Why do humans sleep? What is sleep’s evolutionary basis? And what is really going on while we sleep? This week, we broadcast a conversation with cognitive neuroscientist Matthew Walker, talking to Indre Viskontas, originally recorded in 2015. Walker is an expert in sleep science, and his research reveals that every tissue in the body and every process within the brain is enhanced as we sleep – and impaired when we’re not sleeping enough. His research also examines the effects of stress, medicati...
Feb 21, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Carl Hart is a neuroscientist and psychologist at Columbia University whose research focuses on the effects of psychoactive drugs on the brain. He’ll talk about his positions on recreational drug use, which continue to spark controversy and are often at odds with others in his field. Hart’s latest book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue that the criminalization and demonization of drug use, rathe...
Feb 07, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, a conversation with filmmaker Cheryl Dunye. Dunye first emerged in the 1990’s as part of the “Queer New Wave”, and much of her work explores questions of race and gender, using her own experience as a lens. Her debut feature film, “The Watermelon Woman”, is now considered a classic of queer cinema, and her style – a mixture of documentary aesthetic and fictive elements – has earned the term “Dunyementary”. Her films, including a collection of her documentary shorts, were recently adde...
Jan 31, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve long admired Gabriel Byrne for his nuanced performances in films like The Usual Suspects, Miller’s Crossing, and Dead Man, and the television series In Treatment, for which he won a Golden Globe. Byrne’s thoughtful, understated acting style is reflected in his writing. His new memoir, Walking with Ghosts, far from a celebrity tell-all, is an exquisite portrait of an Irish childhood and a remarkable journey to Hollywood and Broadway success. The book follows Byrne from his childhood in the ...
Jan 24, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, a conversation with two veteran political opinion researchers about the future of polling. They’ll explore to what extent election outcomes can accurately be anticipated. Many believe the predictions before our last two presidential elections were misleading. How much validity is there to that belief? And can polling evolve to better serve us? We’ll hear from Peter Hart and Neil Newhouse, two veteran pollsters from different ends of the political spectrum.
Jan 17, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we are presenting an encore of a 2017 conversation with Dr. Robert Sapolsky. Sapolsky is a primatologist and neurologist with a unique gift for storytelling. Oliver Sacks called him “one of the best scientist-writers of our time”. Sapolsky has spent decades studying primate behavior. One of his most consuming fascinations is how humans are both the most violent species on earth – as well as the most altruistic, cooperative, and empathetic. That paradox, and the factors behind it, are ...
Jan 10, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, a conversation with two of the creators of Ear Hustle, the first podcast created and produced in prison. The show features stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it. Ear Hustle was launched in 2017; at the time, Earlonne Woods was an inmate at San Quentin. His sentence was commuted in 2020. Now, Woods co-hosts the podcast from outside the prison walls, along with Nigel Poor, a well-respected photographer whose work t...
Dec 27, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Thomas Keller is the first and only American chef to have two Michelin Guide three-star-rated restaurants, The French Laundry and per se, both of which continue to rank among the best restaurants in America and the world. He is also the author of The French Laundry Cookbook, Bouchon, Under Pressure, Ad Hoc at Home, Bouchon Bakery, and his new book The French Laundry, Per Se. On October 26, 2020, Keller spoke with food journalist Amanda Hesser, co-founder and CEO of Food52. They discussed diversi...
Dec 20, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the past year, journalists have been out in the streets covering racial reckoning and protest. Inside newsrooms – which are overwhelmingly white – media organizations are beginning to confront inequity in their own ranks. When journalism is mostly led by a privileged class of white men, what does that mean for the kinds of stories that get covered, missed, or undervalued? On November 20, 2020, in a co-production with the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley,...
Dec 13, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from the previous three years, discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Dec 06, 2020•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from the previous three years discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Crosstalk is produced by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo.
Nov 30, 2020•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our guests are a chef and a scientist who are tackling climate change through creating sustainable food. Pat Brown is a biochemist and founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming. Traci Des Jardins is the chef-owner of several restaurants, from fine dining to casual eateries. She was one of the first chefs to put the Impossible Burger on her menu and ...
Nov 22, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our guest is chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi, whose best-selling cookbooks have earned him a cult following among home chefs around the world. Born in Israel, Ottolenghi now lives in London where he operates six restaurants and delis. On October 15, 2020, Ottolenghi spoke to Isabel Duffy from his test kitchen in London. The two discussed his latest book, “Ottolenghi Flavor”, which includes more than 100 plant-based recipes, and how the chef is feeding his own family during the pandemic....
Nov 15, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we’re broadcasting a conversation with Alicia Garza and Megan Rapinoe, recorded four days before the presidential election. Alicia Garza is an activist and writer. In 2013, she posted a Facebook response to the murder of Trayvon Martin in which she used the hashtag “Black Lives Matter”, and it sparked a major social movement. Garza has now written a book, “The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart”. Megan Rapinoe is a soccer player, two-time World Cup champion and ...
Nov 08, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, a conversation with Bruce Springsteen, originally recorded in 2016. The legendary rock star, referred to by his countless fans as “The Boss”, had just published his autobiography, Born to Run. It took Springsteen seven years to write the memoir, covering everything from his childhood and early days performing to his fear of failure and his ambivalence about success. Bruce Springsteen came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on October 5, 2016, to talk about his life in ro...
Nov 01, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, disability activist Alice Wong talks with comedian and journalist W. Kamau Bell. Wong is founding director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating and amplifying disability media and culture. She has edited an anthology of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers to mark the 35th anniversary of the ADA, “Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century”. On October 19, 2020, Alice Wong talked about the book with ...
