ...
Apr 02, 2024•12 min
How has tourism and writing about travel contributed to the ecological degradation of the planet?How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more-than-human world? Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College D...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr
"I think it's really a crossroads between knowledge and wisdom. And I think that wisdom for me is so connected to nature and the information that we get from nature. We ultimately are part of the natural world. And the knowledge of knowing things and facts and these kinds of bits of information doesn't necessarily mean that we are going in the right direction that we know things. In this space, a lot of wisdom is being lost... About being connected to an earlier time. I feel that that's true. La...
Mar 29, 2024•10 min
What will happen when Artificial General Intelligence arrives? What is the nature of consciousness? How are music and creativity pathways for reconnecting us to our humanity and the natural world? Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration...
Mar 28, 2024•51 min
" " That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations . There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment. The habits of deep reading are themselves the most tangible expression of th...
Mar 26, 2024•12 min
What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good? Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford...
Mar 26, 2024•43 min
"The other big hard problem in philosophy is time. And I felt, you know, who better to lead me in this exploration than turtles, who live in some cases for centuries, who've been around...they arose with dinosaurs, yet they survived the asteroid impact. They are the embodiment of patience and wisdom. It's wonderful having an animal recognize you and be interested in you really acknowledges the animal in me. And that's the oldest, most sacred part of me, as far as I'm concerned." Author Sy Montgo...
Mar 21, 2024•15 min
What can turtles teach us about time, patience, and wisdom? What can we learn about the mysteries of consciousness by observing animals? How can we open our senses and embrace the interconnectedness of all life on Earth? Author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson are naturalists, adventurers, and creative collaborators. Montgomery has published over thirty acclaimed nonfiction books for adults and children and received numerous honors, including lifetime achievement awards from the Huma...
Mar 21, 2024•40 min
"The point of life is to be happy, and the way to be happy is to be a success. – It's horseshit. This is not the point of life. It's a lie. The second part is, you must be willing to fail. Not, oh, I'm going to tolerate a little bit of it. I am going to totally fail at this, but I'm still going to do it anyway." Andre Dubus III’s nine books include the New York Times’ bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. His work has been included in The Best Americ...
Mar 19, 2024•13 min
What can reading teach us about loss, healing, and survival? How can we transform anger into empathy? What can we learn from the creative act about turning personal setbacks into opportunities for self-discovery and growth? Andre Dubus III’s nine books include the New York Times’ bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. His work has been included in The Best American Essays and The Best Spiritual Writing anthologies. His novel, House of Sand and Fog was...
Mar 19, 2024•55 min
"You have the brain, and you have the heart, and you cannot feed only the brain without feeding the heart. So feeding the heart means creating authentic relations between people and educating children to have compassion, empathy, and respect for others, nature, animals, and other human beings. I'm a bit afraid that today we feed only the brain and not the heart. And when we want to put these Neuralink implants in the brain, we forget that there is the heart where maybe we should also work a litt...
Mar 14, 2024•11 min
What is the future of green aviation? How do we share environmental solutions to unite people and change the climate narrative from sacrifice and fear to enthusiasm and hope? Bertrand Piccard is a notable Swiss environmentalist, explorer, author, and psychiatrist. His ventures include being the first to travel around the world in a non-stop balloon flight and years later in a solar-powered airplane. He is regarded as a pioneer in clean technology. Piccard is also the founder of the Solar Impulse...
Mar 14, 2024•55 min
"As long as your children believe your traditions are a good way to be human on Earth, they will continue to be like you. And your society and your civilization will continue. But the moment they see a better and more efficient way to do things, they will no longer believe in your ways, and your traditions will collapse in a whisper. I think what is very, very important for the young generations - because they hear every day and everywhere that this is the end of our world because of many things...
Mar 12, 2024•14 min
Who were the Neanderthals? And what can our discoveries about them teach us about intelligence, our extractivist relationship to the planet, and what it means to be human? Ludovic Slimak is a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toulouse in France and Director of the Grotte Mandrin research project. His work focuses on the last Neanderthal societies, and he is the author of several hundred scientific studies on these populations. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, the New Yor...
Mar 12, 2024•57 min
"I started as a scholar of English literature in particular. And then I realized I didn't like boundaries. I've always tried to explore other domains and areas of knowledge. So I moved on to the relationship between literature and science because what has always fascinated me is how science is written, circulated, and understood and how science is popularized and narrativized. The Role of Utopian Studies in Sustainability led me straight to sustainability and to envision possible future societie...
Mar 09, 2024•12 min
How can we create positive change? What does it mean to have an ecological mind? How can interdisciplinary collaborations help us move beyond educational silos and create sustainable futures? Paola Spinozzi is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ferrara and currently serves as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation. She is the coordinator of the PhD Programme in Environmental Sustainability and Wellbeing and the co-coordinator of Routes towards Sustainability. Her research...
Mar 09, 2024•42 min
How would the life of Jesus be told through the eyes of his mother? How can literature help us understand history and the nature of identity? Maciej Hen was born in 1955 in Warsaw. He graduated from the Cinematography Department at the Film School in Łódź. For years he has been trying his hand at diverse activities, from music to all fields of journalism and television lighting design. As a prose writer, Hen has published four novels so far: Według niej (2004, DUE; the English translation, Accor...
Mar 05, 2024•38 min
"My favorite teacher was in second grade. I had a teacher named Mrs. Abo who let me write all my homework assignments in rhyme. And it was like such a simple thing. I asked her if I could write all my homework assignments in rhyme. And she said, "Absolutely!" And she gave me permission to be wildly creative while still doing my work. And little moments like that can really change a kid's life. And I lobbied with this group called the Creative Coalition. We went and lobbied in DC to really fight ...
Mar 01, 2024•14 min
How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world? From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She p...
Mar 01, 2024•50 min
