Education, The Creative Process: Educators, Writers, Artists, Activists Talk Teachers, Schools & Creativity (Educators, Writers, Artists, Activists Talk Teaching & Learning: Creative Process Original Series)
Explore every episode of Education, The Creative Process: Educators, Writers, Artists, Activists Talk Teachers, Schools & Creativity
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Mar 2023 | MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO - Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize - Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept. | 01:01:09 | |
Manuela Lucá-Dazio is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In this capacity, she works closely with the jury, however, she does not vote in the proceedings. She is the former Executive Director, Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, where she managed exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics to realize the International Art Exhibition and the International Architecture Exhibition, each edition since 2009. Preceding that, she was responsible for the technical organization and production of both Exhibitions, beginning in 1999. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy and lives in Paris, France. “We need to invest a lot in education. Education of the future practitioners, but also the education of future clients. And by client, I don't mean only governments or investors. I mean each one of us, we should become responsible for our demands to architects and to whoever is involved in the building process. And this is why I see so much that education is the main tool to get there because we have to educate ourselves, first of all, and prepare the future generations. And the extent to which, as you say, it's not just beauty, but bringing people together in spaces that are inspiring because it can be a radical thing. It could create societies that are more equal in terms of public spaces. And right now that's being unequally distributed. I think we have become quite disconnected. We should become more connected to rethink how to communicate and how to learn from the past. And how to use this incredible cultural heritage that we have and how to make it alive and how to translate it into our own times. We want to expand the tools. So maybe to become a little bit more open and imaginative in creating bridges between different fields of knowledge, different methods of teaching and learning, and different ways to transmit knowledge.” www.pritzkerprize.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 22 Mar 2023 | Highlights - MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO - Exec. Director of Pritzker Architecture Prize - Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept. | 00:10:15 | |
“We need to invest a lot in education. Education of the future practitioners, but also the education of future clients. And by client, I don't mean only governments or investors. I mean each one of us, we should become responsible for our demands to architects and to whoever is involved in the building process. And this is why I see so much that education is the main tool to get there because we have to educate ourselves, first of all, and prepare the future generations. And the extent to which, as you say, it's not just beauty, but bringing people together in spaces that are inspiring because it can be a radical thing. It could create societies that are more equal in terms of public spaces. And right now that's being unequally distributed. I think we have become quite disconnected. We should become more connected to rethink how to communicate and how to learn from the past. And how to use this incredible cultural heritage that we have and how to make it alive and how to translate it into our own times. We want to expand the tools. So maybe to become a little bit more open and imaginative in creating bridges between different fields of knowledge, different methods of teaching and learning, and different ways to transmit knowledge.” Manuela Lucá-Dazio is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In this capacity, she works closely with the jury, however, she does not vote in the proceedings. She is the former Executive Director, Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, where she managed exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics to realize the International Art Exhibition and the International Architecture Exhibition, each edition since 2009. Preceding that, she was responsible for the technical organization and production of both Exhibitions, beginning in 1999. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy and lives in Paris, France. www.pritzkerprize.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 20 Mar 2023 | Highlights - ARMOND COHEN - Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force | 00:10:24 | |
“If you look at universities' engineering programs, civil engineering, chemical, mechanical, and electrical, or you look at city planning departments around the world, and you open any catalog of any major university, within all those disciplines, there's going to be a major climate focus. It's like a unifying theme. So I'm seeing young people coming out of their training with a sense that their mission is within those areas, but there's no separating that in their minds from the need to control emissions on the planet and to get to a more livable climate. So, what I'm seeing is this massive amount of social energy and intellectual energy. The good thing about technology is it can move very fast. And so my advice would be if you're interested in this topic, if you have a mathematical, scientific, or business orientation, or you just like solving problems, you're that kind of person, get trained to really be part of the technological business revolution that's going on right now. Join up with companies that are doing clean energy work or work for an electric utility that's got the right commitment. If you're a policy person who doesn't like mucking around with numbers, then train yourself to understand the complexities of this and go into government or work in non-governmental organizations like mine and bring your brain to the table.” Armond Cohen is Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force, which he has led since its formation in 1996. In addition to leading CATF, Armond is directly involved in CATF research and advocacy on the topic of requirements to deeply decarbonize global energy systems. Prior to his work with CATF, Armond founded and led the Conservation Law Foundation’s Energy Project starting in 1983, focusing on energy efficiency, utility resource planning, and electric industry structure. Armond has published numerous articles on climate change, energy system transformation, and air pollution; he speaks, writes, and testifies frequently on these topics. He is a board member of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance and an honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Brown University. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 31 Mar 2023 | CHAYSE IRVIN - Cinematographer of “Blonde” starring Ana de Armas, “Beyonce: Lemonade”, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, Kahlil Joseph, The Weekend, Netflix, Charlotte Rampling | 01:14:48 | |
Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson. “I think it was Kafka who said, 'All language is but a poor translation.' I think about it a lot. I feel like what we are trying to communicate or what we're trying to say about all these things, all these feelings are going through these things are distorted or fragmented. We can never really communicate with absolute clarity what is going on. We're too limited. There's not a word for it. And I like that. I think what it is to be human is to be less than perfect. And when I watch films, and I see these scenes that sometimes make me feel sick or make me happy, they're executed with imperfections. But then all of a sudden it becomes an interpretation because you're creating it in your mind. You're projecting something from your own experiences as a human being onto the scene because you're going into memory. Those are all virtues to me. Those are all the things that make it beautiful because they are an articulation of humanness.” www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 31 Mar 2023 | Highlights - CHAYSE IRVIN - Award-winning Cinematographer - Blonde starring Ana de Armas, Beyonce: Lemonade, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman | 00:15:08 | |
“I think it was Kafka who said, 'All language is but a poor translation.' I think about it a lot. I feel like what we are trying to communicate or what we're trying to say about all these things, all these feelings are going through these things are distorted or fragmented. We can never really communicate with absolute clarity what is going on. We're too limited. There's not a word for it. And I like that. I think what it is to be human is to be less than perfect. And when I watch films, and I see these scenes that sometimes make me feel sick or make me happy, they're executed with imperfections. But then all of a sudden it becomes an interpretation because you're creating it in your mind. You're projecting something from your own experiences as a human being onto the scene because you're going into memory. Those are all virtues to me. Those are all the things that make it beautiful because they are an articulation of humanness.” Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 01 Apr 2023 | LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy and Services | 00:47:36 | |
Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver is a proud Aboriginal woman with connections to communities in southwestern New South Wales, South Australia, and beyond. She is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Strategy and Services for the University of Sydney and leads the institution's strategy to advance Indigenous participation, engagement, education, and research, including the university's One Sydney, Many People 2021-2024 strategy. She is a recognized expert and tireless advocate for health and education. Her research focuses on capacity building for healthcare workers and improved health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She serves her country in the Royal Australian Air Force Specialist Reserve as a Group Captain and is a member of the Australian Statistical Advisory Committee, the Australian Medical Council, and the Health Performance Council of South Australia. “We come from the land, and we go back to the land. Aboriginal people have been on this land for at least 60,000 years in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth and survived. And over the last 230 years, the most catastrophic events have occurred to this land because people didn't listen to ancient Aboriginal cultures and knowledge. So my question is, if people were able to look after this place for 60,000 years and thrive, what have we done to ensure that we have a healthy fit world for the next 60,000 years?” Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on Leaders, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions | |||
| 05 Apr 2023 | PIA MANCINI - Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation - YGL World Economic Forum | 00:39:52 | |
Pia Mancini is a democracy activist, political scientist, open source sustainer, co-founder & CEO at Open Collective and Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation. She has worked in politics in Argentina as the Chief of Advisers and Deputy Secretary of Political Affairs, Government of the City of Buenos Aires and CIPPEC think tank. She has developed technology for democracy around the world and is a YC Alum, Young Global Leaders (World Economic Forum). She co-founded DemocracyOS & The Net Party (Partido de la Red). “So I think this is like the same as it has been forever. This is not new. Centuries and centuries ago we had the same challenges. This all starts with how you behave. And so I think it starts there. And then I would say there are a lot of really good tooling that we can still use. If you remember, your generation has been so good at using tooling to hack and troll governments and politicians. And I am in awe. I mean, talk about hack the system. You are like the new Anonymous, and I love that. Like I am right there with you. I don't even use TikTok, but if you want me to use TikTok for something, I will. So just keep using social media to troll the trolls. I think that is a very important thing that you can do and occupy that space. And then lastly, build alternatives and support alternatives. We have distributed social media projects. We have New_ Public, which is this amazing group in the United States that is like designing public spaces and rethinking digital spaces and they're incredible. Support those projects. Support everyone who's building distributed mesh infrastructure. If there's a generation that is multiplayer, it is you guys. And so you need to play in all these different games at the same time and build the alternative while you are using whatever you have at your hands to make sure that we are pushing for our agenda. I think it's fundamental that we figure out a way of doing this. I think it's absolutely wrong and unfair that those who are about to leave this Earth are the ones making decisions for those staying on Earth. That doesn't make any sense. So, how do we do it? I am not the right person for doing policy. I'm a systems thinker, so I think about systems, but how we implement the policy for that, I don't know. I do know that philosophically we must include everyone who shares this planet with us in the decision-making process. It starts with different levels. It starts with how you react when you read something. It starts with each of us personally, how we behave and how we act on social media, and educating ourselves on misinformation and disinformation tactics to be able to see them and not be part of that hyper-reactionary movement where everything is like a disaster, or we react every time we feel like offended by everything.” www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 05 Apr 2023 | Highlights - PIA MANCINI - Co-founder/CEO, Open Collective - Chair, DemocracyEarth Foundation - YGL World Economic Forum | 00:08:35 | |
“So I think this is like the same as it has been forever. This is not new. Centuries and centuries ago we had the same challenges. This all starts with how you behave. And so I think it starts there. And then I would say there are a lot of really good tooling that we can still use. If you remember, your generation has been so good at using tooling to hack and troll governments and politicians. And I am in awe. I mean, talk about hack the system. You are like the new Anonymous, and I love that. Like I am right there with you. I don't even use TikTok, but if you want me to use TikTok for something, I will. So just keep using social media to troll the trolls. I think that is a very important thing that you can do and occupy that space. And then lastly, build alternatives and support alternatives. We have distributed social media projects. We have New_ Public, which is this amazing group in the United States that is like designing public spaces and rethinking digital spaces and they're incredible. Support those projects. Support everyone who's building distributed mesh infrastructure. If there's a generation that is multiplayer, it is you guys. And so you need to play in all these different games at the same time and build the alternative while you are using whatever you have at your hands to make sure that we are pushing for our agenda. I think it's fundamental that we figure out a way of doing this. I think it's absolutely wrong and unfair that those who are about to leave this Earth are the ones making decisions for those staying on Earth. That doesn't make any sense. So, how do we do it? I am not the right person for doing policy. I'm a systems thinker, so I think about systems, but how we implement the policy for that, I don't know. I do know that philosophically we must include everyone who shares this planet with us in the decision-making process. It starts with different levels. It starts with how you react when you read something. It starts with each of us personally, how we behave and how we act on social media, and educating ourselves on misinformation and disinformation tactics to be able to see them and not be part of that hyper-reactionary movement where everything is like a disaster, or we react every time we feel like offended by everything.” Pia Mancini is a democracy activist, political scientist, open source sustainer, co-founder & CEO at Open Collective and Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation. She has worked in politics in Argentina as the Chief of Advisers and Deputy Secretary of Political Affairs, Government of the City of Buenos Aires and CIPPEC think tank. She has developed technology for democracy around the world and is a YC Alum, Young Global Leaders (World Economic Forum). She co-founded DemocracyOS & The Net Party (Partido de la Red). www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 06 Apr 2023 | MICHAEL BEGLER - Showrunner of PERRY MASON starring Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Shea Whigham, Hope Davis (Copy) | 00:37:51 | |
Michael Begler is showrunner, writer, and executive producer of Perry Mason, which debuted as HBO’s most-watched series in nearly two years upon its premiere in June 2020. The critically-acclaimed show stars Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Katherine Waterston, Hope Davis. In the second season of the Emmy-nominated series, the scion of a powerful oil family is brutally murdered. Power, social justice, immigration, LGBTQ rights, and what it truly means to be guilty, are among the issues raised by the series. “The best example for me were my parents for sure. There are certain things that they instilled in me from a young age that I carry with me as a writer and as a grown man. I think a sense of humility, a sense of patience, and a sense of humor are so important. I think that looking at everyone and having the patience to listen to who they are and what their circumstances are and then not take yourself too seriously. That you have to give yourself a chance to breathe and all that sort of helped inform the person that I feel I am today.” www.imdb.com/title/tt2077823 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 06 Apr 2023 | Highlights - MICHAEL BEGLER - Showrunner of PERRY MASON starring Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance - THE KNICK starring Clive Owen, dir. Steven Soderbergh | 00:11:17 | |
“The best example for me were my parents for sure. There are certain things that they instilled in me from a young age that I carry with me as a writer and as a grown man. I think a sense of humility, a sense of patience, and a sense of humor are so important. I think that looking at everyone and having the patience to listen to who they are and what their circumstances are and then not take yourself too seriously. That you have to give yourself a chance to breathe and all that sort of helped inform the person that I feel I am today.” Michael Begler is showrunner, writer, and executive producer of Perry Mason, which debuted as HBO’s most-watched series in nearly two years upon its premiere in June 2020. The critically-acclaimed show stars Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Katherine Waterston, Hope Davis. In the second season of the Emmy-nominated series, the scion of a powerful oil family is brutally murdered. Power, social justice, immigration, LGBTQ rights, and what it truly means to be guilty, are among the issues raised by the series. www.imdb.com/title/tt2077823 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 07 Apr 2023 | CHRISTOPHER J. GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer | 00:51:07 | |
Christopher J. Gervais is an award winning producer. His animated film Dream won a 2017 Golden Lion for film and a Silver Lion for music at the 64th Annual International Festival of Creativity. He is environmental and marine scientist and has decades of experience in field work and research with multiple academic institutions and natural history museums. A former science and social studies teacher, later an administrator, he became the youngest principal of a public school in the state of Florida. While a graduate student, Christopher conducted fieldwork and research to study the Pleistocene Mega fauna and their fossils that were deposited over 10,000 years ago. His study of these extinct species informs his concerns for preserving biodiversity and was a significant factor in the founding of the WCFF. Christopher was one of the first scientists to conduct underwater vertebrate paleontology research. He is a professional, advanced scuba diver with NAUI, PADI, SSI and NASDS with over 2,500 logged dives. Christopher founded the WCFF in 2010 using his life savings to get the organization off the ground and has maintained the operations since then. He is a philanthropic supporter of conservation organizations across the globe. Christopher is President of the International Exploration Society, Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, member of the Ocean Geographic Society, friend of American Philosophical Society. “The history of the film Dream is I was contacted by an advertising agency a number of years ago that had a client who was an animation company that wanted to do a short animation on wildlife. So we met and we discussed how long this would be, and what the content would be. And they said, "Choose several species that are impacted right now." And we chose the baby harp seal because Canada in their great wisdom decided to start hunting baby seals again in eastern Canada. A rhino was chosen because, at that time, rhino poaching was the highest level it had ever been in history. I think more than 2,000 rhinos were killed that year just in South Africa alone, not even counting other countries. We chose to the humpback whale because some imbecile within the United States government decided that there were enough humpback whales now that we could start resuming whale hunting in this country. And the pelican was chosen because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which had devastating consequences. And we still have those consequences today. The oil is still there. It's just under the sand. It's not like all the oil has been cleaned up. We were very fortunate that that animation was presented at Cannes that year and it won two awards, a Golden Lion and a Silver Lion Award.” www.wcff.org | |||
| 07 Apr 2023 | Highlights - CHRISTOPHER GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer | 00:10:58 | |