Oct 25, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Chanel Miller was just twenty-seven years old when she published her memoir, Know My Name, the book recounts her experience as the victim of sexual assault. It’s a keen examination of gender, power, and the failures of our criminal justice system. It’s also exquisitely written. Among the book’s many fans is her interviewer for this program, Jia Tolentino, a contributor at the New Yorker and the author of Trick Mirror. On October 15, 2020, they discussed the challenges of becoming a public figure...
Oct 18, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, a conversation with poet and essayist Claudia Rankine. Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric and four previous books, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. Her newest book, Just Us: an American Conversation, weaves together essays, poems, and images. Some of its most memorable scenes are those where Rankine examines the moments of discomfort between herself and those around her, urging us to begin discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and seemingly stuck...
Oct 11, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, a conversation with novelist Yaa Gyasi. Gyasi was just 26 years old when her debut, Homegoing, was published. It spans eight generations, tracing the lives of two half-sisters and their descendants from eighteenth-century Ghana to present-day America. The book garnered major critical acclaim and praise from fellow authors like Zadie Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Four years later, Gyasi has written another powerful work, Transcendent Kingdom. The protagonist, Gifty, is a doctoral candida...
Oct 04, 2020•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard University and also a staff writer at The New Yorker. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, her many books include the international bestseller These Truths and This America. Her latest book, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, is a revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, unearthing from archives the shocking story of a long-vanished corporation, and of the wome...
Sep 27, 2020•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we present an encore of a 2014 conversation on the neuroscience of music and creativity with Dr. Indre Viskontas, a cognitive scientist and opera singer. Viskontas has published groundbreaking work on the neural basis of memory and creativity. She is the author of "How Music Can Make You Better" and co-host of the podcasts "Inquiring Minds" and "Cadence". Viskontas came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco in May of 2014 to speak with Dr. Kelly McGonigall about music's eff...
Sep 06, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast From the City Arts & Lectures archives, a conversation with Trevor Noah originally recorded November 21, 2016…. just following Donald Trump’s election. Noah is the host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” He first joined the show as a contributor in 2014 and succeeded Jon Stewart as host in 2015. Trevor Noah spoke in 2016 with Laurene Powell Jobs, the founder and president of Emerson Collective, an organization that supports social entrepreneurs, about growing up the son of a black South A...
Aug 30, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast From the City Arts & Lectures archives, a conversation with Whoopi Goldberg, originally recorded in 1987, just after Goldberg’s explosive performance in the film adaptation of The Color Purple. Even before Goldberg achieved celebrity status and critical acclaim, she never shied away from voicing her incisive and irreverent perspectives on race, sexism, the film industry, and American politics. In fact, many of the causes she discussed in 1987 with Mary Lou Manalli, a reporter for KGO radio i...
Aug 23, 2020•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our guests this week is Jeffrey Toobin, whose latest book is “True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump”. How is it that so many close associates of President Trump have been convicted of federal crimes – some, like his campaign chair and personal lawyer, even going to jail – yet Trump himself has survived to run for reelection. Toobin is a staff writer for the New Yorker, and the author of numerous best-selling books. On August 6, 2020, he talked to Preet Bharara, former U...
Aug 16, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast For 30 years, renowned Buddhist thinker Jarvis Jay Masters has lived on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison. His spiritual practice has helped him deal with violent and difficult experiences in prison, inspiring Masters to teach meditation to many of his fellow inmates. In his new book, The Buddhist on Death Row, David Sheff explores Masters’ gradual transformation from a man consumed by violence to one who has helped those around him find meaning and peace in their lives. On June 11, 2020, Ja...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Maria Bamford uses comedy to confront her lifelong struggles with OCD, bipolar disorder, and suicidal thoughts. She is the star of “Lady Dynamite”, a surrealist series based on her life, as well as several comedy specials. Bamford’s deeply personal comedy goes well beyond self-deprecation, using genuine vulnerability to examine mental health issues rarely discussed. On November 15, 1999, Maria Bamford came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Cara Rose DeFabio....
Aug 02, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Steve Kerr, head coach for the Golden State Warriors, is one of the most important figures in basketball today. A former NBA championship player, Kerr was named head coach of the Warriors in 2014, leading the team to win three championships in four seasons and set a new record for most wins in a season. Kerr is also an activist, who uses his platform to talk about politics and human rights issues like Middle East policy, national-anthem protests, and gun control. On February 26, 2020, Steve Kerr...
Jul 26, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast One of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time, Charlie Kaufman is best known for movies like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His unique style, sometimes labeled surrealist, features characters that reflect back on themselves, stories within stories that blur the boundaries between dream and event. Now, with his debut novel “Antkind”, Kaufman continues to explore the absurd – and often lonely – nature of human consciousness. On June 15, 2020, Charlie Kaufman spo...
Jul 19, 2020•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast How might substances like LSD, psilocybins, and other hallucinogens provide relief to people suffering from conditions such as depression, addiction, and anorexia? Robin Carhart-Harris is a neuroscientist and head of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research, which builds on over a decade of pioneering work including a clinical trial that has kickstarted global efforts to develop psilocybin therapy into a licensed treatment for depression. On June 29, 2020, Dr. Carhart-Harris spoke with Dr. M...
Jul 12, 2020•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to The New Yorker , covering Silicon Valley, startup culture, and technology. In her mid-twenties,as the tech industry was rapidly transforming into a locus of wealth andpower, Wiener left a job in book publishing to join the startup workforce. Part memoir, part cultural analysis, her book Uncanny Valley , reflects on the absurdities, excesses, and aspirations of the startup world. It’s also a coming-of-age story, with Wiener charting her own disillusionment ...
Jul 05, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
