Podcast
City Arts & Lectures
Hosted by City Arts & Lectures · EN
Since 1980, City Arts & 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 & 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.
53episodes
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Encore - Charlie Kaufman
Jan 2501:00:30Tap to summarizeThis week, we’re returning to a conversation with Charlie Kaufman, recorded in 2020. Kaufman is the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind some of the most inventive films of recent years, including “Adaptation”, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, and “Being John Malkovich”. He’s also directed films including “Synecdoche, New York”. His work often explores human memory and consciousness, with a style frequently described as surreal. At the time of this conversation in 2020, Kaufman had just published his debut novel “Antkind”. On July 13, 2020, Charlie Kaufman discussed the book and his films with Andrew Sean Greer, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his comic novel “Less”.
Transcribe →Carmen Maria Machado on "I Who Have Never Known Men"
Jan 1801:09:34Tap to summarizeWriter Carmen Maria Machado discusses “I Who Have Never Known Men”, a 1995 novel by Jacqueline Harpman that was republished in 2022 to great acclaim. It’s a work of speculative dystopian fiction about a group of women who are apparently the only survivors of a global catastrophe. Machado wrote the introduction for the new edition, and on December 12, 2025, she came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with KQED’s Alexis Madrigal about the book and its connections to her own work.
Transcribe →A Celebration of Eleanor Coppola, featuring Sofia Coppola
Jan 1800:49:20Tap to summarizeEleanor Coppola (1936 – 2024) was a conceptual artist and documentary filmmaker. She met her husband, Francis Coppola, in 1962, when she worked as Assistant Art Director on his first feature. Dementia 13. Eleanor went on to make several behind-the-scenes documentaries for films directed by her family. Her books include Notes: On the making of Apocalypse Now and Notes on A Life. At the age of 80, Eleanor directed her first feature film, Paris Can Wait. Eleanor Coppola’s final memoir, Two of Me: Notes on Loving and Leaving, was published posthumously in November of 2025. On December 5, 2025, Eleanor Coppola’s daughter, director Sofia Coppola, came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to read from and discuss her mother’s work. She was joined by two friends of Eleanor’s who edited her memoir, radio producer Davia Nelson and writer Vendela Vida.
Transcribe →Encore - Natalie Diaz and Hilton Als
Aug 10, 202501:01:30Tap to summarizeThis 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.
Transcribe →Robert Reich
Aug 3, 202501:03:54Tap to summarizeRobert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, is one of today’s leading voices addressing issues of income inequality. Reich served in three presidential administrations, and recently retired from teaching at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Policy after nearly 20 years. His classes were among the most popular on campus, and the end of his teaching career inspired the documentary “The Last Class”. Reich publishes extensively on social media and is the author of more than 20 books including his new memoir, “Coming Up Short”. On July 23, 2025, Reich spoke with Monika Bauerlein, the CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit multimedia news organization that houses Mother Jones magazine and the radio show and podcast Reveal.
Transcribe →Bruce Springsteen - Encore
Jul 27, 202501:18:06Tap to summarizeThis week, we're going into the archives for a conversation with Bruce Springsteen, recorded in 2016. The legendary rock star had just published his autobiography, Born To Run. It was later adapted into a Tony-award winning one-man-show, Springsteen on Broadway. On October 5, 2016, Springsteen came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Dan Stone about his life in rock and roll. Fans had travelled across the country for the chance to hear “The Boss” and the energy in the room was more stadium concert than book talk. The conversation still managed to be intimate and deeply personal, including Springsteen’s candid thoughts on failure and fame.
Transcribe →Alejandro Heredia
Jul 20, 202500:35:09Tap to summarizeAlejandro Heredia is an Afro-Dominican working at the intersection of literature and activism. He immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic at the age of seven. His debut novel, Loca, explores migration, identity, and the queer experience.On June 11, 2025, Heredia visited the KQED studios in San Francisco for a conversation with Poulomi Saha, an English professor and co-director of the Program in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley.
Transcribe →Eve Ewing
Jul 20, 202500:47:42Tap to summarizeEve Ewing is a professor at the University of Chicago and the author of four books including Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. It looks back on the history of America’s education system and offers a path forward by imagining public school as a public good. On July 7, 2025, Ewing spoke to Shereen Marisol Meraji, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.
Transcribe →David Mitchell and Pico Iyer - Encore
Jul 13, 202500:59:10Tap to summarizeWe’re going back into the archives for a conversation with David Mitchell, recorded in 2021. In novels like Cloud Atlas, and The Bone Clocks, Mitchell weaves together the supernatural and the natural. He’s also one of the most structurally inventive writers of our time, featuring multiple genres in a single book. On May 8, 2021, Mitchell talked to Pico Iyer, whose books include Aflame, The Art of Stillness and The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise. What transpired was a nuanced examination of creativity by two formidable writers.
Transcribe →Michael Pollan and Gul Dolen
Jul 6, 202501:11:32Tap to summarizeA conversation about the evolving world of psychedelics. While scientific breakthroughs continue to reshape our understanding of how these substances work, psychedelics are also at the center of debates about religious freedom, mystical experiences, politics, and how we treat mental health.For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His acclaimed books include How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire. Pollan co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.Gül Dölen is professor at UC Berkeley in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychology. Her research expertise and interests include behavioral and systems neuroscience, psychedelics, social behavior, evolution, synaptic plasticity, extracellular matrix, oxytocin and stroke, autism, PTSD, and addiction.Indre Viskontas is a cognitive neuroscientist with the University of San Francisco and a faculty member at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has published groundbreaking work on the neural basis of memory and creativity, and co-hosts the podcast Inquiring Minds. Her past City Arts guests include Atul Gawande and Temple Grandin.
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