“The history of the film Dream is I was contacted by an advertising agency a number of years ago that had a client who was an animation company that wanted to do a short animation on wildlife. So we met and we discussed how long this would be, and what the content would be. And they said, "Choose several species that are impacted right now." And we chose the baby harp seal because Canada in their great wisdom decided to start hunting baby seals again in eastern Canada. A rhino was chosen because, at that time, rhino poaching was the highest level it had ever been in history. I think more than 2,000 rhinos were killed that year just in South Africa alone, not even counting other countries. We chose to the humpback whale because some imbecile within the United States government decided that there were enough humpback whales now that we could start resuming whale hunting in this country. And the pelican was chosen because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which had devastating consequences. And we still have those consequences today. The oil is still there. It's just under the sand. It's not like all the oil has been cleaned up. We were very fortunate that that animation was presented at Cannes that year and it won two awards, a Golden Lion and a Silver Lion Award.” Christopher J. Gervais is an award winning producer. His animated film Dream won a 2017 Golden Lion for film and a Silver Lion for music at the 64th Annual International Festival of Creativity. He is environmental and marine scientist and has decades of experience in field work and research with multiple academic institutions and natural history museums. A former science and social studies teacher, later an administrator, he became the youngest principal of a public school in the state of Florida. While a graduate student, Christopher conducted fieldwork and research to study the Pleistocene Mega fauna and their fossils that were deposited over 10,000 years ago. His study of these extinct species informs his concerns for preserving biodiversity and was a significant factor in the founding of the WCFF. Christopher was one of the first scientists to conduct underwater vertebrate paleontology research. He is a professional, advanced scuba diver with NAUI, PADI, SSI and NASDS with over 2,500 logged dives. Christopher founded the WCFF in 2010 using his life savings to get the organization off the ground and has maintained the operations since then. He is a philanthropic supporter of conservation organizations across the globe. Christopher is President of the International Exploration Society, Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, member of the Ocean Geographic Society, friend of American Philosophical Society. www.wcff.org | |||
| 12 Apr 2023 | HENRY SHUE - Author of “The Pivotal Generation” - Snr. Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, Oxford | 00:51:50 | |
Henry Shue is Professor Emeritus of Politics and International Relations at University of Oxford’s Merton College. He's the author of Basic Rights, as well as The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now, among many other publications. In 1976, he co-founded the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He was a supporter of the successful campaign by Virginia's Augusta County Alliance to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and now works primarily on explanations for the urgency of far more ambitious policies to eliminate fossil fuels in order to avoid irreversible damage for future generations. “When I was at my first university, it was thought of as one of the world's leading places in philosophy. And I learned to use the methods that were dominant there. When I went to the other university, the first seminar that I took was a critique of the methods that I had learned at the first university. And this made a big impression on me because I had left the one where I did the Masters thinking, 'Okay, I know how to do this now, I'm getting good at this.' But then I learned, actually, there are problems with this way of doing things, too. So what I learned from all this is not that no method works and nothing is worthwhile, but just that however good the methods of analysis one has at any given time They're not going to be perfect. And so one needs to keep some humility and keep an open mind and keep on learning and not assume that you're on top of things. So, one lesson I would draw for education is we really do need to teach people to think critically and not just try to pump them full of the beliefs that we think are right. And I do worry about the extent to which some topics are put sort of out of bounds at universities. We don't want to allow hate b behavior, but I think we also need to maintain free speech and enable people to think critically. And this is another of these tricky matters, but I think that's another balance we need to try to keep. Young people need to encounter nature to actually get out into it and see it and feel it and smell it, sense it. And one thing philosophers can do and are trying to do is to argue that value is not just value to humans, which would be a kind of instrumental value. Things can have value in themselves. The other is to try to find ways that especially young people actually experience nature.” www.merton.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-henry-shue www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 12 Apr 2023 | Highlights - HENRY SHUE - Author of “The Pivotal Generation” - Snr. Research Fellow, Ctr. for International Studies, Oxford | 00:15:30 | |
“When I was at my first university, it was thought of as one of the world's leading places in philosophy. And I learned to use the methods that were dominant there. When I went to the other university, the first seminar that I took was a critique of the methods that I had learned at the first university. And this made a big impression on me because I had left the one where I did the Masters thinking, 'Okay, I know how to do this now, I'm getting good at this.' But then I learned, actually, there are problems with this way of doing things, too. So what I learned from all this is not that no method works and nothing is worthwhile, but just that however good the methods of analysis one has at any given time They're not going to be perfect. And so one needs to keep some humility and keep an open mind and keep on learning and not assume that you're on top of things. So, one lesson I would draw for education is we really do need to teach people to think critically and not just try to pump them full of the beliefs that we think are right. And I do worry about the extent to which some topics are put sort of out of bounds at universities. We don't want to allow hate b behavior, but I think we also need to maintain free speech and enable people to think critically. And this is another of these tricky matters, but I think that's another balance we need to try to keep. Young people need to encounter nature to actually get out into it and see it and feel it and smell it, sense it. And one thing philosophers can do and are trying to do is to argue that value is not just value to humans, which would be a kind of instrumental value. Things can have value in themselves. The other is to try to find ways that especially young people actually experience nature.” Henry Shue is Professor Emeritus of Politics and International Relations at University of Oxford’s Merton College. He's the author of Basic Rights, as well as The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now, among many other publications. In 1976, he co-founded the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He was a supporter of the successful campaign by Virginia's Augusta County Alliance to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and now works primarily on explanations for the urgency of far more ambitious policies to eliminate fossil fuels in order to avoid irreversible damage for future generations. www.merton.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-henry-shue www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 22 Apr 2023 | MAX RICHTER - Award-winning Composer & Pianist | 01:00:44 | |
Composer Max Richter is known for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. Max’s record Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time and his catalogue has surpassed 3 billion streams. A prolific collaborator, he scored and performed for Kim Jones for the Dior shows, and the new Wayne McGregor and Margaret Atwood ballet MADDADDAM, and arts collective Random International on the Rain Room installation. Max has collaborated with film directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, and scored film & TV including Ad Astra, Black Mirror, Shutter Island, The Leftovers, Arrival and his Emmy-nominated score for Taboo. He’s the co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr, with his partner and artist Yulia Mahr in Oxfordshire, UK. Max and Yulia built the studio around an old tractor barn, and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. It’s a haven for their family and community of musicians and artists which regularly come through. Set within 31 acres of woodland, Max and Yulia have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment as well as using creativity as an elevating force within society. Operating as a free space for artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community. "The idea of Studio Richter Mahr connecting with the local school, it's not like everyone has to be a musician, but even if you're not a musician, having the experience of being around music is a positive. It is a gain, it's a thing which just seems to illuminate the rest of life in some way. Again, it goes back to the sort of puzzle of how music works and what it is we were talking about at the beginning. There's something about being around music or being involved with it in whatever way that just seems to lift everything else up. And I think, if we can offer that to local kids, then we should do it. The world is very busy, and we tend to get a bit sidetracked by things that are not important. Creativity is a way to reconnect with important things. And I think the kinds of narratives, the kinds of perspectives that we put into the world with creativity can be a way to elevate the gaze a little bit. And it's true that literature is a big part of what I'm about in a way. I love stories, music, literature, visual art… These are ways to experience how another mind encounters the world. And that, for me, is really the most exciting thing about when you are reading a piece of writing by someone or you are seeing a piece of visual art – you are seeing a window into that person's encounter with reality. That person's biography. What things mean to them. And then you can compare notes with that person. How is it that person sees these things, and how do I see these things? And it's a way to understand one another. And I think that's really one of the most important things that creativity does in our world." Photo by William Waterworth www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 22 Apr 2023 | Highlights - MAX RICHTER - Award-winning Composer & Pianist | 00:18:09 | |
"The idea of Studio Richter Mahr connecting with the local school, it's not like everyone has to be a musician, but even if you're not a musician, having the experience of being around music is a positive. It is a gain, it's a thing which just seems to illuminate the rest of life in some way. Again, it goes back to the sort of puzzle of how music works and what it is we were talking about at the beginning. There's something about being around music or being involved with it in whatever way that just seems to lift everything else up. And I think, if we can offer that to local kids, then we should do it. The world is very busy, and we tend to get a bit sidetracked by things that are not important. Creativity is a way to reconnect with important things. And I think the kinds of narratives, the kinds of perspectives that we put into the world with creativity can be a way to elevate the gaze a little bit. And it's true that literature is a big part of what I'm about in a way. I love stories, music, literature, visual art… These are ways to experience how another mind encounters the world. And that, for me, is really the most exciting thing about when you are reading a piece of writing by someone or you are seeing a piece of visual art – you are seeing a window into that person's encounter with reality. That person's biography. What things mean to them. And then you can compare notes with that person. How is it that person sees these things, and how do I see these things? And it's a way to understand one another. And I think that's really one of the most important things that creativity does in our world." Composer Max Richter is known for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. Max’s record Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time and his catalogue has surpassed 3 billion streams. A prolific collaborator, he scored and performed for Kim Jones for the Dior shows, and the new Wayne McGregor and Margaret Atwood ballet MADDADDAM, and arts collective Random International on the Rain Room installation. Max has collaborated with film directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, and scored film & TV including Ad Astra, Black Mirror, Shutter Island, The Leftovers, Arrival and his Emmy-nominated score for Taboo. He’s the co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr, with his partner and artist Yulia Mahr in Oxfordshire, UK. Max and Yulia built the studio around an old tractor barn, and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. It’s a haven for their family and community of musicians and artists which regularly come through. Set within 31 acres of woodland, Max and Yulia have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment as well as using creativity as an elevating force within society. Operating as a free space for artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community. Photo by William Waterworth www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 22 Apr 2023 | Special Earth Day Stories - Environmentalists, Artists, Students & Teachers share their Love for the Planet - Part 1 | 00:15:09 | |
Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists, artists, students, and teachers. Enjoy Part 1 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices on this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast: MAX RICHTER INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder of PETA BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of “Welcome to the Circular Economy” ADA LIMÓN, U.S. Poet Laureate, Host of The Slowdown podcast CYNTHIA DANIELS, Grammy and Emmy award-winning producer, engineer, composer JOELLE GERGIS, Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of “Humanity’s Moment” KATHLEEN ROGERS, President of EARTHDAY.ORG ODED GALOR, Author of “The Journey of Humanity”, Founder of Unified Growth Theory SIR GEOFF MULGAN, Fmr. Chief Executive of Nesta, Fmr, Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Director & Downing Street’s Head of Policy, Author of “Another World is Possible” ALAIN ROBERT, Rock & Urban Climber known for Free Solo Climbing 150+ of the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers using no Climbing Equipment NOAH WILSON-RICH, Co-founder & CEO of The Best Bees Company CHRIS FUNK, Director of the Climate Hazards Center at UC Santa Barbara, Author of Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Recent Catastrophes DAVID FARRIER, Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils” DR. SUZANNE SIMARD, Professor of Forest Ecology, Author of “Finding the Mother Tree” PETER SINGER, “Most Influential Living Philosopher”, Author, Founder of The Life You Can Save JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry www.creativeprocess.info www.maxrichtermusic.com Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep. Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song. | |||
| 24 Apr 2023 | DEBORA CAHN - Showrunner & Executive Producer of Netflix’s The Diplomat starring Keri Russell & Rufus Sewell | 00:44:03 | |
Debora Cahn is the Emmy-nominated showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s The Diplomat, a political thriller series starring Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell. She’s worked with television’s leading showrunners, including Shonda Rhymes, Terence Winter, Steven Levinson, and Howard Gordon. Her career began working on Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing which has led to projects such as the hit Showtime series Homeland, ABC’s long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, and HBO’s Vinyl, which was co-created by Martin Scorsese. She’s the winner of two Writers Guild of America Award for The West Wing and FX’s limited series Fosse/Verdon. "I try to look at people in those positions with as much of an open mind as possible. I think they all want the best for the country, but I think the people who are good at walking into a diner and shaking people's hands in a thousand different towns across the country with a lot of very different diners, I think the people who can walk in and handle that and meet absolutely everybody and create an instant connection with them are not necessarily the people who are interested in the kind of granularity of federal regulations and a wide, wide series of topics. I think the people who are good at those things have cultivated over the course of their life, different parts of themselves and grown different strengths. But then there comes this moment where we want one person to be able to do all of it, and we're somehow surprised when they're not good at every piece." www.imdb.com/name/nm1263223 www.creativeprocess.info Images courtesy of Netflix/Alex Bailey | |||
| 24 Apr 2023 | Highlights - DEBORA CAHN - Showrunner of The Diplomat starring Keri Russell - Exec. Producer Homeland, Grey’s Anatomy | 00:11:23 | |
"I try to look at people in those positions with as much of an open mind as possible. I think they all want the best for the country, but I think the people who are good at walking into a diner and shaking people's hands in a thousand different towns across the country with a lot of very different diners, I think the people who can walk in and handle that and meet absolutely everybody and create an instant connection with them are not necessarily the people who are interested in the kind of granularity of federal regulations and a wide, wide series of topics. I think the people who are good at those things have cultivated over the course of their life, different parts of themselves and grown different strengths. But then there comes this moment where we want one person to be able to do all of it, and we're somehow surprised when they're not good at every piece." Debora Cahn is the Emmy-nominated showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s The Diplomat, a political thriller series starring Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell. She’s worked with television’s leading showrunners, including Shonda Rhymes, Terence Winter, Steven Levinson, and Howard Gordon. Her career began working on Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing which has led to projects such as the hit Showtime series Homeland, ABC’s long-running medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, and HBO’s Vinyl, which was co-created by Martin Scorsese. She’s the winner of two Writers Guild of America Award for The West Wing and FX’s limited series Fosse/Verdon. www.imdb.com/name/nm1263223 www.creativeprocess.info Images courtesy of Netflix/Alex Bailey | |||
| 26 Apr 2023 | EARTH MONTH STORIES - Part 2 - Environmentalists, Artists, Students & Teachers Speak Out & Share How We Can Save the Planet | 00:14:31 | |
Listen to Part 2 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices on this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast: MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO - Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize - Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept. BRITT WRAY - Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University WALTER STAHEL - Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy - Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute MATHIS WACKERNAGEL - Founder & President of the Global Footprint Network - World Sustainability Award Winner JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast RICHARD VEVERS - Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency ARMOND COHEN - Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force PAULA PINHO - Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy MARTIN VON HILDEBRAND - Indigenous Rights Activist - Winner of Right Livelihood & Skoll Awards - Founder of Fundacion Gaia Amazonas, named #40 NGOs of the World by The Global Journal HAROLD P. SJURSEN - Professor of Philosophy - Science, Technology, the Arts - NYU, Beihang University, East China University BILL HARE - Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement - Professor of Environmental Change & Public Health LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy & Services Max Richter’s music featured in this episode: “Spring 1” from The New Four Seasons – Vivaldi Recomposed Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song. www.maxrichtermusic.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 27 Apr 2023 | Speaking Out of Place: NAOMI ORESKES discusses “The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government & Love the Free Market” | 00:44:45 | |
Naomi Oreskes is Henry Charles Lea professor of the History of Science and affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She is a world-renowned earth scientist, historian, and public speaker. Oreskes is a leading voice in the role of science in society, the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and the role of disinformation in blocking climate action. In 2010, she and her co-author Erik Conway published Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, where they identified something called the tobacco strategy that became paradigmatic in terms of corporate efforts to debunk science. This discovery led them to explore more deeply and more broadly the attack on science. They found that as science was demoted, the idea of market fundamentalism or the “magic of the market” became a mantra that covered up corporate malfeasance. In today's program, we discuss Oreskes’ and Conway's new book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market. https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/naomi-oreskes Judith Butler on “Speaking Out of Place”: “In this work we see how every critical analysis of homelessness, displacement, internment, violence, and exploitation is countered by emergent and intensifying social movements that move beyond national borders to the ideal of a planetary alliance. As an activist and a scholar, Palumbo-Liu shows us what vigilance means in these times. This book takes us through the wretched landscape of our world to the ideals of social transformation, calling for a place, the planet, where collective passions can bring about a true and radical democracy.” David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has written widely on issues of literary criticism and theory, culture and society, race, ethnicity and indigeneity, human rights, and environmental justice. His books include The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age, and Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Truthout, and other venues. www.palumbo-liu.com Photo credit: Kayana Szymczak | |||
| 11 Apr 2023 | ARTHUR KLEBANOFF - President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency - Founder of Rodin Books & RosettaBooks | 00:43:27 | |
