City Arts & Lectures

Author and cultural critic Jeff Chang's new book is “Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America”.  The world’s most celebrated martial artist and one of the best-known action stars ever, Bruce Lee is a global icon.  Born in San Francisco in 1940, Lee spent his childhood in war-ravaged Hong Kong, where he began his acting career in its emerging film industry.  When he returned to the US at the age of 18, Lee studied philosophy and drama, and taught martial arts to major Hollywood actors before becoming a star himself.  On September 25, 2025, Jeff Chang talked to journalist, podcaster, and educator Shereen Marisol Meraji about his biography of Bruce Lee and his role in Asian American culture. 

This week, the story behind one of the country’s premier dining destinations, Russ & Daughters.  What began as a pushcart in 1904 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side is now an internationally-renowned retail operation, with three shops, a restaurant, and a mail-order business that delivers traditional Jewish foods nationwide.  Russ & Daughters’ specialty is “appetizing” – smoked and cured salmon, pickled herring, bagels, cream cheese, and more.  Running the business today are Josh Russ Tupper and Niki Russ Federman, fourth-generation torchbearers of their family’s legacy.  On September 5, 2025, they visited the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to writer Rebecca Handler, about growing up in the family business and what it takes to keep it alive, and their new cookbook “Russ & Daughters, 100 Years of Appetizing”. 

Arundhati Roy’s internationally best-selling novels include The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.  Her nonfiction works engage elegantly and passionately with class and power, among other issues.  Roy’s new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, examines her childhood in Kerala, India, and a mother whose commitment to justice and education made her a powerful force in the community – but whose volatility made for a challenging family life that included emotional abuse. On September 19, 2025, Arundhati Roy came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to read from her memoir and hold an on-stage conversation with journalist Deepa Fernandes. 

Our guest today is Bill McKibben, an activist and author at the forefront of the movement to address the climate crisis, even as far back as 1989, in his book “The End of Nature.” A legendary leader in the environmental movement, he’s the founder of 350.org, the first global climate change campaign, and Third Act, a group that mobilizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. On September 15, 2025, McKibben came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to journalist and author Lauren Markham, about his new book, Here Comes the Sun. In it, McKibben offers solar solutions to some of the biggest impacts of climate change. 

Our guest today is Samin Nosrat, chef, cookbook author, and television host. Along with her immense technical know-how, Nosrat is known for her nurturing and humorous approach to making food. Her first book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, is a guide to the basic principles of cooking, later adapted into a Netflix series. Her new book is Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love.On September 13, 2025, Nosrat came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Hrishikesh Hirway, creator of the Song Exploder podcast, and the co-host of Home Cooking, a podcast he and Nosrat began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and continue today.

Our guest today is Mary Roach, a science writer who’s often drawn to taboo, or simply squeamish subjects, like sex, cadavers, or the digestive process. In books like Stiff, Bonk, Gulp, and Packing For Mars, Roach teaches her readers about the human body as well as basic – and not so basic – scientific concepts. It’s science through storytelling – and humor. On July 28, 2025. Roach came to KQED’s studios in San Francisco to talk about her new book, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, with journalist Alexis Madrigal, the co-host of KQED’s Forum.

We’re going back into the archives for a conversation with theoretical physicist Brian Greene, recorded in 2017. Greene is widely recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of super string theory, and he’s a rarity in the scientific world – famous outside of academia, thanks to his ability to make some of physics’ most complex concepts — including Quantum Mechanics and supersymmetry — understandable to non-scientists. His best-selling books include “The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos” and “The Elegant Universe.”  On February 23, 2017, Greene came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to talk to Alexis Madrigal, a journalist and author who’s now co-host of KQED’s Forum. 

This week…. An encore of our 2019 program with Jeff Tweedy, founding member of the band Wilco, in conversation with writer George Saunders. It’s been over thirty years since Wilco formed. The seminal alt-country band still performs together while Tweedy contributes to other projects too, recording solo albums and behind the scenes as a producer and songwriter for the iconic soul and gospel singer Mavis Staples. He’s also the author of several books, including the memoir Let’s Go, So We Can Get Back.On January 11, 2019, Tweedy came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with the writer George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo. 

This is an encore presentation of a 2022 broadcast.  Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist who gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released numerous albums and books including her seminal record Horses, hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time; Just Kids, a beautifully crafted love letter to her lifelong friend, the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; and M Train, a collection of essays about memory, loss, and the simple pleasures of everyday life. Her new book, A Book of Days, is an intimate view into Smith’s life, particularly as it played out during the pandemic, and it features over 365 of her own photographs. The brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book features a year’s worth of images and reflections that chart Smith’s singular aesthetic—inspired by her wildly popular Instagram. Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.  On November 28, 2022, Patti Smith came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with novelist Michael Chabon.

This week…. An encore of our 2016 conversation with legendary musician Paul Simon.  Paul Simon first gained prominence in the 1960s as one-half of duo Simon and Garfunkel. Their hits included The Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson, and songs from their fifth and final album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. Simon expanded his music beyond traditional American folk rock in a highly successful solo career that included platinum selling albums like Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints. He was twice inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.On June 6, 2016, Simon came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to writer Dave Eggers about his painstaking process, in which he has sometimes taken more than two years to finish a single song -  and about the physics of sound. At the time this program was recorded, Simon was touring and had just performed two concerts at Berkeley’s Greek Theater.  In 2018, he announced he was retiring from public performance, in part because of hearing issues. but in 2025, at the age of 83, he returned to the stage with “A Quiet Celebration Tour”.  

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.

Robert 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. 

This 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.

Alejandro 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.

Eve 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.

We’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.

A 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.

Shoshana von Blanckensee is a novelist whose debut work, Girls Girls Girls, explores coming of age, queer identity, and San Francisco in the 1990s. It follows Hannah, a young queer Jewish woman, as she embarks on a cross-country journey with her high school girlfriend - in search of acceptance and a vibrant queer community.On June 13, 2025, Shoshana von Blanckensee 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.

Shelley Sella is a board-certified OB-GYN who recently retired after decades as an abortion provider. Her book, Beyond Limits: Stories of the Third-Trimester Abortion Care, looks at one of the most highly politicized areas of medicine, upending many common myths about abortion care and the women who seek it.  On May 21, 2025, Sella came to KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Gretchen Sisson,  a sociologist and the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption. 

In 2017, 37-year-old Jacinda Ardern was elected the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, becoming the country’s youngest Prime Minister in more than 150 years and the youngest woman to serve as head of government anywhere in the world.  She was first elected to Parliament in 2008 and left as Prime Minister in 2023. Her tenure as Prime Minister coincided with a tumultuous time in New Zealand, including a mass shooting, a volcanic eruption, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In her new memoir, A Different Kind of Power, Ardern describes how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be - caring, empathetic, and effective.On June 9, 2025, The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans.