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.

Dr. Raj Shah and Jo-Anne McArthur

Since 1980, City Arts &amp; Lectures has presented onstage conversations with outstanding figures in literature, politics, criticism, science, and the performing arts, offering the most diverse perspectives about ideas and values. City Arts &amp; Lectures programs can be heard on more than 130 public radio stations across the country and wherever you get your podcasts. The broadcasts are co-produced with KQED 88.5 FM in San Francisco. Visit CITYARTS.NET for more info. 

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Beloved for her enchanting, lyrical writing, Anne Lamott takes on the most complex, intimate parts of life with grace and precision. Lamott’s novels and memoirs have be awarded some of the most sought-after literary prizes, and her collection of essays on writing, Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, has become required reading for all authors. Her new book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love, delves into the struggles of love with her trademark honesty and humor, finding the transformative power of intimate relationships. Lamott’s faith and candor, perfected across her long career in literature, are on display as she discusses finding love late in life, the changing ways we love our children, and the ways love can keep us going in a painful world.  On April 13, 2024, Anne Lamott came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Barbara Lane, the book columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and the current director of events at Copperfield Books.

Anne Lamott

Since his 2016 debut poetry collection The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing has earned him numerous accolades as a poet, essayist, and music critic. Easily moving from emotionally riveting examinations of Black identities to academic explorations of punk scenes to analyses of contemporary popular artists, Abdurraqib’s work is full of uninhibited curiosity, revolutionary honesty, and a singular intelligence. His first essay collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a best book of 2017 by NPR, Pitchfork, the Los Angeles Review, and Esquire. His new memoir, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, traces his relationship with basketball while uncovering how we decide who is deserving of success.

On April 3, 2024, Hanif Abdurraqib came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Shereen Marisol Meraji.  Meraji is a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, and a founder of NPR’s award-winning podcast Code Switch.

Hanif Abdurraqib

Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University and the principal investigator at The Eviction Lab, a research group that published the first-ever dataset of evictions in America, going back to 2000.  His Pulitzer-Prize-winner book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City quickly made Desmond one of America’s most important thinkers and activists. His new book, Poverty, By America, broadens the scope of his research, demonstrating how wealthy Americans keep poor people poor. On March 27, 2024, Matthew Desmond came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Bernice Yeung, the managing editor of Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. Her first book, In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.

Matthew Desmond

Our guest today is Angela Davis, one of the world’s most important voices for justice. The philosopher and activist came to prominence in the 1960s. Six decades later, Davis is still on the front lines fighting for equality and freedom on a range of issues from prison abolition to racial justice to gender rights. On March 20, 2024, the iconic activist and scholar came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about her new book "Abolition, Volume 1" with Hilton Als, New Yorker staff writer and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Angela Davis

Our guest today is award-winning novelist Tommy Orange. Orange’s debut novel, There There, centered on a Native American experience that is less commonly featured in US literature - the lives of urban Native Americans. It was one of 2019’s most critically acclaimed books, and now, he’s written a followup. It’s called Wandering Stars. This new book features many of the same characters, while tracing the traumatic legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and government-run boarding schools, like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. On February 27th, 2024, Orange came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to author Dave Eggers. Hundreds of students and teachers attended - and among other things, Orange talked about what it’s like to have his book as assigned reading in schools.

Dr. Raj Shah and Jo-Anne McArthur

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