As President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Arthur Klebanoff has represented J.D. Salinger, Arthur C. Clark, several U.S. Presidents, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Bradley, Paul Krugman, among others, and has handled books with over $1 billion in sales. In 2001, Klebanoff founded RosettaBooks, an independent eBook publisher which for twe nty years disrupted the publishing business. Klebanoff has published, represented or packaged over 75 thought leadership titles. He founded RodinBooks to publish books by impactful leaders. Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on Leaders, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions | |||
| 29 Apr 2023 | JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY - Academy Award-winning Writer/Director - Doubt starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams - Moonstruck | 00:47:29 | |
John Patrick Shanley is from The Bronx. His plays include Prodigal Son, Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance, and Beggars in the House of Plenty. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has ten films to his credit, most recently Wild Mountain Thyme, with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. His film of Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, which he also directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In 2009, The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the Lifetime Achievement In Writing. "You grow up wherever you grow up. And there are things there, and there are other things that are not there, and the things that are not there, you can imagine. And I did a lot of imagining in the Bronx because there were a lot of things that I gravitated toward that just weren't there: the fantastic, The Thief of Baghdad, magic, beautiful clothes, beautiful places, the exoticism of that. And then at another later point, I thought, I am missing my whole life from my work. I am writing about all these things that are not my life. Because I think everything that I actually saw and heard and felt is so ordinary that it's not worth repeating. And I think most of us feel that way, and we're dead wrong. That in fact, those things are gold. Those are the things that we actually have to write about. And you can write about anything when you start with those things and embrace them. Embrace your own life." www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 29 Apr 2023 | Highlights - JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY - Writer/Director - Doubt starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis - Moonstruck | 00:15:20 | |
"You grow up wherever you grow up. And there are things there, and there are other things that are not there, and the things that are not there, you can imagine. And I did a lot of imagining in the Bronx because there were a lot of things that I gravitated toward that just weren't there: the fantastic, The Thief of Baghdad, magic, beautiful clothes, beautiful places, the exoticism of that. And then at another later point, I thought, I am missing my whole life from my work. I am writing about all these things that are not my life. Because I think everything that I actually saw and heard and felt is so ordinary that it's not worth repeating. And I think most of us feel that way, and we're dead wrong. That in fact, those things are gold. Those are the things that we actually have to write about. And you can write about anything when you start with those things and embrace them. Embrace your own life." John Patrick Shanley is from The Bronx. His plays include Prodigal Son, Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance, and Beggars in the House of Plenty. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has ten films to his credit, most recently Wild Mountain Thyme, with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. His film of Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, which he also directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In 2009, The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the Lifetime Achievement In Writing. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 03 May 2023 | Speaking Out of Place: ASHLEY DAWSON discusses “Environmentalism from Below” | 00:42:03 | |
Ashley Dawson is Professor of English at the Graduate Center / City University of New York and the College of Staten Island. Recently published books of his focus on key topics in the Environmental Humanities, and include People’s Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons (O/R, 2020), Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R, 2016). Dawson is the author of a forthcoming book entitled Environmentalism from Below (Haymarket) and the co-editor of Decolonize Conservation! (Common Notions, 2023). “The message is that indigenous sovereignty is connected to the preservation of biodiversity. And right now the statistics are really shocking on so-called protected areas, which currently constitute 17% of the planet. And the goal coming out of that Montreal conference for the biodiversity crisis last autumn is to roughly double that amount of protected areas, right? So the slogan was 30 by 30. 30% of the planet in protected area status by 2030. So we're really talking about massive expansion of protected areas. But within protected areas themselves, according to recent reports, only about 1% of the land actually has indigenous sovereignty. There are other arrangements like co-management, for instance, or indigenous people who are kind of encouraged to see their claims to conservation organizations with the guarantee that it will be protected and they'll have access of some kind. But, you know, as some of the indigenous activists who appeared at this conference and who are in the Decolonize Conservation! book said, they don't like the idea of co-management because it's essentially colonialism. They want control of their land.” https://ashleydawson.info | |||
| 04 May 2023 | What Kind of World Are We Leaving for Future Generations? - Part 3 - Activists, Environmentalists & Teachers Share their Stories | 00:17:00 | |
Listen to Part 3 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices on this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast: PAULA PINHO, Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021 RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO, Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept. NICHOLAS ROYLE, Co-author of "An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory”, Author of “Mother: A Memoir” MARK BURGMAN, Director, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, Editor-in-Chief, Conservation Biology MIKE DAVIS, CEO of Global Witness JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast BRITT WRAY, Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University RICHARD VEVERS, Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force BILL HARE, Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist DAVID PALUMBO-LIU, Activist, Professor & Author of “Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back”, Host of Speaking out of Place Podcast IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI, Founder & CEO of FullCycle Fund GAIA VINCE, Science Writer, Broadcaster & Author of “Transcendence” & “Adventures in the Anthropocene” INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals www.creativeprocess.info www.maxrichtermusic.com Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep. Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song. | |||
| 05 May 2023 | We All Live on One Planet We Call Home - Part 4 - Environmentalists, Economists, Policymakers & Architects Share their Stories | 00:22:57 | |
Listen to Part 4 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices on this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast: INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals JEFFREY D. SACHS, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, Economist, Author JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures”, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021 WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL, Poet & Author of “World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishments” ANA CASTILLO, Award-Winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist & Artist www.creativeprocess.info www.maxrichtermusic.com Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep. Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song. Artwork: Saudade, Mia Funk | |||
| 09 May 2023 | DAVID J. LINDEN - Author of “Unique:The New Science of Human Individuality” “The Accidental Mind” “The Compass of Pleasure” “Touch” | 00:55:45 | |
David J. Linden is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the author of Unique: The New Science of Human Individuality, The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good, and Touch: The Science of the Hand, Heart, and Mind. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage, recovery of function following brain injury and a few other topics. "I think you could certainly make the case that creativity has been useful for a long time in human evolution and probably in our pre-human ancestors as well. So it's not surprising that that creativity is manifest in all kinds of ways from building a trap to catch a critter, to musical improvisation, to making a sculpture. If I were to look at a brain scan and someone said, 'Point to me the region that has the sense of self.' I don't know that I could actually do that. So in other words, I accept this notion as a higher-level explanation that can be really useful. I would say our ability to reduce that to brain regions and brain activities now is still really not there. I'm not saying it will never be there. It may emerge, but it hasn't emerged yet. Sense of self is a really, really interesting idea and it's something that fascinates me because it is used both kind of at a very high level, in a cognitive way, but neuroscientists think of sense of self more in terms of our senses that literally point inward. So when we think about the senses, we usually think about things like touch or vision or taste or smell or hearing that are designed to tell us, not about our own bodies, but about the external world. But we also have all these senses that are interoceptive rather than exteroceptive. And they're telling me things like, how is my head oriented relative to gravity? That's my balanced vestibular system. Where are my limbs in space at this moment that I can do, even with my eyes closed? I know where my arm is even with my eyes closed because I'm getting information from my muscles that is being sent to my brain. I know how distended my bladder is and whether I'm going to need to go to the bathroom soon. I know my immune state, my breathing, my blood chemistry, my digestion. All of these things are senses of self and the degree to which they influence higher cognitive processes is to me one of the really fascinating questions of neuroscience right now and one that we're just really starting to understand." www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 09 May 2023 | Highlights - DAVID J. LINDEN - Professor of Neuroscience - Author of “Unique” “The Accidental Mind” “The Compass of Pleasure” “Touch” | 00:19:01 | |
"I think you could certainly make the case that creativity has been useful for a long time in human evolution and probably in our pre-human ancestors as well. So it's not surprising that that creativity is manifest in all kinds of ways from building a trap to catch a critter, to musical improvisation, to making a sculpture. If I were to look at a brain scan and someone said, 'Point to me the region that has the sense of self.' I don't know that I could actually do that. So in other words, I accept this notion as a higher-level explanation that can be really useful. I would say our ability to reduce that to brain regions and brain activities now is still really not there. I'm not saying it will never be there. It may emerge, but it hasn't emerged yet. Sense of self is a really, really interesting idea and it's something that fascinates me because it is used both kind of at a very high level, in a cognitive way, but neuroscientists think of sense of self more in terms of our senses that literally point inward. So when we think about the senses, we usually think about things like touch or vision or taste or smell or hearing that are designed to tell us, not about our own bodies, but about the external world. But we also have all these senses that are interoceptive rather than exteroceptive. And they're telling me things like, how is my head oriented relative to gravity? That's my balanced vestibular system. Where are my limbs in space at this moment that I can do, even with my eyes closed? I know where my arm is even with my eyes closed because I'm getting information from my muscles that is being sent to my brain. I know how distended my bladder is and whether I'm going to need to go to the bathroom soon. I know my immune state, my breathing, my blood chemistry, my digestion. All of these things are senses of self and the degree to which they influence higher cognitive processes is to me one of the really fascinating questions of neuroscience right now and one that we're just really starting to understand." David J. Linden is a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the author of Unique: The New Science of Human Individuality, The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good, and Touch: The Science of the Hand, Heart, and Mind. His laboratory has worked for many years on the cellular substrates of memory storage, recovery of function following brain injury and a few other topics. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 11 May 2023 | SAGARIKA SRIRAM - Founder of Kids4abetterworld, Youth Climate Change Initiative | 00:31:02 | |
Sagarika Sriram is currently a student at Jumeirah College in Dubai. She founded the organization Kids4abetterworld when she was 10 years old with a mission to educate and encourage young children to lead a more sustainable life and reduce their carbon footprint. Children are the worst affected by the effects of climate change, yet most children do not participate in climate change discussions or take actions to live more sustainably because they do not have the awareness and capability to do so. Kids4abetterworld conducts awareness workshops on sustainability aiming to Educate, Motivate and Activate young children to conserve natural resources, protect biodiversity, and positively impact climate change. As a UN Climate Advisor, she has participated in the global consultations that will ensure children are made aware of their environmental rights and that UN member states protect and uphold these. Kids4abetterworld is a platform for young children to connect across the globe as they adopt sustainable lifestyles and drive systemic solutions to the climate crisis. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 12 May 2023 | ANIL SETH - Author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness - Co-director of Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science | 00:56:29 | |
Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than twenty years. He is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, as well as the best-selling 30 Second Brain, and other books. He is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, and is Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. He has a TED talk on consciousness and appeared in several films, including The Most Unknown and The Search. He has written for Aeon, The Guardian, Granta, New Scientist, and Scientific American. He was the 2017 President of the British Science Association (Psychology Section) and winner of the 2019 KidSpirit Perspectives award. He has published more than 180 academic papers and is listed in 2019 and 2020 Web of Science ‘highly cited researcher’ index, which recognizes the world’s most influential researchers over the past decade. "Whenever we are conscious, we are conscious of something, or of many things. These are the contents of consciousness. To understand how they come about, and what I mean by controlled hallucination, let's change our perspective. Imagine for a moment, that you are the brain. Really try to think about what it's like up there, sealed inside the bony vault of a skull, trying to figure out what's out there in the world. There's no light, no sound, no anything - it's completely dark and utterly silent. When trying to form perceptions, all the brain has to go on is a constant barrage of electrical signals, which are only indirectly related to things out there in the world, whatever they may be. These sensory inputs don't come with labels attached... How does the brain transform these inherently ambiguous sensory signals into a coherent perceptual world full of objects and people, and places?" – ANIL SETH www.anilseth.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 12 May 2023 | Highlights - ANIL SETH - Co-director of Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science & Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Brain, Mind & Consciousness | 00:13:54 | |
"Whenever we are conscious, we are conscious of something, or of many things. These are the contents of consciousness. To understand how they come about, and what I mean by controlled hallucination, let's change our perspective. Imagine for a moment, that you are the brain. Really try to think about what it's like up there, sealed inside the bony vault of a skull, trying to figure out what's out there in the world. There's no light, no sound, no anything - it's completely dark and utterly silent. When trying to form perceptions, all the brain has to go on is a constant barrage of electrical signals, which are only indirectly related to things out there in the world, whatever they may be. These sensory inputs don't come with labels attached... How does the brain transform these inherently ambiguous sensory signals into a coherent perceptual world full of objects and people, and places?" – ANIL SETH Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than twenty years. He is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, as well as the best-selling 30 Second Brain, and other books. He is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, and is Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. He has a TED talk on consciousness and appeared in several films, including The Most Unknown and The Search. He has written for Aeon, The Guardian, Granta, New Scientist, and Scientific American. He was the 2017 President of the British Science Association (Psychology Section) and winner of the 2019 KidSpirit Perspectives award. He has published more than 180 academic papers and is listed in 2019 and 2020 Web of Science ‘highly cited researcher’ index, which recognizes the world’s most influential researchers over the past decade. www.anilseth.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 16 May 2023 | Speaking Out of Place: ADAM ARON discusses “The Climate Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements” | 00:31:54 | |
Adam Aron is a Professor in the Psychology Dept at UC San Diego. His research and teaching focus on the social science of collective action on the climate crisis. His climate activism has been through the Green New Deal at UC San Diego where he has worked on several campaigns such as fossil fuel divestment and also campus decarbonization via ElectrifyUC and he has also produced the documentary Coming Clean. Before switching to the climate crisis, Adam had a successful career in cognitive neuroscience. He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge, and was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA. “Psychology has something to tell us about why so few people are really engaged in the climate struggle. There are different components to this. First of all, there is what I call epistemic skepticism in the book, which is to say, skepticism about the facts of climate change. The second thing is threat perception, that threat levels are not as high as they should be. And the third is that people are skeptical about the response. They don't think that they can do anything, or they don't believe that groups or even countries can make a difference. Epistemic skepticism: psychologically this means that quite a lot of people, for example, the United States, don't believe in the human cause of heating. And the reason for that is very much to do in fact, with the systematic campaign of misinformation that's been fostered by the fossils industry, systematically set out to confuse people about the scientific consensus. We should be very threatened by this. In fact, the youth, generally speaking, are anxious to some extent about it. In effect, Mother Earth is saying, "I can't deal with what you're doing to me, people. I'm putting up my temperature." And if you're not feeling anxious, then you're not paying attention. That's the right way to feel on Planet Earth.” https://aronlab.org/climate-psychology-and-action-lab Judith Butler on “Speaking Out of Place”: “In this work we see how every critical analysis of homelessness, displacement, internment, violence, and exploitation is countered by emergent and intensifying social movements that move beyond national borders to the ideal of a planetary alliance. As an activist and a scholar, Palumbo-Liu shows us what vigilance means in these times. This book takes us through the wretched landscape of our world to the ideals of social transformation, calling for a place, the planet, where collective passions can bring about a true and radical democracy.” David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has written widely on issues of literary criticism and theory, culture and society, race, ethnicity and indigeneity, human rights, and environmental justice. His books include The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age, and Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Truthout, and other venues. | |||
| 16 May 2023 | MADELEINE WATTS - Author of The Inland Sea - Creative Writing Professor, Columbia University | 00:50:58 | |
Madeleine Watts is an Australian writer based in New York. Her first novel The Inland Sea was published in 2020 and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. Her essays and stories have been published in Harper’s Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian, The White Review, and The Paris Review Daily, among others. She teaches creative writing at Columbia University in New York. Her second novel, Elegy, Southwest, is forthcoming. "I think one thing that is not talked about enough is the importance of the arts and the importance of the humanities. And on the university level, the defunding of these sorts of programs and the kind of devaluing of that knowledge is an enormous loss. The arts are what tell us who we are. They're for the soul and they make being alive worthwhile. And the importance of making connections and finding a way to reach others and communicate and connect by trying to be honest and complicated and complex - because I truly believe that without those things, whatever future we can imagine for ourselves is going to be paltry. And it won't be imaginative. And without the humanities and the arts, it doesn't make me feel hopeful about the future." www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667704/the-inland-sea-by-madeleine-watts www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 16 May 2023 | Highlights - MADELEINE WATTS - Author of The Inland Sea | 00:13:04 | |
