City Arts & Lectures

Across his life, Richard Powers has been driven by an insatiable curiosity for humans and the world around us. This has led him from budding scientist to award-winning author, from Bangkok to the Netherlands, and has helped him win a Pulitzer Prize and a Macarthur Genius Grant. Powers is best known for his novels, including The Gold Bug Variations, named a Time Book of the Year, The Echo Maker, which received a National Book Award, and The Overstory, which received a Pulitzer Prize. Powers’ fourteenth novel, Playground delves into the lives of artists, scientists, and teachers who choose to start seastedding, living on floating cities. On October 30, 2024, Richard Powers came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with fellow novelist Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future.

Spoken word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph and dancer Wendy Whelan discuss their remarkable new hybrid performance piece “Carnival of the Animals”, which addresses, among other things, the siege of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, through the lens of Camille Saint-Saens’ 1886 musical composition.  

Marc Bamuthi Joseph conceived and wrote the piece, and performs the spoken word portions, and Wendy Whelan performs the dance portions, which are choreographed by Francesca Harper.  

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is the vice president and artistic director for social impact of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.  He was formerly chief of programs and pedagogy at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.  Wendy Whelan is a longtime dancer and now the associate artistic director with New York City Ballet.  They have performed “Carnival of the Animals” in several locations around the US, and will bring the production to New York City in March 2025. 

On October 28, 2024, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Wendy Whelan spoke with critic and author Steven Winn at the studios of KQED in San Francisco. 

 Our guest today is Ta-Nehisi Coates, an outspoken voice on issues of race and racism.  Coates was catapulted to fame after the publication of his book-length essay “Between the World and Me”.  His new book, “The Message”, features essays that intertwine his first trip to Africa, the banning of his books in South Carolina, and his experiences traveling to Palestine.  On October 23, 2024, Coates came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund, an organization committed to equal justice for all inhabitants of Israel. 

Since the publication of his first book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell has garnered influence and fame through his fascinating analyses of our world. The New York Times Book Review wrote that “in the vast world of nonfiction writing, Malcolm Gladwell is as close to a singular talent as exists today.” A Guggenheim fellow, and a finalist for both the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle award, Gladwell’s books reveal his endless interests and insights, from the influence of our unconscious on our decisions, to what lies behind the rise and fall of everything from crime to epidemics. Gladwell’s writings made him a New York Times bestseller for five books, and created the term “Gladwellian perspective” to describe the numerous authors, and people, who are influenced by Gladwell In the fall of 2024, Gladwell returns to the ideas of his debut book, and his following rapid rise to fame, in Revenge of the Tipping Point. With two decades of experience as an author, public figure, and widely known thinker, Gladwell brings a new and intimate eye to his classic text.  On October 13, 2024, Malcolm Gladwell came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Caterina Fake. 

Our guest today is Judge David S. Tatel.  A former civil rights attorney, Judge Tatel has served for nearly 30 years on America’s second-highest court, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  It’s where many of American jurisprudence’s most crucial cases are resolved – or teed up for the US Supreme Court.  Tatel has presided over some of the most important trials in recent decades, adjudicating on major issues like the First Amendment, voting rights, and the environment.  David Tatel has been blind for the last 50 of his 80-plus years.  On September 16, 2024, Judge David Tatel spoke with Gretchen Sisson about his new book “Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice”.  He began their conversation by talking about how his father’s profession as a scientist, laid the foundations for his career in the law.