City Arts & Lectures

This week, a conversation about global aid efforts, and another one about the power of art to address humans’ relationships with animals.

In the first part of the program, Dr. Raj Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, talks about his work addressing global health crises and economic challenges both within the private sector and government. It’s the topic of his new book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens. On October 25th, 2023, Shah came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Indre Viskontas.

Award-winning photographer Jo-Anne MacArthur’s work explores our complex relationship with animals. From conservation efforts to the fashion and food industry, her images show the ways in which humans impact the lives of animals.  On October 18th, 2023, MacArthur came to KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Indre Viskontas about the challenges of her work - which includes shooting in feedlots and other restricted areas. Her photos are featured in a new book: Women Photographers Expose our Planet.

Our guest this week is writer Jhumpa Lahiri. Her debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, earned Lahiri a Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Many short story collections followed, as well as novels like The Namesake, which was the basis of a 2006 film directed by Mira Nair. Lahiri now translates and produces her own work in Italian too. On October 13, 2023, Jhumpa Lahiri came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Peter Stein about her latest collection, Roman Stories - which centers around Rome, not as a setting, but as a protagonist. Translated from Italian, the stories capture Rome as both a metropolis and a monument, multi-faceted and metaphysical, suspended between past and future – and prove that Lahiri is now master of form in her adopted language.

Comedian Keegan-Michael Key is best known for his work with Jordan Peele, performing in numerous skits as half of the comedy duo “Key & Peele.” One of his most famous roles was President Obama’s anger translator, a part he played at the 2015 White House Correspondents’ Dinner with Obama himself. Now, alongside wife and collaborator Elle Key, he’s written a book – The History of Sketch Comedy.” On October 7th, 2023, the Keys came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about it with Jesse Thorn, host of the podcast “Bullseye.” The program was co-presented with SF Sketchfest.

This week, George Saunders, a wildly inventive writer with an equally colorful background: Saunders worked as a geophysical prospector in Indonesia, a roofer in Chicago, and a doorman in Beverly Hills. Saunders’ short stories are often funny and frequently take place in a slightly futuristic, dystopian America. His novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” earned him the prestigious Man Booker Prize. On October 11th, 2023, George Saunders came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with KQED’s Alexis Madrigal.

This week, Sir Patrick Stewart, best known for the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek. After a working-class childhood in Yorkshire, Stewart trained as a classical actor at England’s Royal Shakespeare Company, where he appeared on stage for more than two decades. In 1986, he was invited to star in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. No one could predict the success of the program, in fact, when Stewart traveled to California to take the role, he didn’t expect the show to last beyond than that first season. The program continued for seven years, and was followed by four films and three seasons of a sequel starring Stewart, "Star Trek: Picard". On October 8th, 2023, Stewart came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal on the occasion of the publication of his memoir “Making It So”.

It doesn’t feel so long ago that Zadie Smith exploded onto the literary scene with her stunning debut novel, “White Teeth.” Twenty-three years later, she has cemented her reputation as one of the most important voices of her generation, whether in the form of fiction, criticism, or cultural observation. Her many novels include “Swing Time” and “On Beauty” - and her new book - “The Fraud. ” It’s a work of historical fiction set in Victorian England. On September 22th, 2023, Smith came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Cathy Park Hong, poet and author of “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning.”

This week, Dr. Bettina Love… Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and author of “We Want to Do More Than Survive.”  Her writing, research, teaching, and educational advocacy focus on abolitionist teaching, antiracism, Black joy, and educational reparations. Love’s new book “Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal” is an unflinching reckoning with the impact of forty years of racist public school policy on generations of Black lives. On September 19th, 2023, Dr. Bettina Love came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to comedian, activist, and  W. Kamau Bell. You can see Bell’s new documentary, “1000% Me: Growing up Mixed.” on HBO. The evening was presented in association with San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora.  Join us now for a conversation with Dr. Bettina Love and W. Kamau Bell.

Bobby Berk is the interior designer on the hit Netflix series Queer Eye. It’s a reality makeover show in which Berk and 4 other hosts, each an expert in a different category, transform peoples homes, wardrobes, and cultural tastes. The series has won two Emmys. On September 16th, 2023, Berk came to one of the San Francisco locations of independent bookstore Books Inc., to talk to writer Rebecca Handler*,* author of the novel “Edie Richter is Not Alone.” The two discussed Berk’s role on Queer Eye, and his new book “Right at Home: How Good Design Is Good for the Mind.”

Our guest is writer, bookstore owner, and literary evangelist Ann Patchett. She’s the author of several novels including the best-selling Bel Canto, about a hostage situation at a lavish opera-themed birthday party. Patchett’s other books include The Patron Saint of Liars, and Commonwealth; and her newest novel, Tom Lake. It’s the story of three sisters in their 20s as they return home to Michigan during the pandemic, and the lives their parents lived before they were born. .On September 8th, 2023, Ann Patchett came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Steven Winn about the new book, her early experiences as a budding writer, and her book recommendations.

This week, our guest is poet Natalie Diaz in conversation with essayist and author Hilton Als.  Natalie Diaz is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community and is the director of the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program, where she works with the last remaining speakers of the Mojave language. Language and loss are explored throughout Diaz’s poetry, in collections including When My Brother Was an Aztec and Postcolonial Love Poem, which won her the Pulitzer Prize.

Hilton Als is another writer whose work explores American identity, in theater reviews, articles, and essays for The New Yorker, where he’s contributed since 1989. Als received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, “for bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context.”  His writing explores race, sexuality, class, art, and American identity provocatively, exploding the boundaries of the genre in which it is contained.  His most recent book is a memoir, My Pinup.

On February 9, 2023, Natalie Diaz and Hilton Als came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation, during which Diaz read from her work.