"I think one thing that is not talked about enough is the importance of the arts and the importance of the humanities. And on the university level, the defunding of these sorts of programs and the kind of devaluing of that knowledge is an enormous loss. The arts are what tell us who we are. They're for the soul and they make being alive worthwhile. And the importance of making connections and finding a way to reach others and communicate and connect by trying to be honest and complicated and complex - because I truly believe that without those things, whatever future we can imagine for ourselves is going to be paltry. And it won't be imaginative. And without the humanities and the arts, it doesn't make me feel hopeful about the future." Madeleine Watts is an Australian writer based in New York. Her first novel The Inland Sea was published in 2020 and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. Her essays and stories have been published in Harper’s Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian, The White Review, and The Paris Review Daily, among others. She teaches creative writing at Columbia University in New York. Her second novel, Elegy, Southwest, is forthcoming. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667704/the-inland-sea-by-madeleine-watts www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 19 May 2023 | RACHEL ASHEGBOFEH IKEMEH - Whitley Award-winning Conservationist - Founder/Director, Southwest Niger Delta Forest Project | 00:43:35 | |
Rachel Ashegbofeh Ikemeh is a Whitley Award-winning conservationist and Founder/Director at the Southwest Niger Delta Forest Project, a grassroots-focused conservation initiative that has been dedicated to the protection of fragile wildlife populations and habitat across her project sites in Africa’s most populous nation. Rachel won the award in 2020 for her work on chimpanzee populations in Nigeria and is aiming to secure 20% of chimpanzee habitat in Southwest Nigeria. She is also the winner of the National Geographic Society Buffet Awards for Conservaton Leadership in Africa, a Tusk Conservation Awards Finalist. She works to protect some of the most highly threatened forest habitats and primate populations in southern Nigeria. For example, Rachel’s determined efforts has helped to bring back a species from the brink of extinction – the rare and critically endangered Niger Delta red colobus monkey, also, considered one of 25 most endangered primates in the world. She has helped to establish two protected areas and have also taken on the management of these PAs to restore habitats in these very highly threatened ecosystems which are also areas of high-security risks in the country. Rachel is the Co-Vice Chair for the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group African Section and Member of the International Primatological Society (IPS) education committee. Through her strategic positions in these networks, Rachel has been committed to championing the need to increase conservation leadership amongst Africans as she co-founded the African Primatological society in 2017. She’s trained the 55 persons that make up her team from local institutions and local communities. "So it's easier for the community to change their mindset about eating bush meat or about hunting or about destroying the forest wildlife if they're part of the process. You can't do it outside of them. You actively have to make sure they're participating in the entire process, that's where we've seen the best results. That's when we've seen the most progress. And I've also heard of people coming up with very technical step-by-step details of how things ought to go and leaving the people out and leaving indigenous communities out of that same process. And feel like it would be so difficult to sustain that system of doing diverse conservation. One of my teammates was asking a young boy "What would you like to be when you grow up?" And he pointed at me and said, "That's what I want to be." When I started as a female doing conservation and going to these communities, at that time I was disrespected and really looked down on for being out there doing what I was doing. Like it's either "You're not married. You don't have children. What are you doing in the middle of the forest looking for monkeys?" So to have a young man look up to a woman as a role model, especially in an African society, it's an experience that will live with me forever because I realize that not only are we bringing species back from the brink of extinction, but we are changing the way society thinks. And it makes me glad that I've been persistent. We saw that in real life how a community can be transformed to the point that an entire community has become conservation champions. So knowing that people can turn 180 and really become the protectors of the same species they tried to wipe out." https://swnigerdeltaforestproject.org.ng www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 19 May 2023 | Highlights - RACHEL ASHEGBOFEH IKEMEH - Whitley Award Winner - Founder of Southwest Niger Delta Forest Project | 00:11:36 | |
"So it's easier for the community to change their mindset about eating bush meat or about hunting or about destroying the forest wildlife if they're part of the process. You can't do it outside of them. You actively have to make sure they're participating in the entire process, that's where we've seen the best results. That's when we've seen the most progress. And I've also heard of people coming up with very technical step-by-step details of how things ought to go and leaving the people out and leaving indigenous communities out of that same process. And feel like it would be so difficult to sustain that system of doing diverse conservation. One of my teammates was asking a young boy "What would you like to be when you grow up?" And he pointed at me and said, "That's what I want to be." When I started as a female doing conservation and going to these communities, at that time I was disrespected and really looked down on for being out there doing what I was doing. Like it's either "You're not married. You don't have children. What are you doing in the middle of the forest looking for monkeys?" So to have a young man look up to a woman as a role model, especially in an African society, it's an experience that will live with me forever because I realize that not only are we bringing species back from the brink of extinction, but we are changing the way society thinks. And it makes me glad that I've been persistent. We saw that in real life how a community can be transformed to the point that an entire community has become conservation champions. So knowing that people can turn 180 and really become the protectors of the same species they tried to wipe out." Rachel Ashegbofeh Ikemeh is a Whitley Award-winning conservationist and Founder/Director at the Southwest Niger Delta Forest Project, a grassroots-focused conservation initiative that has been dedicated to the protection of fragile wildlife populations and habitat across her project sites in Africa’s most populous nation. Rachel won the award in 2020 for her work on chimpanzee populations in Nigeria and is aiming to secure 20% of chimpanzee habitat in Southwest Nigeria. She is also the winner of the National Geographic Society Buffet Awards for Conservaton Leadership in Africa, a Tusk Conservation Awards Finalist. She works to protect some of the most highly threatened forest habitats and primate populations in southern Nigeria. For example, Rachel’s determined efforts has helped to bring back a species from the brink of extinction – the rare and critically endangered Niger Delta red colobus monkey, also, considered one of 25 most endangered primates in the world. She has helped to establish two protected areas and have also taken on the management of these PAs to restore habitats in these very highly threatened ecosystems which are also areas of high-security risks in the country. Rachel is the Co-Vice Chair for the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group African Section and Member of the International Primatological Society (IPS) education committee. Through her strategic positions in these networks, Rachel has been committed to championing the need to increase conservation leadership amongst Africans as she co-founded the African Primatological society in 2017. She’s trained the 55 persons that make up her team from local institutions and local communities. https://swnigerdeltaforestproject.org.ng www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 24 May 2023 | ANDRI SNÆR MAGNASON - Icelandic Writer & Documentary Filmmaker - On Time and Water, The Casket of Time, LoveStar, Not Ok | 00:42:52 | |
Andri Snær Magnason is an award winning author of On Time and Water, The Casket of Time, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Story of the Blue Planet. His work has been published in more than 35 languages. He has a written in most genres, novels, poetry, plays, short stories, non fiction as well as being a documentary film maker. His novel, LoveStar got a Philip K. Dick Special Citation, and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in France and “Novel of the year” in Iceland. The Story of the Blue Planet, was the first children’s book to receive the Icelandic Literary Award and has been published or performed in 35 countries. The Blue Planet received the Janusz Korczak Honorary Award in Poland 2000, the UKLA Award in the UK and Children's book of the Year in China. His book – Dreamland – a Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation takes on these issues and has sold more than 20.000 copies in Iceland. He co directed Dreamland - a feature length documentary film based on the book. Footage from Dreamland and an interview with Andri can be seen in the Oscar Award-winning documentary Inside Job by Charles Ferguson. His most recent book, Tímakistan, the Time Casket has now been published in more than 10 languages, was nominated as the best fantasy book in Finland 2016 with authors like Ursula K. le Guin and David Mitchell. In English six books are currently available: Bónus Poetry, The Story of The Blue Planet, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Casket of Time, (Tímakistan) and On Time and Water. “Your time is the time of the people you know and love, the time that molds you. And your time is also the time of the people you will know and love. The time that you will shape." “Glaciers are frozen manuscripts that tell stories just like tree circles and sedimentary deposits; from them, you can gather information and create a picture of the past. Glaciers store histories of volcanic activity. They store pollen, rainwater and air that reveal the chemical make-up of the atmosphere tens of thousands of years back in time. They are important sources of details about vegetation and precipitation of the past.” “We do not see fire; we rarely see coal or oil. We’re frequent flyers but we have no idea about the size of the bonfire that could be ignited with 20 tons of jet fuel. We buy our airline tickets online but we never have to check in the oil barrels that will carry us out into the world. Take the time I went to a two-day poetry festival in Lithuania, a journey of around 1,750 miles, the same distance as Chicago to Los Angeles. A barrel of oil holds about 42 gallons, so a single airline passenger burns through about three-quarters of a barrel on such a flight: up to one gallon every 60 miles.” ― Andri Snær Magnason, On Time and Water www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 24 May 2023 | Highlights - ANDRI SNÆR MAGNASON - Writer & Documentary Filmmaker - On Time and Water, The Casket of Time, LoveStar, Not Ok | 00:12:54 | |
“Your time is the time of the people you know and love, the time that molds you. And your time is also the time of the people you will know and love. The time that you will shape." “Glaciers are frozen manuscripts that tell stories just like tree circles and sedimentary deposits; from them, you can gather information and create a picture of the past. Glaciers store histories of volcanic activity. They store pollen, rainwater and air that reveal the chemical make-up of the atmosphere tens of thousands of years back in time. They are important sources of details about vegetation and precipitation of the past.” “We do not see fire; we rarely see coal or oil. We’re frequent flyers but we have no idea about the size of the bonfire that could be ignited with 20 tons of jet fuel. We buy our airline tickets online but we never have to check in the oil barrels that will carry us out into the world. Take the time I went to a two-day poetry festival in Lithuania, a journey of around 1,750 miles, the same distance as Chicago to Los Angeles. A barrel of oil holds about 42 gallons, so a single airline passenger burns through about three-quarters of a barrel on such a flight: up to one gallon every 60 miles.” ― Andri Snær Magnason, On Time and Water Andri Snær Magnason is an award winning author of On Time and Water, The Casket of Time, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Story of the Blue Planet. His work has been published in more than 35 languages. He has a written in most genres, novels, poetry, plays, short stories, non fiction as well as being a documentary film maker. His novel, LoveStar got a Philip K. Dick Special Citation, and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in France and “Novel of the year” in Iceland. The Story of the Blue Planet, was the first children’s book to receive the Icelandic Literary Award and has been published or performed in 35 countries. The Blue Planet received the Janusz Korczak Honorary Award in Poland 2000, the UKLA Award in the UK and Children's book of the Year in China. His book – Dreamland – a Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation takes on these issues and has sold more than 20.000 copies in Iceland. He co directed Dreamland - a feature length documentary film based on the book. Footage from Dreamland and an interview with Andri can be seen in the Oscar Award-winning documentary Inside Job by Charles Ferguson. His most recent book, Tímakistan, the Time Casket has now been published in more than 10 languages, was nominated as the best fantasy book in Finland 2016 with authors like Ursula K. le Guin and David Mitchell. In English six books are currently available: Bónus Poetry, The Story of The Blue Planet, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Casket of Time, (Tímakistan) and On Time and Water. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 26 May 2023 | BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living | 00:34:54 | |
Brock Bastian is author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living and a professor at University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences. His research and writing focus on pain, happiness, morality, and wellbeing. In his search for a new perspective on what makes for the good life, Bastian has studied why promoting happiness may have paradoxical effects; why we need negative and painful experiences in life to build meaning, purpose, resilience, and ultimately greater fulfilment in life; and why behavioural ethics is necessary for understanding how we reason about personal and social issues and resolve conflicts of interest. "I think it's led to a focus on success and standing out, and I do think that the more young people can walk away with an understanding that perhaps the best thing they can do in life is actually contribute to the lives of others, that's probably where they're going to get most of their happiness from and most of their fulfillment from. And the rest is probably a little bit hollow. You know, money doesn't really buy happiness. I mean, it certainly buys comfort, and we do know some money is very important for that. But you do need to feel connected to other people, and you can't whilst consuming and even promoting ourselves on social media. Or playing the popularity game or aiming to be famous. That seems to be a value that a lot of young people have these days, but I don't think that it's going to breed happiness. And so being able to really identify what the values are that are going to make us happy, that are going to connect us to meaning and purpose in other people and that will actually contribute to a better world for all of us, I think would be great. And I think there's competition and space for young people's minds at the moment. So if we can get them on board with some of those values and approaches to life, I think the future generations would probably be better off." www.abebooks.com/9780141982106/Side-Happiness-Embracing-Fearless-Approach-0141982101/plp www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 26 May 2023 | Highlights - BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living | 00:09:00 | |
"I think it's led to a focus on success and standing out, and I do think that the more young people can walk away with an understanding that perhaps the best thing they can do in life is actually contribute to the lives of others, that's probably where they're going to get most of their happiness from and most of their fulfillment from. And the rest is probably a little bit hollow. You know, money doesn't really buy happiness. I mean, it certainly buys comfort, and we do know some money is very important for that. But you do need to feel connected to other people, and you can't whilst consuming and even promoting ourselves on social media. Or playing the popularity game or aiming to be famous. That seems to be a value that a lot of young people have these days, but I don't think that it's going to breed happiness. And so being able to really identify what the values are that are going to make us happy, that are going to connect us to meaning and purpose in other people and that will actually contribute to a better world for all of us, I think would be great. And I think there's competition and space for young people's minds at the moment. So if we can get them on board with some of those values and approaches to life, I think the future generations would probably be better off." Brock Bastian is author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living and a professor at University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences. His research and writing focus on pain, happiness, morality, and wellbeing. In his search for a new perspective on what makes for the good life, Bastian has studied why promoting happiness may have paradoxical effects; why we need negative and painful experiences in life to build meaning, purpose, resilience, and ultimately greater fulfilment in life; and why behavioural ethics is necessary for understanding how we reason about personal and social issues and resolve conflicts of interest. www.abebooks.com/9780141982106/Side-Happiness-Embracing-Fearless-Approach-0141982101/plp www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 01 Jun 2023 | PABLO HOFFMAN - Whitley Award-winning Conservationist - Exec. Director & Co-Founder of Sociedade Chauá | 00:33:49 | |
Pablo Hoffman has always been passionate about plants and natural ecosystems, with special appreciation for research and dissemination with practical results for the production and conservation of native species. Pablo graduated in Forestry at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) 2002, had his Master’s in Forestry – UFPR 2014, currently he is a PhD candidate in Forestry. One of the Founders of the Sociedade Chauá, Pablo has been a board member since 2008. Currently is the Executive Director as well Coordinator of the Chauá Nursery of native species. A specialist in conservation, propagation and restoration of rare and endangered species of the Araucaria Forest, whose projects are locally and internationally recognized. As a result of Sociedade’s Chauá efforts to save endangered plant species Pablo was awarded the Marsh Award (2018), Whitley Award (2022), and Guardians of Nature (2022). As a life choice, working with conservation of rare and endangered plant species is the lifeblood of his personal and professional aspirations, to leave a positive legacy for the next generations, keeping the ecosystems alive with humans as part of it. “We're trying to do a nice thing to save species, but the problem is not ours. I mean it's ours as well, but the problem is a state problem or a countrywide problem. Everybody needs to see this. And also the communication about what we are doing. How hard what we are doing is in terms of even finding these species, and finding funds to keep on going. Almost 20 years of working with species conservation in a country like Brazil is quite difficult. It's like almost like a miracle that we are still here and keep on going. One of the questions of the Princess was: are you still doing the same? Are you still fighting for this? And she said it because normally people give up. And this is my life. This is my life. I want to leave a legacy, in terms of trying to do something to save this ecosystem, to save the species to make sure that my daughter can see some of the species in the future, and not only my daughter. So that people in the future can see, can discover more species, and can use the species." www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 02 Jun 2023 | HENRIK FEXEUS - Mentalist, Author & TV Host “The Art of Reading Minds”,“Mind Melt”,“Cult” | 01:03:36 | |
Henrik Fexeus is an internationally bestselling author, lecturer, performer, and star of the TV show Mind Melt. An expert in psychology and communications, he travels the world "reading minds" and teaching others how to understand and manipulate human behavior through body language and persuasion. Henrik has studied mental skills like NLP, hypnosis, acting, and magic. "Social media does not give us enough time to really, dissolve things into our being. For instance, music today has become this sort of commodity that is something that is supposed to be on in the background while you're working. And you have your playlist on a streaming service, where you can't even find whatever you listened to a month ago. It's constantly a new thing. When I grew up, you bought an album, you got home, and you listened to it. And you tried to be in there and live in those songs and in that music. And that process takes time. It's the same thing with everything that has to do with our corporeal knowledge, our physical knowledge of things, and our physical understanding or intuitive understanding of things. That is a process that takes time, and it gets interrupted by the constant flow of information. Our media input is like 90% of what we read on a screen. It probably doesn't have to be like that, but that's what it has become.” www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 02 Jun 2023 | Highlights - HENRIK FEXEUS - Mentalist, Author & TV Host - The Art of Reading Minds, Mind Melt | 00:10:44 | |
"Social media does not give us enough time to really, dissolve things into our being. For instance, music today has become this sort of commodity that is something that is supposed to be on in the background while you're working. And you have your playlist on a streaming service, where you can't even find whatever you listened to a month ago. It's constantly a new thing. When I grew up, you bought an album, you got home, and you listened to it. And you tried to be in there and live in those songs and in that music. And that process takes time. It's the same thing with everything that has to do with our corporeal knowledge, our physical knowledge of things, and our physical understanding or intuitive understanding of things. That is a process that takes time, and it gets interrupted by the constant flow of information. Our media input is like 90% of what we read on a screen. It probably doesn't have to be like that, but that's what it has become.” Henrik Fexeus is an internationally bestselling author, lecturer, performer, and star of the TV show Mind Melt. An expert in psychology and communications, he travels the world "reading minds" and teaching others how to understand and manipulate human behavior through body language and persuasion. Henrik has studied mental skills like NLP, hypnosis, acting, and magic. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 03 Jun 2023 | ANTHONY JOSEPH - T.S. Eliot Award-winning Poet, Novelist & Musician, Lead vocalist of The Spasm Band | 00:17:01 | |
Anthony Joseph is a poet, novelist, academic and musician who moved from Trinidad to the UK in 1989. A lecturer in creative writing at Birkbeck College, he is particularly interested in the point at which poetry becomes music. As well as four poetry collections, a slew of albums, and three novels – most recently Kitch – Joseph has published critical work exploring the aesthetics of Caribbean Poetry among other subjects. He performs internationally as the lead vocalist for his band The Spasm Band. Sonnets for Albert is his first poetry collection since Rubber Orchestras. “Calling England Home” and “Language (Poem for Anthony McNeill)” were released in 2021 by Anthony Joseph and appear on his album "The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running For Their Lives”. | |||
| 04 Jun 2023 | CARL SAFINA - Ecologist - Founding President of Safina Center - NYTimes Bestselling Author | 00:04:44 | |
Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon, CNN.com, National Geographic News, and other publications. He is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace. "So we tend to take living for granted. I think that might be the biggest limitation of human intelligence is to not understand with awe and reverence and love that we live in a miracle that we are part of and that we have the ability to either nurture or destroy. The living world is enormously enriching to human life. I just loved animals. They're always just totally fascinating. They're not here for us. They're just here like we're just here. They are of this world as much as we are of this world. They really have the same claim to life and death and the circle of being." IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast Photo: Carl Safina in Uganda | |||
| 05 Jun 2023 | Happy World Environment Day! Voices from the Parkinson's Community & Artpark Bridges Celebrate the Natural World | 00:02:49 | |
The Creative Process and One Planet Podcast wishes listeners Happy World Environment Day. For this special episode we celebrate the natural world with Artpark Bridges, the Parkinson's Community, independent living adults with Parkinson's disease, and People Inc, the Arts Experience, a day habilitation program for adults with developmental disabilities. Artpark Bridges is a year-round community engagement program led by interdisciplinary artist Cynthia Pegado, dedicated to empowering adults of diverse abilities and backgrounds through expressive arts workshops and performance opportunities. Serving the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region of New York State, Artpark Bridges connects citizens with a sense of inclusion and purpose, healing and creative expression. Cynthia Pegado Muriel Louveau "For me it is an artistic exchange but foremost a human experience. I cannot describe in words how this collaboration with the Artpark Bridges community inspires me, touches me, and opens my heart." Muriel Louveau, Artpark Bridges Sound Moves Me Artist-in-Residence. These recorded pieces have been developed with their students during "Our Garden " vocal workshop Poem "'Lily" written and read by Nancy (People Inc), "Nature" by Ed (PD group), "Fragile Beauty" by Nancy and Cynthia, "Garden of Love" by Cammie (People Inc). www.creativeprocess.info Flower Duet - Leo Delibes | |||
| 05 Jun 2023 | DITTE LYSGAARD VIND - Circular Economy & Design Expert - Author of Danish Design Heritage & Global Sustainability | 00:43:48 | |
Happy World Environment Day! Ditte Lysgaard Vind is a renowned circular economy and design expert and author of Danish Design Heritage & Global Sustainability (Routledge 2023) and A Changemakers Guide to the Future. She is the Chairwoman of the Danish Design Council and founder of The Circular Way. She is known for pioneering new materials as well as business models, while sharing the knowledge gained from practice through teaching and thought leadership, and is a member of the Executive board of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation as well as the global SDG innovation lab UNLEASH. "Putting design first, it really enables us to shape a future that we don't yet know. But we need to be super tactile and practical about it as well. And then seeing that is something that design very much has the ability to do. And at the same time, having this growing frustration that wherever you go, wherever you talk about sustainability, it was a compromise. It was something that meant uglier, less convenient, more expensive, all these different things, but then diving into the Danish Design heritage, seeing that what set them apart was that after the World Wars, they had a social purpose of democratizing and rebuilding the welfare state, and that was not something that lessened the final result. On the contrary, it heightened the ambition, the final design, and the solutions." www.thecircularway.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 06 Jun 2023 | Highlights - DITTE LYSGAARD VIND - Circular Economy & Design Expert - Founder of The Circular Way | 00:11:55 | |
"Putting design first, it really enables us to shape a future that we don't yet know. But we need to be super tactile and practical about it as well. And then seeing that is something that design very much has the ability to do. And at the same time, having this growing frustration that wherever you go, wherever you talk about sustainability, it was a compromise. It was something that meant uglier, less convenient, more expensive, all these different things, but then diving into the Danish Design heritage, seeing that what set them apart was that after the World Wars, they had a social purpose of democratizing and rebuilding the welfare state, and that was not something that lessened the final result. On the contrary, it heightened the ambition, the final design, and the solutions." Ditte Lysgaard Vind is a renowned circular economy and design expert and author of Danish Design Heritage & Global Sustainability (Routledge 2023) and A Changemakers Guide to the Future. She is the Chairwoman of the Danish Design Council and founder of The Circular Way. She is known for pioneering new materials as well as business models, while sharing the knowledge gained from practice through teaching and thought leadership, and is a member of the Executive board of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation as well as the global SDG innovation lab UNLEASH. www.thecircularway.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 07 Jun 2023 | E.J. KOH - Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet - “The Magical Language of Others”, “A Lesser Love” | 00:05:02 | |
E. J. Koh is the author of the memoir The Magical Language of Others, winner of the Washington State Book Award and the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Award. For her poetry collection A Lesser Love she received the Pleiades Press Editors Prize. She is the co-translator of Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle, forthcoming from Zephyr Press. Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and World Literature Today, among others. She earned her MFA in Literary Translation and Creative Writing from Columbia University, and is completing the PhD program at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is a recipient of MacDowell and Kundiman fellowships. www.miafunk.com | |||
| 05 Jun 2023 | Special World Environment Day Stories - Environmentalists, Students & Teachers share their Love for the Planet | 00:18:53 | |
Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists, students, and teachers with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices in this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast or reflectors of our participating students. Voices on this episode are BRITT WRAY JEFFREY SACHS EVELINE MOL, Student Barnard College BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation AVA CLANCY, Student MIRA PATLA, Student DARA DIAMOND, Student ARIELLE DAVIS, Student CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of Welcome to the Circular Economy MEGAN HEGENBARTH, Participating Student, University of Minnesota GRACE PHILLIPS, Participating Student, Pitzer College BIANCA WEBER, Participating Student, Syracuse University ELLEN EFSTATHIOU, Participating Student, Oberlin College SURYA VIR, Participating Student, University of Wisconsin-Madison MACIE PARKER, Participating Student, Boston University BEILA UNGAR, Participating Student, Columbia University CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center, Author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace” Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep. Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 08 Jun 2023 | WORLD OCEANS DAY | 00:22:11 | |
Happy World Oceans Day! Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists and artists with music courtesy of composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper. Voices on this episode are GIULIO BOCCALETTI PAULA PINHO RON GONEN MARCIA DESANCTIS JEAN WEINER DERRICK EMSLEY DR. FARHANA SULTANA NEIL GRIMMER ALAN JACOBSEN RICHARD VEVERS BRIAN WILCOX SETH M. SIEGEL JOELLE GERGIS JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast ROB BILOTT JILL HEINERTH OSPREY ORIELLE LAKE JESS WILBER BERTRAND PICCARD IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI GARY GRIGGS Sample Credits: BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited. BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited. UN Broadcast Excerpt, Greta Thunberg, Young Climate Activist at the Opening of the Climate Action Summit 2019, United Nations license 24 October 2022. CBS News Excerpt 1970. Fair usage, archive courtesy Leah Hodge, CBS www.creativeprocess.info Artworks by Mia Funk www.miafunk.com Music from Folded Landscapes courtesy of Erland Cooper and Universal Music Enterprises. | |||
| 08 Jun 2023 | RICHARD VEVERS - Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency - Featured in Netflix's Chasing Coral | 00:35:20 | |
Richard Vevers is the Founder and CEO of The Ocean Agency. He is a fellow of The Explorers Club and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Rhode Island. He is best known for his leading role in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Chasing Coral on Netflix and his work has been featured in numerous publications and documentaries. Before diving into ocean and coral reef conservation, Vevers worked at some of the top London advertising agencies and then as an artist and underwater photographer. This background guides his unique creative and business-thinking approach to ocean conservation that includes inventing the camera that took Google Street View underwater, pioneering virtual reality ocean education, currently available to over 90 million kids, leading the most comprehensive underwater photographic survey of the world’s coral reefs, and developing a science-based global plan 50 Reefs. "We don't use enough good storytelling when it comes to the ocean. We tend to focus on the ocean in almost that natural history approach, rather than talking about the people. Most people wouldn't be able to name an ocean explorer or anybody really associated with the oceans, which is a huge missed opportunity. We need more characters getting actively involved in storytelling around the ocean, so they become the sort of magnet for interest in the oceans." www.theoceanagency.org www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 09 Jun 2023 | JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet, Author of "The Tradition", "The New Testament" | 00:04:28 | |
Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University. www.jerichobrown.com | |||
| 14 Jun 2023 | MARK GOTTLIEB - Vice President & Literary Agent at Trident Media Group | 00:47:06 | |
As we're entering a world of advanced AI, what is the future of books? What makes stories enduring? And what role do literary agents play in nurturing authors and bringing great stories to the world? Mark Gottlieb is a Vice President and top-selling literary agent at Trident Media Group. He represents a wide range of authors across genres, many of whom have been awarded prestigious prizes and have secured places on the New York Times bestseller list. Among other achievements, Mark has successfully optioned and sold books to film production companies where they were adapted into blockbuster hits, beloved by audiences and critics. In addition to his work as an agent, Mark lectures on his experiences and craft at such noted venues as the Yale Writers’ Workshop, Cambridge University’s MSt in Creative Writing program, Columbia Publishing Course, and Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute. He founded Emerson College's Wilde Press, and the Stamford Literature, Arts & Culture Salon (SLACS), where he currently serves as president. "There's a lot of apprenticeship in our industry because historically it had to be that way, otherwise what you would have in publishing - there's still a lot of this - is a bunch of English majors trying to make sense of how to run a business, right? Because book publishing or working at a literary agency - a talent agency for authors like I do - is at the crossroads of creative and business. And if you didn't have that kind of apprenticeship, someone to learn from at the company where you work, then we would all just be English majors just trying to feel our way in the dark. I think that the important thing for people to really know about storytelling is that books are sort of like the oil paintings of the new media. It's a very fine art form, an old art form, and a story exists in everything, whether it's a photograph, a painting, a song, or a movie, it all began with a story. And stories have been here from the dawn of time. They're going to forever be in our existence, but I think people should just always have curious minds and seek out stories and storytelling and try to see the story in everything, not just look at things for face value." www.tridentmediagroup.com/agents/mark-gottlieb www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 14 Jun 2023 | Highlights - MARK GOTTLIEB - Vice President & Literary Agent at Trident Media Group | 00:10:00 | |
"There's a lot of apprenticeship in our industry because historically it had to be that way, otherwise what you would have in publishing - there's still a lot of this - is a bunch of English majors trying to make sense of how to run a business, right? Because book publishing or working at a literary agency - a talent agency for authors like I do - is at the crossroads of creative and business. And if you didn't have that kind of apprenticeship, someone to learn from at the company where you work, then we would all just be English majors just trying to feel our way in the dark. I think that the important thing for people to really know about storytelling is that books are sort of like the oil paintings of the new media. It's a very fine art form, an old art form, and a story exists in everything, whether it's a photograph, a painting, a song, or a movie, it all began with a story. And stories have been here from the dawn of time. They're going to forever be in our existence, but I think people should just always have curious minds and seek out stories and storytelling and try to see the story in everything, not just look at things for face value." Mark Gottlieb is a Vice President and top-selling literary agent at Trident Media Group. He represents a wide range of authors across genres, many of whom have been awarded prestigious prizes and have secured places on the New York Times bestseller list. Among other achievements, Mark has successfully optioned and sold books to film production companies where they were adapted into blockbuster hits, beloved by audiences and critics. In addition to his work as an agent, Mark lectures on his experiences and craft at such noted venues as the Yale Writers’ Workshop, Cambridge University’s MSt in Creative Writing program, Columbia Publishing Course, and Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute. He founded Emerson College's Wilde Press, and the Stamford Literature, Arts & Culture Salon (SLACS), where he currently serves as president. www.tridentmediagroup.com/agents/mark-gottlieb www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 21 Jun 2023 | JEFFREY SACHS - Director, Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia - President, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network | 00:26:37 | |
What is the path to peace for the war in Ukraine? Is America still powerful enough to impose global order? The US has just 4.1% of the world's population, while the BRICS countries have 41.5%. In this conversation with economist Jeffrey Sachs, we discuss the origins of the conflict in Ukraine and NATO enlargement, US-China relations, and the decline of US dominance. Jeffrey Sachs is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Sachs has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General. He was an economic adviser to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma. Sachs was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders, received the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development, the Legion of Honor from France, and was co-recipient of the Blue Planet Prize. He is Co-Chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, and academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican. Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). "The US is also experiencing the reality that other places in the world are catching up on technology, indeed leading on technologies as well. And China is a very successful, very industrious, very hardworking society, which in the last 40 years has gone from poverty to a very significant world-important economy. And the US has a very hard time accepting that. The US attitude, if you listen to congressmen, who don't seem to know anything, is Oh, if China's successful, must be because they're cheating. What about because they're saving more than 40% of GDP, that the Chinese people have been engaging in a remarkable upgrading of education, hundreds of thousands of PhDs minted each year, and massive scientific research programs? Come on, this is the truth. And so this arrogance is not allowing the truth to come through. But you mentioned one specific point, which is the role of the US dollar. Part of the US strength after World War II is, well, the US was basically the only economy standing. And it was a technologically advanced, rich, large economy; the world's largest. And the dollar was really the only international usable currency for quite a long time. So the dollar system became the center of how you do international trade. When you trade in goods, they're denominated in dollars when you buy. The imports you pay in dollars, meaning you use accounts in US dollars. Typically in the US banking system, when the transaction is closed, it's closed through the so-called SWIFT interbank system. And so the US has had what France long ago called 'an exorbitant privilege', that it could print a lot of money because the rest of the world was holding dollars, using dollars. The dollar was the basis of the world economy. That's changing now. And it's changing for three basic reasons. One is the share of the US and the world economy is diminishing, so this means that the predominance of the US is bound to diminish. The second is technologically settlements are going to occur in all sorts of ways other than through US banks. So-called digital currencies, especially Central Bank digital currencies will mean other ways to make settlements. We'll settle in renminbi when we buy in China, or settle in rubles or settle in rupees when trade is with India, and so forth. So there will be multiple currencies. And then the third part, which is really a matter of a bad set of decision-making, the US has militarized the dollar. Meaning that usually, you think about money, well, you have it, you can use it, you can spend it. But the United States has come to say: if we don't like you, you don't necessarily have access to your money anymore if it's in our banks.” www.jeffsachs.org www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 20 Jun 2023 | ANTHONY WHITE - Artist - What is the Role of Artists in Society? | 00:38:47 | |
What role do the visual arts play in drawing upon history, activating democracy, and asking questions about what culture can do? Australian artist Anthony White lives and works in Paris. White’s artistic work revolves around the notion of reclaiming the act of dissent through the production of cultural objects. His research is situated at the intersection of several fields in the social space including, politics, human rights, and postcolonialism. His practice is centered around concepts of design and its history as a form of social and political expression. He works with painting, drawing, collage, and printmaking. Through this practice, he tackles relevant questions to our time, to encourage emancipation and new ways of thinking. Anthony White’s artwork has been exhibited in Australia, Europe, and Asia. He has received support through cultural agencies such as The Trust Company Australia, The National Association for the Visual Arts,(NAVA) and The Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). He has also received critical acclaim by recognition in the form of art prizes and reviews most notably The Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship (2007) The Creative Art Fellowship at The National Library of Australia (2020) and acknowledgements in The Australia Financial Review, Art Collector Magazine Australia and also Elle Décor US edition. His exhibition Manifestation is on show from the 12–30 of July at Lennox Street Gallery, in Melbourne. "Not in terms of subject matter. Not in the fact that I've taken images from the Eureka Stockade. It was a point in history where there were some gold miners, and they revolted against the government because the government was enforcing licensing fees that were outrageously expensive at the time. So, I don't reproduce figurative paintings, but I wanted to take that energy of what dissent is about, and I wanted to reclaim the energy of the gestural mark as a signifier of dissent. So when I was doing the research in the library, I came across a Roman guy called Raffaello Carboni who wrote a book on the Eureka Stockade. It's actually the book that Sidney Nolan had been reading and his point of motivation for making this large mural. And I found it quite interesting that Carboni was a politically active guy. He was a supporter of Mazzini and Garibaldi who founded modern Italy. And then three years after Carboni fought in the movement that unified Italy, he went to Australia to Victoria. And he was also involved in that Eureka Stockade moment. So I thought, Oh, that's an interesting connection between my roots in Australia and my roots in Europe. So Carboni goes back, and he dies in Rome. And I see that this moment of civil disobedience is interesting and what's happening now with the rise of Fascism. It's an interesting thing that maybe there need to be other moments of civil disobedience where democracy is activated in a way. So I think that the visual arts, they have a role to play in terms of activating democracy. In terms of drawing upon history and asking questions about what culture can do." www.anthonywhite.art www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 28 Jun 2023 | FABRIZIO MANCINELLI - Composer, Songwriter, Conductor | 00:40:18 | |
What is the role of music in cinema and why it is such an important part of the storytelling process? How does music increase our capacity for empathy and wonder? Fabrizio Mancinelli is an Italian-American composer, songwriter, and conductor, best known for his musical contributions to the world of cinema. As a songwriter, he has created original scores for The Land of Dreams,The Snow Queen 3, The Boat, and the upcoming animated drama Mushka, among others. In 2017, he led the orchestral recording for the Academy Award-winning Green Book, and he recently scored the documentary Food 2050, which premiered at the UN Climate Change Conference in 2022. "And here I have to recall a conversation I had with one of my mentors, Luis Bacalov, who won the Oscar for the movie Il Postino, one of the biggest film composers of the 20th century and a great music arranger. He told me that he always has music in his brain, and I always had music in my brain as well. It's always there in the background. I would be concerned if there was no music for one day or even for one minute. Silence is a different kind of sound for me in the difference when I write music. Silence, a rest, is as important as a note because it prepares us for something else. It's part of the music. There is a difference between relative silence, which I put in the music, and absolute silence, which I fear." https://fabriziomancinelli.us www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 30 Jun 2023 | DOMINIC McAFEE - Marine Ecologist, University of Adelaide - Restoring Lost Oyster Reefs | 00:35:45 | |
We have lost around 85% of oyster reefs. That’s not only the loss of oysters but also the habitat they provide other marine animals and plants. Oysters are amazing, not only do some create pearls but as sequential hermaphrodites, they can switch between male and female almost on a daily basis. Dr. Dominic McAfee is a researcher at the University of Adelaide in Australia. His work centers around restoring lost marine ecosystems, specifically shellfish reefs. Along with employing novel technology and reef restoration projects, he seeks to understand how oysters enhance the resilience and function of coastal ecosystems. He seeks to develop conservation messaging strategies that enhance public engagement via conservation optimism. https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/dominic.mcafee www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 30 Jun 2023 | Highlights - DOMINIC McAFEE - Marine Ecologist, University of Adelaide - Restoring Lost Oyster Reefs | 00:16:19 | |
"Oysters are incredible beasts. You know, dolphins have cute eyes. Marine mammals, we have a natural affinity with them. How do you engage with a shelled introvert that hides away its entire life? But if we think about them as an organism, they are quite fascinating. A real character of the sea. So part of the reproductive process for the oyster that I work on are what we call sequential hermaphrodites. That means that they can switch between male and female almost on a daily basis. When you open them up, you can actually sometimes see egg and sperm next to each other. Incredibly dynamic organisms. They redefine, in many ways, how we think about sexuality. It's far more fluid with oysters. One of the amazing things about them though is that they were forming these reefs since before the time of the dinosaurs. We've lost something like 85% of oyster reefs globally.We've been using healthy marine sounds with underwater speakers to attract oysters to these reefs. So when the historical native habitat was lost, it also lost the sound that was associated with those reefs, that sound created by the millions of animals that live in that complex habitat. Now there's recognition that anthropogenic noise, noise from shipping and motorboats, and other urban noise is masking the natural sounds of the sea and dominating the soundscape as we call it. We're hoping that we can counteract some of those negative impacts of anthropogenic noise by playing healthy marine sounds." We have lost around 85% of oyster reefs. That’s not only the loss of oysters but also the habitat they provide other marine animals and plants. Oysters are amazing, not only do some create pearls but as sequential hermaphrodites, they can switch between male and female almost on a daily basis. Dr. Dominic McAfee is a researcher at the University of Adelaide in Australia. His work centers around restoring lost marine ecosystems, specifically shellfish reefs. Along with employing novel technology and reef restoration projects, he seeks to understand how oysters enhance the resilience and function of coastal ecosystems. He seeks to develop conservation messaging strategies that enhance public engagement via conservation optimism. https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/dominic.mcafee www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 03 Jul 2023 | JASON deCAIRES TAYLOR - Sculptor, Environmentalist, Creator of Underwater Museums | 00:28:26 | |
What if museums weren’t confined to buildings but could be part of the natural world? What if sculptures could not only celebrate our oceans, but also provide habitats for marine life? Jason deCaires Taylor is a sculptor, environmentalist, and underwater photographer. His works are constructed using materials to instigate natural growth and the subsequent changes intended to explore the aesthetics of decay, rebirth, and metamorphosis. DeCaires Taylor's pioneering public art projects are not only examples of successful marine conservation but also works of art that seek to encourage environmental awareness and lead us to appreciate the breathtaking natural beauty of the underwater world. "I just think we need to protect these areas. We have to feel for them. We have to understand them. And we have to feel that connection. So I would certainly encourage as many people as possible to learn to dive, to learn to snorkel and to really be in the moment, be in the space, in order to foster that empathy for the marine world. For me, it's one of the most beautiful, spiritual, and diverse places on the planet. And it's so little understood, but it's changing. We actually have some new works which have scientific monitoring devices in them. They actually have little sensors in them that monitor temperature and salinity and other factors. And they can be removed and then scanned. And all that data can then be downloaded to also monitor how the works are. I just completed a big project in Australia which just opened on World Ocean's Day. And one of the main pieces there is this piece called The Ocean Siren. And it is a young indigenous woman who is standing on the coastline, and she's actually attached to a weather station connected via a satellite link to a weather station out on the Great Barrier Reef. And that feeds data back to her. And then there's a solar array that changes a series of LEDs on her skin. So she changes red and orange color when there are prolonged spikes in temperature that could indicate coral bleaching. And then when the water is cooler, she obviously comes back down to a cooler blue or green color." www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 04 Jul 2023 | Highlights - JASON deCAIRES TAYLOR - Sculptor, Environmentalist, Creator of Underwater Museums | 00:10:18 | |
"I just think we need to protect these areas. We have to feel for them. We have to understand them. And we have to feel that connection. So I would certainly encourage as many people as possible to learn to dive, to learn to snorkel and to really be in the moment, be in the space, in order to foster that empathy for the marine world. For me, it's one of the most beautiful, spiritual, and diverse places on the planet. And it's so little understood, but it's changing. We actually have some new works which have scientific monitoring devices in them. They actually have little sensors in them that monitor temperature and salinity and other factors. And they can be removed and then scanned. And all that data can then be downloaded to also monitor how the works are. I just completed a big project in Australia which just opened on World Ocean's Day. And one of the main pieces there is this piece called The Ocean Siren. And it is a young indigenous woman who is standing on the coastline, and she's actually attached to a weather station connected via a satellite link to a weather station out on the Great Barrier Reef. And that feeds data back to her. And then there's a solar array that changes a series of LEDs on her skin. So she changes red and orange color when there are prolonged spikes in temperature that could indicate coral bleaching. And then when the water is cooler, she obviously comes back down to a cooler blue or green color." What if museums weren’t confined to buildings but could be part of the natural world? What if sculptures could not only celebrate our oceans, but also provide habitats for marine life? Jason deCaires Taylor is a sculptor, environmentalist, and underwater photographer. His works are constructed using materials to instigate natural growth and the subsequent changes intended to explore the aesthetics of decay, rebirth, and metamorphosis. DeCaires Taylor's pioneering public art projects are not only examples of successful marine conservation but also works of art that seek to encourage environmental awareness and lead us to appreciate the breathtaking natural beauty of the underwater world. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 04 Jul 2023 | SERGEI GURIEV - Economist - Provost of SciencesPo - Co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century | 00:37:05 | |
What is a spin dictator? What does tyranny look like in the 21st century? Why is populism on the rise? And how do we reinvent democracy? Sergei Guriev is the co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century. Guriev is Provost and a professor of economics and at Sciences Po in Paris. He is a former Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London, and a former Rector of the New Economic School in Moscow in 2004-13. "We feel a great responsibility in that we train the citizens for the future. We train the leaders for the future. And SciencesPo is a unique institution in many ways. And one of those is it plays a disproportionately important role in training the social, political, and business elites in France. In no other country, do you have just one single institution which is so important for training the political elite. And that's why we feel a great responsibility. That's why we always ask ourselves what else we can do to make sure that people who will run this country 20 years later actually know what they are supposed to do? And we make sure that our student body is diverse. So we don't have this disconnect between elites and the others, but we also think about the subjects. So we teach more and more about environmental transformation. On digital transformation, we have special research programs on discrimination inequalities, and we teach courses on this. And of course, we also involve a highly international faculty and student body. This is, again, something that is a part of my strategy as a provost. We need to recruit more international faculty because we already have internationalized our student body. We have about half of SciencesPo students who are either international or binational. So this is also an important part of our strategy to become not just an institution in France, but also an institution for the whole world because of all these issues: climate change, digital transformation, inequalities, geopolitics, and crisis. These are all global issues that have to be addressed not by one country, but by the international community." https://sites.google.com/site/sguriev/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 05 Jul 2023 | Highlights - SERGEI GURIEV - Political Economist - Provost of SciencesPo - Co-author of Spin Dictators | 00:11:04 | |
"We feel a great responsibility in that we train the citizens for the future. We train the leaders for the future. And SciencesPo is a unique institution in many ways. And one of those is it plays a disproportionately important role in training the social, political, and business elites in France. In no other country, do you have just one single institution which is so important for training the political elite. And that's why we feel a great responsibility. That's why we always ask ourselves what else we can do to make sure that people who will run this country 20 years later actually know what they are supposed to do? And we make sure that our student body is diverse. So we don't have this disconnect between elites and the others, but we also think about the subjects. So we teach more and more about environmental transformation. On digital transformation, we have special research programs on discrimination inequalities, and we teach courses on this. And of course, we also involve a highly international faculty and student body. This is, again, something that is a part of my strategy as a provost. We need to recruit more international faculty because we already have internationalized our student body. We have about half of SciencesPo students who are either international or binational. So this is also an important part of our strategy to become not just an institution in France, but also an institution for the whole world because of all these issues: climate change, digital transformation, inequalities, geopolitics, and crisis. These are all global issues that have to be addressed not by one country, but by the international community." What is a spin dictator? What does tyranny look like in the 21st century? Why is populism on the rise? And how do we reinvent democracy? Sergei Guriev is the co-author of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century. Guriev is Provost and a professor of economics and at Sciences Po in Paris. He is a former Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London, and a former Rector of the New Economic School in Moscow in 2004-13. https://sites.google.com/site/sguriev/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 07 Jul 2023 | Erland Cooper - Nature’s Songwriter - Composer of “Folded Landscapes” | 00:57:51 | |
How has music transported you? Where do you find inspiration from the natural world? Where do you find moments of every day magic? "Limitations are the greatest, greatest tools for advancing something. And that's where a narrative for me works very well. It acts like a kind of nautical map. I know where I'm going, and I know if I've gone way off course and I shouldn't be there because I look back at the limitations I've set for myself based on the stories within it. One of our great British artists is Brian Eno, and he spoke a lot about limitations. I had the great joy of having a conversation. We ended up chatting for a couple of hours and he said, 'Oh, I want to show you something. I want to show you my library, and this tool I've created!' His Sonic Library, which is decades of audio material. (I have something similar. I call it an orphanage of sound. These files and folders that will eventually find a home.) But he's created a piece of software using algorithms that will at random pull out sounds and play them. And he can set certain parameters: I want a string sound to be here. And I'd like some bass sounds to come in. And I'd like some drum sounds, but it's just choosing these layers and playing them all at the same time. Again, a bit like the cacophony of birdsong. It's a bit of a mess initially, but then you can edit, and you start to refine. And in those limitations that have come out of this tool - and this is the point I guess I'm trying to make - is that it can be used as a tool to set limits or to burst limits. Or to mix things up. Out of that editing process, you can output something that to your ear sounds good to somebody else's ear." www.creativeprocess.info Photo by Alex Kozobolis | |||
| 07 Jul 2023 | Highlights - Erland Cooper - Scottish Composer, Producer, Multi-instrumentalist | 00:14:08 | |
"Limitations are the greatest, greatest tools for advancing something. And that's where a narrative for me works very well. It acts like a kind of nautical map. I know where I'm going, and I know if I've gone way off course and I shouldn't be there because I look back at the limitations I've set for myself based on the stories within it. One of our great British artists is Brian Eno, and he spoke a lot about limitations. I had the great joy of having a conversation. We ended up chatting for a couple of hours and he said, 'Oh, I want to show you something. I want to show you my library, and this tool I've created!' His Sonic Library, which is decades of audio material. (I have something similar. I call it an orphanage of sound. These files and folders that will eventually find a home.) But he's created a piece of software using algorithms that will at random pull out sounds and play them. And he can set certain parameters: I want a string sound to be here. And I'd like some bass sounds to come in. And I'd like some drum sounds, but it's just choosing these layers and playing them all at the same time. Again, a bit like the cacophony of birdsong. It's a bit of a mess initially, but then you can edit, and you start to refine. And in those limitations that have come out of this tool - and this is the point I guess I'm trying to make - is that it can be used as a tool to set limits or to burst limits. Or to mix things up. Out of that editing process, you can output something that to your ear sounds good to somebody else's ear." How has music transported you? Where do you find inspiration from the natural world? Where do you find moments of every day magic? www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 10 Jul 2023 | Speaking Out of Place: CYNTHIA G. FRANKLIN discusses “Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea” | 00:30:48 | |
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu interviews Cynthia Franklin about her new book, Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea. Taking on pivotal historical moments like the murder of George Floyd and the emergence of #BlackLivesMatter, the on-going struggle of the Palestinian people against the ethno-nationalist Zionist state, and the fight for Indigenous rights in Hawai’i, Franklin asks the question, what requirements to people have to meet in order to fit into the human narrative? And what are the possibilities of creating alternate stories of the human that can accommodate individuals who identify more as members of political collectives, and also narratives that exceed the normative category of the human? This powerful book asks fundamental questions about the relationship between art and activism. “I posit narrated humanity as a lens through which to study how narratives participate in struggles to conceive human being beyond juridical and narrative humanity.” Cynthia G. Franklin is Professor of English at the University of Hawai'i, and coeditor of the journal Biography. She is the author of Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea (2023), Academic Lives: Memoir, Cultural Theory and the University Today and Writing Women’s Communities: The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary Multi-Genre Anthologies. She has coedited special issues of Biography including “Life in Occupied Palestine” and “Personal Effects: The Testimonial Uses of Life Writing.” For the past ten years, Cynthia has been on the Organizing Collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) and she is a founding member and faculty advisor of Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at UH (SFJP@UH). She serves on the Editorial Collective for the newly established initiative EtCH (Essays in the Critical Humanities). https://english.hawaii.edu/faculty/cynthia-franklin/ www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| 13 Jul 2023 | MARK MASLIN - Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts - Professor, Earth System Science, University College London | 00:45:07 | |
Can we imagine a world where we leave half the earth to the natural environment and use the other half for ourselves? Can we change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society? Mark Maslin is a Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. Maslin is a leading expert in understanding the anthropocene and how it relates to the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. He has written a number of books on the issue of climate change, his most book is How to Save Our Planet: The Facts. "I think that young people should understand our history. And I think this is incredibly important. So it is sometimes very difficult to talk to young people in the UK about relations with other countries. Because they don't have the history, they don't understand the colonial history. They don't understand where the British Empire slaughtered people or imposed draconian measures or actually had huge impacts on different societies. And I think if you understand where your society has come from with all the good and bad bits, you can then say: Okay, now I understand where we are situated. I can understand where economics has come from. I understand that neoliberalism was an effort to try and lift everybody out of poverty, but it hass failed. So for me, it is understanding where we've come from, understanding the struggles, and understanding why the poorest, vulnerable people and Indigenous people are always at the front end of any conflict or crisis. And therefore thinking about how do we actually deal with this current crisis in a way that those people are not adversely affected for the first time in history? Can we actually change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society? And therefore, because we have actually read our history and learn from it, can we actually understand how to move on and not repeat the mistakes of the past?" www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mark-maslin www.creativeprocess.info All images courtesy of Mark Maslin | |||
| 13 Jul 2023 | Highlights - MARK MASLIN - Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts - Professor, Earth System Science, UCLondon | 00:21:20 | |
"I think that young people should understand our history. And I think this is incredibly important. So it is sometimes very difficult to talk to young people in the UK about relations with other countries. Because they don't have the history, they don't understand the colonial history. They don't understand where the British Empire slaughtered people or imposed draconian measures or actually had huge impacts on different societies. And I think if you understand where your society has come from with all the good and bad bits, you can then say: Okay, now I understand where we are situated. I can understand where economics has come from. I understand that neoliberalism was an effort to try and lift everybody out of poverty, but it hass failed. So for me, it is understanding where we've come from, understanding the struggles, and understanding why the poorest, vulnerable people and Indigenous people are always at the front end of any conflict or crisis. And therefore thinking about how do we actually deal with this current crisis in a way that those people are not adversely affected for the first time in history? Can we actually change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society? And therefore, because we have actually read our history and learn from it, can we actually understand how to move on and not repeat the mistakes of the past?" Can we imagine a world where we leave half the earth to the natural environment and use the other half for ourselves? Can we change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society? Mark Maslin is a Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. Maslin is a leading expert in understanding the anthropocene and how it relates to the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. He has written a number of books on the issue of climate change, his most book is How to Save Our Planet: The Facts. www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mark-maslin www.creativeprocess.info Image courtesy of Mark Maslin | |||
| 14 Jul 2023 | TOM LIN - Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu - Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022 | 00:41:56 | |
How can we retell the story of America? In the United States of Amnesia, why does the Western celebrate cowboys but not all people who built this country? What does a Chinese-American hero look like in the 21st Century? Tom Lin is an American writer whose 2021 debut novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu chronicles the story of a Chinese American outlaw seeking revenge during America's railroad boom. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Lin the youngest Carnegie winner in the prize’s history. Tom Lin is currently pursuing an English doctorate at the University of California Davis. "I think I would like young people to preserve everything. I think so much of historical work is going back and trying to piece together the things that have not been preserved. And so even with biodiversity and the planet, I think we should try to have less impact on our surroundings and more impact on each other. There's less and less investment in the humanities, and that really saddens me. I think art is important because it's something that we do as humans that has no purpose beyond how it makes us feel. And something like that is valuable because it is hard and because it is directed at other people. The making of art, the consumption of art, I think is what makes us human as opposed to animals. If we are going to draw that line, I think that's where it is. And I think the purpose of artists is to preserve the feeling of being alive and to communicate that to others." www.creativeprocess.info Image courtesy of Little, Brown and Company & Tom Lin | |||
| 14 Jul 2023 | Highlights - TOM LIN - Author of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu - Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2022 | 00:11:05 | |
"I think I would like young people to preserve everything. I think so much of historical work is going back and trying to piece together the things that have not been preserved. And so even with biodiversity and the planet, I think we should try to have less impact on our surroundings and more impact on each other. There's less and less investment in the humanities, and that really saddens me. I think art is important because it's something that we do as humans that has no purpose beyond how it makes us feel. And something like that is valuable because it is hard and because it is directed at other people. The making of art, the consumption of art, I think is what makes us human as opposed to animals. If we are going to draw that line, I think that's where it is. And I think the purpose of artists is to preserve the feeling of being alive and to communicate that to others." How can we retell the story of America? In the United States of Amnesia, why does the Western celebrate cowboys but not all people who built this country? What does a Chinese-American hero look like in the 21st Century? Tom Lin is an American writer whose 2021 debut novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu chronicles the story of a Chinese American outlaw seeking revenge during America's railroad boom. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Lin the youngest Carnegie winner in the prize’s history. Tom Lin is currently pursuing an English doctorate at the University of California Davis. www.creativeprocess.info Image courtesy of Little, Brown and Company & Tom Lin | |||
| 19 Jul 2023 | ERICA BERRY - Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear | 00:46:07 | |
The lone wolf is actually alone because it's looking for connection. They leave in order to find a mate and form their own pack. If loneliness is an epidemic, what can wolves teach us about loneliness, courage, and connection? Erica Berry is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear. Her essays in journalism appear in Outside, Wired, The Yale Review, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications. Berry has taught workshops for teenagers and adults at Literary Arts, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the New York Times Student Journeys in Oxford Academia. "And I think the ways that wolves converse with one another, there's also so much there that really conjures the way that we humans do. And I was trying to piece together: why did we feel so threatened by wolves? In part, I think because there's a sort of uncanny mirror that humans have seen in a wolf. And I'll give an example. Wolf packs will form a diversity of family structures very often. So they will have a nuclear family where you'll have two breeders, but they can also have an extended family where there's sort of aunts and uncles in the pack. Or (these are the biologist's names) they'll call it a step-family if a wolf pack welcomes an outside breeder. A foster family, if they welcome another outsider. And I think the way that a pack is its own ecosystem: if one wolf dies, there's one wolf in this pack that might be the one that teaches how to move through the territory. And if that one wolf dies, the whole pack has a much higher likelihood of disbanding. And so this idea that the interconnectivity between the packs and the individuality of the wolves is so critical. It is so beautiful, and you see that studying these different wolves, they have personalities." www.ericaberry.com www.creativeprocess.info Photo by Andrea Lonas | |||
| 21 Jul 2023 | JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet - Editor of “How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill” | 00:49:13 | |
How do you find your voice? As a writer, how do you take what you know and what you believe to share your stories with the world? How do we let young writers know just how powerful they are and that what they do matters? In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill Pulitzer Prize winning, and National Book Award finalist author Jericho Brown brings together more than 30 acclaimed writers, including the likes of Tayari Jones, Jacqueline Woodson, Natasha Trethewey, among many others, to discuss, dissect, and offer advice and encouragement on the written word. Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University. "This is a book I wish existed 20 years ago. I would have led an easier life if it had. I want you to have what I always wanted. Here is an anthology that gives us modes to try on the way we might wear and change clothing. And these wonderful writers are proof that nothing ever beat a failure but a try. In order to make what you make, you have to use what you have. You have to submerge yourself, immerse yourself in what you know, in your own vernacular, in your own tone, in your own belief, in your own way of doing things and telling stories. And that's how the writing can get done." www.jerichobrown.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 24 Jul 2023 | Speaking Out of Place: JENNIFER JACQUET discusses The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World | 00:32:24 | |
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu interviews Jennifer Jacquet, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Director of XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement at NYU. She is also deputy director of NYU's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection. Her research focuses on animals and the environment, Agnotology, and attribution and responsibility in the Anthropocene. She is author of The Playbook: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World-- a work of 'epistolary non-fiction' that makes the business case for scientific denial. Among other things, we learn how corporations create an arsenal of experts and pseudo-experts at prestigious universities to create misinformation and disinformation for corporate profit, and at great cost to the public. At the end, we make the case for a partnership between the sciences and the humanities to fight such lies and violence. Jennifer Jacquet’s research focuses on animals and the environment, Agnotology, and attribution and responsibility in the Anthropocene. She is author of The: How to Deny Science, Sell Lies, and Make a Killing in the Corporate World (Pantheon/Penguin, 2022)-- a work of 'epistolary non-fiction' that makes the business case for scientific denial. She also wrote Is Shame Necessary? (Pantheon/Penguin, 2015) about the evolution, function, and future of the use of social disapproval in a globalized, digitized world. She is the recipient of a 2015 Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship and a 2016 Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation. https://jenniferjacquet.com www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| 03 Aug 2023 | DAVID FENTON - Founder of Fenton Communications, Author of The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons From 50 Years as a Progressive Agitator | 00:49:41 | |
How can we effectively communicate that we're moving beyond climate change to a state of climate crisis? The trapped heat energy on Earth is equal to a million Atomic bombs going off every single day. Today we talk to someone who's been mobilizing the public mind for over 50 years. David Fenton, named “one of the 100 most influential PR people” by PR Week and “the Robin Hood of public relations” by The National Journal, founded Fenton in 1982 to create communications campaigns for the environment, public health, and human rights. For more than five decades he has pioneered the use of PR, social media, and advertising techniques for social change. Fenton started his career as a photojournalist in the late 1960s – his book Shots: An American Photographer’s Journal was published in 2005. He was formerly director of public relations at Rolling Stone magazine and co-producer of the No-Nukes concerts in 1979 at Madison Square Garden with Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and other artists. He has also helped create JStreet, Climate Nexus, the Death Penalty Information Center, and Families for a Future. He sold Fenton a few years ago to work on climate change full time. He is the author of The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons From 50 Years as a Progressive Agitator. "When I say 'Make America Great Again', everybody probably cringes and I do too, but we have to learn from that. That is actually how the brain works. It works through being exposed to the repetition of simple, easy-to-understand messages that have an emotional, moral aspect. That's how the brain learns. It doesn't learn from facts. It doesn't learn from figures. It doesn't learn from policy pronouncements. And it certainly doesn't learn from complexity. Here's an example. People need to be conscious of the difference between internal and external communications. So, if you want to say that you believe in intersectional environmentalism, that's valid within your group. But if you use that in your public communication, no one understands what the hell you mean by that, not at all. Second, you're branding yourself as an other. You're not part of their world. You don't understand them. You have some weird agenda of your own, and you're incomprehensible. I hope my book makes a contribution to helping activists learn the difference between what the communists used to call an internal line and an external line. You know, the communists had a lot of things wrong, but that they were right about.” https://davidfentonactivist.com www.creativeprocess.info All photographs © 1968-2022 David Fenton | |||
| 03 Aug 2023 | Highlights - DAVID FENTON - Author of The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons From 50 Years as a Progressive Agitator | 00:10:09 | |
"When I say 'Make America Great Again', everybody probably cringes and I do too, but we have to learn from that. That is actually how the brain works. It works through being exposed to the repetition of simple, easy-to-understand messages that have an emotional, moral aspect. That's how the brain learns. It doesn't learn from facts. It doesn't learn from figures. It doesn't learn from policy pronouncements. And it certainly doesn't learn from complexity. Here's an example. People need to be conscious of the difference between internal and external communications. So, if you want to say that you believe in intersectional environmentalism, that's valid within your group. But if you use that in your public communication, no one understands what the hell you mean by that, not at all. Second, you're branding yourself as an other. You're not part of their world. You don't understand them. You have some weird agenda of your own, and you're incomprehensible. I hope my book makes a contribution to helping activists learn the difference between what the communists used to call an internal line and an external line. You know, the communists had a lot of things wrong, but that they were right about.” How can we effectively communicate that we're moving beyond climate change to a state of climate crisis? The trapped heat energy on Earth is equal to a million Atomic bombs going off every single day. Today we talk to someone who's been mobilizing the public mind for over 50 years. David Fenton, named “one of the 100 most influential PR people” by PR Week and “the Robin Hood of public relations” by The National Journal, founded Fenton in 1982 to create communications campaigns for the environment, public health, and human rights. For more than five decades he has pioneered the use of PR, social media, and advertising techniques for social change. Fenton started his career as a photojournalist in the late 1960s – his book Shots: An American Photographer’s Journal was published in 2005. He was formerly director of public relations at Rolling Stone magazine and co-producer of the No-Nukes concerts in 1979 at Madison Square Garden with Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and other artists. He has also helped create JStreet, Climate Nexus, the Death Penalty Information Center, and Families for a Future. He sold Fenton a few years ago to work on climate change full time. He is the author of The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons From 50 Years as a Progressive Agitator. https://davidfentonactivist.com www.creativeprocess.info All photographs © 1968-2022 David Fenton | |||
| 08 Aug 2023 | ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON | 00:58:04 | |
“Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.” – ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER Is there any better example of the American Dream than Arnold Schwarzenegger? What does it take to make your vision a reality? How do you cultivate iron focus to overcome any obstacle and realize your dreams? On the publication of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s limited edition two-volume book published by TASCHEN, we sat down with Senior Editor and Writer Dian Hansen to discuss Schwarzenegger’s life, accomplishments, and history of unforgettable performances. The book has been a decade-long collaborative process and along with portraits by leading photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavullo, and Andy Warhol, it is also filled with photos from Arnold’s private archive and exclusive interviews. Dian’s other works include The Art of Pin-up, Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, and The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta. "Benedikt Taschen, like myself, like Arnold, is a man without formal education. Benedikt started his business when he was 18 years old and opened a comic book store. He had been buying and selling trading comic books since the age of 15. He made the money himself to open a comic book store and then went into publishing right after that. And I said, 'Benedikt, when did you have time to go to college?' And he said, 'There was no time. I did not go.' And so people are tempted to call people like Benedikt, to call people like Arnold, to call people like me, self-made. But we are obviously not self-made. We are determined, and we use our determination to bring other people into our dream and our motivation to accomplish what we want. And so Taschen sees in Arnold himself and his own determination he sees in me, himself, and his determination. And so we all come together in that, you know, let's celebrate somebody that most people would not imagine was an art book subject. This has been Taschen all along. Oh, they make sex books. You know, that's not art. Well, Benedikt Taschen said to me at the time when he hired me, and he was trying to hire me since 1994, I said, 'Well, you know, I made porn magazines. Am I going to have to change everything I do to make art books?' And he said, no. He said, 'I'm hiring you because I like what you do. We make good books. We put good art in our books. We put good sex material in our books. We do not put bad art in our books. We do not put bad sex material in our books. We do it good, and then it's art. And that is what we have done all along.' If you think Arnold is just some muscle guy, well go look in the book. Go see how Annie Leibovitz envisioned him. Go see how Robert Mapplethorpe saw him. Go see how Andy Warhol saw him. Go see how Herb Ritts saw him. He was inspiration for all of these people." www.taschen.com/en/limited-editions/film/03105/arnold-collector-s-edition www.creativeprocess.info Images courtesy of Taschen. | |||
| 08 Aug 2023 | Highlights - ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Athlete, Actor, American, Activist - Conversation with Editor DIAN HANSON | 00:10:23 | |
"Benedikt Taschen, like myself, like Arnold, is a man without formal education. Benedikt started his business when he was 18 years old and opened a comic book store. He had been buying and selling trading comic books since the age of 15. He made the money himself to open a comic book store and then went into publishing right after that. And I said, 'Benedikt, when did you have time to go to college?' And he said, 'There was no time. I did not go.' And so people are tempted to call people like Benedikt, to call people like Arnold, to call people like me, self-made. But we are obviously not self-made. We are determined, and we use our determination to bring other people into our dream and our motivation to accomplish what we want. And so Taschen sees in Arnold himself and his own determination he sees in me, himself, and his determination. And so we all come together in that, you know, let's celebrate somebody that most people would not imagine was an art book subject. This has been Taschen all along. Oh, they make sex books. You know, that's not art. Well, Benedikt Taschen said to me at the time when he hired me, and he was trying to hire me since 1994, I said, 'Well, you know, I made porn magazines. Am I going to have to change everything I do to make art books?' And he said, no. He said, 'I'm hiring you because I like what you do. We make good books. We put good art in our books. We put good sex material in our books. We do not put bad art in our books. We do not put bad sex material in our books. We do it good, and then it's art. And that is what we have done all along.' If you think Arnold is just some muscle guy, well go look in the book. Go see how Annie Leibovitz envisioned him. Go see how Robert Mapplethorpe saw him. Go see how Andy Warhol saw him. Go see how Herb Ritts saw him. He was inspiration for all of these people." “Why I was different from all the other boys in my town I cannot tell you. I was simply born with the gift of vision.” – ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER Is there any better example of the American Dream than Arnold Schwarzenegger? What does it take to make your vision a reality? How do you cultivate iron focus to overcome any obstacle and realize your dreams? On the publication of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s limited edition two-volume book published by TASCHEN, we sat down with Senior Editor and Writer Dian Hansen to discuss Schwarzenegger’s life, accomplishments, and history of unforgettable performances. The book has been a decade-long collaborative process and along with portraits by leading photographers Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Francesco Scavullo, and Andy Warhol, it is also filled with photos from Arnold’s private archive and exclusive interviews. Dian’s other works include The Art of Pin-up, Masterpieces of Fantasy Art, and The Fantastic Worlds of Frank Frazetta. www.taschen.com/en/limited-editions/film/03105/arnold-collector-s-edition www.creativeprocess.info Image courtesy of Taschen. | |||
| 01 Aug 2023 | SIMON DALBY - Author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World | 00:39:28 | |
Wildfire season is starting earlier and lasting longer due to global warming across the world. What will we do to save the world on fire? How can we cure our addiction to fossil fuels which is verging on pyromania? Simon Dalby is author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World and Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. His other books are Rethinking Environmental Security, Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, and Security and Environmental Change. He’s co-editor of Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and Reframing Climate Change: Constructing Ecological Geopolitics. "We have got to stop and think carefully about how we integrate our education systems so that we think across these silos and think about literally how to make a better world. And then we can extract ourselves hopefully from those little silos that we do our studying and thinking and learning in, and begin to think about our role as ecological beings. If we're going to think about well-being linked to planetary health, we need to get out of the silos that we traditionally thought about and think across the disciplines. And this should allow us to be much more creative in terms of how we design curriculum and how we organize our educational process." https://experts.wlu.ca/simon-dalby-1 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 11 Aug 2023 | SUE INCHES - Author of Advocating for the Environment: How to Gather Your Power and Take Action | 00:41:32 | |
Sue Inches is an advocate, author, and teacher. She has worked in public policy for over 25 years, serving as the Deputy Director of the State Planning Office, and as a Director at the Maine Department of Marine Resources. She is author of Advocating for the Environment: How to Gather Your Power and Take Action, and teaches college and high school workshops on same. Her consulting work focuses on strategic planning, program development, and environmental campaigns. "Our culture and the way that we carry out capitalism is that we have allowed businesses to create a mess. And then the taxpayers are the ones that pay to clean it up. Corporations need to be held accountable for the environmental harm that they cause. And that way it's not going to be left to us. Corporations are caught in a system and the way that we carry out capitalism now is that profit is above everything, including people's health. And these corporations feel that if they don't maximize profit, they could be sued by their shareholders because their shareholders are basically holding them accountable for profit only. One of them that's worked quite well in Europe, and it's just starting to emerge in America, is to require that corporations report on their environmental impact. So right alongside their financial report would be environmental risk and environmental impact reporting.” https://sueinches.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 11 Aug 2023 | Highlights - SUE INCHES - Fmr. Director, Maine Department of Marine Resources - Fmr. Deputy Director, State Planning Office | 00:11:36 | |
"Our culture and the way that we carry out capitalism is that we have allowed businesses to create a mess. And then the taxpayers are the ones that pay to clean it up. Corporations need to be held accountable for the environmental harm that they cause. And that way it's not going to be left to us. Corporations are caught in a system and the way that we carry out capitalism now is that profit is above everything, including people's health. And these corporations feel that if they don't maximize profit, they could be sued by their shareholders because their shareholders are basically holding them accountable for profit only. One of them that's worked quite well in Europe, and it's just starting to emerge in America, is to require that corporations report on their environmental impact. So right alongside their financial report would be environmental risk and environmental impact reporting.” Sue Inches is an advocate, author, and teacher. She has worked in public policy for over 25 years, serving as the Deputy Director of the State Planning Office, and as a Director at the Maine Department of Marine Resources. She is author of Advocating for the Environment: How to Gather Your Power and Take Action, and teaches college and high school workshops on same. Her consulting work focuses on strategic planning, program development, and environmental campaigns. https://sueinches.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 21 Jul 2023 | Highlights - JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet - Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill | 00:15:16 | |
"This is a book I wish existed 20 years ago. I would have led an easier life if it had. I want you to have what I always wanted. Here is an anthology that gives us modes to try on the way we might wear and change clothing. And these wonderful writers are proof that nothing ever beat a failure but a try. In order to make what you make, you have to use what you have. You have to submerge yourself, immerse yourself in what you know, in your own vernacular, in your own tone, in your own belief, in your own way of doing things and telling stories. And that's how the writing can get done." How do you find your voice? As a writer, how do you take what you know and what you believe to share your stories with the world? How do we let young writers know just how powerful they are and that what they do matters? In How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill Pulitzer Prize winning, and National Book Award finalist author Jericho Brown brings together more than 30 acclaimed writers, including the likes of Tayari Jones, Jacqueline Woodson, Natasha Trethewey, among many others, to discuss, dissect, and offer advice and encouragement on the written word. Brown is author of The Tradition, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please, won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University. www.jerichobrown.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 19 Jul 2023 | Highlights - ERICA BERRY - Author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear | 00:12:35 | |
"And I think the ways that wolves converse with one another, there's also so much there that really conjures the way that we humans do. And I was trying to piece together: why did we feel so threatened by wolves? In part, I think because there's a sort of uncanny mirror that humans have seen in a wolf. And I'll give an example. Wolf packs will form a diversity of family structures very often. So they will have a nuclear family where you'll have two breeders, but they can also have an extended family where there's sort of aunts and uncles in the pack. Or (these are the biologist's names) they'll call it a step-family if a wolf pack welcomes an outside breeder. A foster family, if they welcome another outsider. And I think the way that a pack is its own ecosystem: if one wolf dies, there's one wolf in this pack that might be the one that teaches how to move through the territory. And if that one wolf dies, the whole pack has a much higher likelihood of disbanding. And so this idea that the interconnectivity between the packs and the individuality of the wolves is so critical. It is so beautiful, and you see that studying these different wolves, they have personalities." The lone wolf is actually alone because it's looking for connection. They leave in order to find a mate and form their own pack. If loneliness is an epidemic, what can wolves teach us about loneliness, courage, and connection? Erica Berry is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear. Her essays in journalism appear in Outside, Wired, The Yale Review, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications. Berry has taught workshops for teenagers and adults at Literary Arts, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the New York Times Student Journeys in Oxford Academia. www.ericaberry.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 18 Aug 2023 | MARK HOWDEN - Vice Chair, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - Director, Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University | 00:29:32 | |
Our window to adapt to a warming world is narrowing quickly. What it will take to avert the climate crises? "One of the things we have to do is we have to increase the rate of learning. We are entering into increasingly uncharted territory and not just in terms of climate change, but in many other areas of activity, AI being one of those, of course. And I think what we need to do is we need to find ways to learn more quickly, as a society, as communities, as villagers, as professional groups. And there are advantages of using some of those technologies in terms of accelerating that learning. We need to be discerning about the technologies we use, and we need to think about the relationships between those technology and social outcomes, environmental outcomes, how to redesign our systems, and how to redesign our governance. So I think there's going to be a need for a lot more thought and creativity in the future." https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/professor-mark-howden www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: Lannon Harley/ANU | |||
| 18 Aug 2023 | Highlights - Nobel Peace Prize-winning Climate Scientist MARK HOWDEN - Director, Climate Change Institute at ANU - Vice Chair of IPCC | 00:10:23 | |
"One of the things we have to do is we have to increase the rate of learning. We are entering into increasingly uncharted territory and not just in terms of climate change, but in many other areas of activity, AI being one of those, of course. And I think what we need to do is we need to find ways to learn more quickly, as a society, as communities, as villagers, as professional groups. And there are advantages of using some of those technologies in terms of accelerating that learning. We need to be discerning about the technologies we use, and we need to think about the relationships between those technology and social outcomes, environmental outcomes, how to redesign our systems, and how to redesign our governance. So I think there's going to be a need for a lot more thought and creativity in the future." Our window to adapt to a warming world is narrowing quickly. What it will take to avert the climate crises? https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/professor-mark-howden www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 22 Aug 2023 | Speaking Out of Place: SILVIA FEDERICI discusses Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons | 00:37:58 | |
"Children are, in many ways, the slave of our age. Because they have so few rights, they can be violated in so many ways, and the elderly are leaving them the Earth that is poison, that is doomed. And there is a Capitalist undervaluation of children who are treated as not having any rights. Because they live with the terror every day of going to school and being shot at. And they know that this society's government is not protecting them." In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji interview renown scholar, activist, and writer Silvia Federici about her powerful and inspiring collection of essays, Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. These essays, written over the span of several decades, display her abilities to diagnose and indeed predict the most important issues facing us today. Silvia Federici is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She also taught at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. In 1972, she co-founded the International Feminist Collective. In 1995, in the course of the campaign to demand the liberation of Mumia Abu-Jamal, she cofounded the Radical Philosophy Association (RPA) anti-death penalty project, an organization intended to help educators become a driving force towards its abolition. For several decades, Federici has been working in a variety of projects with feminist organizations across the world like Women in Nigeria (WIN), Ni Una Menos, the Argentinian feminist organization; she alsohas been organizing a project with feminist collectives in Spain to reconstruct the history of the women who were persecuted as witches in early modern Europe, and raise consciousness about the contemporary witch-hunts that are taking place across the world. Federici is considered one of the leading feminist theoreticians in Marxist feminist theory, women’s history, political philosophy, and the history and theory of the commons. Her most famous book, Caliban and the Witch, has been translated in more than 20 foreign languages, and adopted in courses across the U.S. and many other countries. Often described as a counterpoint to Marx’s and Foucault’s account of “primitive accumulation,” Caliban reconstructs the history of capitalism, highlighting the continuity between the capitalist subjugation of women, the slave trade, and the colonization of the Americas. It has been described as the first history of capitalism with women at the center. www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=961 www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| 22 Aug 2023 | STEPHANIE FELDSTEIN - Author of The Animal Lover’s Guide to Changing the World & Take Action: Save Life on Earth | 00:40:32 | |
How can we take inspiration from our love for animals to protect wildlife and change the world? How can we take action and start making changes in our lives? What if we measured success based on happiness and on the health of communities? Stephanie Feldstein leads the Center for Biological Diversity's work to highlight and address threats to endangered species and wild places from runaway human population growth and overconsumption. Previously Stephanie worked for Change.org, where she helped hundreds of people start and win online campaigns to protect wildlife. She has years of experience in organizing, outreach and communications. She is the author of The Animal Lover’s Guide to Changing the World, and the series aimed at young adults Take Action: Save Life on Earth. "I remember when I picked up a book about how farmed animals were treated and understood for the first time how much animals suffered to put food on my plate. I was 16 years old. As I learned what animals went through for our food, clothes, comfort, and entertainment, I realized there was a lot I could do, even as a kid, to make the world a better place for them. And that mattered because their existence made the world a better place for me too." https://biologicaldiversity.org/about/staff/#sfeldstein www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 22 Aug 2023 | Highlights - STEPHANIE FELDSTEIN - Population & Sustainability Director, Center for Biological Diversity | 00:12:39 | |
"I remember when I picked up a book about how farmed animals were treated and understood for the first time how much animals suffered to put food on my plate. I was 16 years old. As I learned what animals went through for our food, clothes, comfort, and entertainment, I realized there was a lot I could do, even as a kid, to make the world a better place for them. And that mattered because their existence made the world a better place for me too." How can we take inspiration from our love for animals to protect wildlife and change the world? How can we take action and start making changes in our lives? What if we measured success based on happiness and on the health of communities? Stephanie Feldstein leads the Center for Biological Diversity's work to highlight and address threats to endangered species and wild places from runaway human population growth and overconsumption. Previously Stephanie worked for Change.org, where she helped hundreds of people start and win online campaigns to protect wildlife. She has years of experience in organizing, outreach and communications. She is the author of The Animal Lover’s Guide to Changing the World, and the series aimed at young adults Take Action: Save Life on Earth. https://biologicaldiversity.org/about/staff/#sfeldstein www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 25 Aug 2023 | Actress CATHERINE CURTIN (Stranger Things) & Artistic Director KATE MUETH (Neo-Political Cowgirls) | 00:57:16 | |
Why do we make art? What can the performing arts teach us about how to engage in dialogues to overcome conflict and division? Our guests today are actress Catherine Curtin and artistic director Kate Mueth. Curtin is known for her roles on Stranger Things, Homeland, and Insecure. She played correctional officer Wanda Bell in Orange Is the New Black, and for this role she was a joint winner of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Mueth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls that seeks to deepen and challenge the ways in which audiences experience stories and awaken their human connection. Based in East Hampton, New York they have performed to audiences in America and Europe. "Death is the imperfection of life. Because life is just a fleeting thing for everyone, for all of us. And so there's no way that a black box AI can know death. So AI can never, in that sense, know life, because every day you walk, you think. Like I was just on my way to do the zoom with you guys, and I just went to grab my bracelet, which was sitting next to my grandmother's picture. And I loved my grandmother. So AI doesn't touch us because we exist on a level of such mortal frailty and mortal cruelty, and mortal love, and hate, and jealousy, and insecurity and freedom and joy and wackiness, and being in the moment that there's no way that when one of my neurotic fellow conspiracy theory New Yorker friends says to me that AI is the end of the world! I'm like, it's just not possible because the world is not that permanent for any of us. This is an impermanent destination that we're on." -Catherine Curtin www.imdb.com/name/nm0193160/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 25 Aug 2023 | Highlights - Actress CATHERINE CURTIN (Orange is the New Black) & Artistic Director KATE MUETH (Director, Educator, Choreographer) | 00:18:11 | |
"Death is the imperfection of life. Because life is just a fleeting thing for everyone, for all of us. And so there's no way that a black box AI can know death. So AI can never, in that sense, know life, because every day you walk, you think. Like I was just on my way to do the zoom with you guys, and I just went to grab my bracelet, which was sitting next to my grandmother's picture. And I loved my grandmother. So AI doesn't touch us because we exist on a level of such mortal frailty and mortal cruelty, and mortal love, and hate, and jealousy, and insecurity and freedom and joy and wackiness, and being in the moment that there's no way that when one of my neurotic fellow conspiracy theory New Yorker friends says to me that AI is the end of the world! I'm like, it's just not possible because the world is not that permanent for any of us. This is an impermanent destination that we're on." -Catherine Curtin Why do we make art? What can the performing arts teach us about how to engage in dialogues to overcome conflict and division? Our guests today are actress Catherine Curtin and artistic director Kate Mueth. Curtin is known for her roles on Stranger Things, Homeland, and Insecure. She played correctional officer Wanda Bell in Orange Is the New Black, and for this role she was a joint winner of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Mueth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls that seeks to deepen and challenge the ways in which audiences experience stories and awaken their human connection. Based in East Hampton, New York they have performed to audiences in America and Europe. www.imdb.com/name/nm0193160/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 28 Aug 2023 | Speaking Out of Place: ANTHONY ARNOVE & HALEY PESSIN discuss Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21st Century | 00:52:52 | |
"We have to create alternative institutions to understand history. And to have conversations about how we can intervene because these conversations are increasingly being criminalized, and librarians are being fired and punished. Teachers are also being fired. Whole colleges are being taken over and certain courses are being labeled as not credit-worthy and being canceled. And while conversations around critical race theory and other topics are being declared illegal, there's a long history of book banning in this country. There's a long history of criminalizing dissent in this country, but I do think we all have to recognize that we're in a much more dangerous moment right now, where a new form of McCarthyism is emboldened and we have to speak out against that." In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with Anthony Arnove and Haley Pessin about their new volume Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21st Century: Documents of Hope and Resistance. This book is not only a beautiful archive of people's struggles in the 21st century, but also a powerful tribute to and continuation of the work of professor and radical historian Howard Zinn. We speak with Anthony and Haley about the histories of struggles and the possibilities for building a more beautiful future. Anthony Arnove is the editor of several books, including, with Howard Zinn, Voices of a People’s History of the United States and Terrorism and War. He wrote the introduction for the thirty-fifth anniversary edition of Zinn’s classic book, A People’s History of the United States. Arnove cofounded the nonprofit education and arts organization Voices of a People’s History of the United States, wrote, directed, and produced the documentary The People Speak, and has directed stage and television versions of The People Speak in Dublin with Stephen Rea, in London with Colin Firth, and across the United States with various groups including Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Sundance Film Festival. He produced the Academy Award-nominated documentary Dirty Wars. Arnove is on the editorial boards of Haymarket Books and Tempestmag.org and is the director of Roam Agency, where he represents authors including Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky. He lives in Hopewell, New Jersey. Haley Pessin is a socialist activist living in Queens, New York. They have participated in struggles against police brutality and mass incarceration, in solidarity with Palestine, in defense of abortion rights and reproductive justice, and as a legal service worker and union delegate for 119SEIU (Service Employees International Union). Pessin has spoken at conferences in Switzerland, Australia, Ireland, Quebec, and throughout the United States on the struggle for Black liberation. Their writing has appeared in New Politics and at Tempestmag.org, where they currently serve on the editorial board. www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| 29 Aug 2023 | SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA - Booker Prize-winning Author of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida | 00:53:05 | |
What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be? In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning? Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore. "The notion that the idea is out there, but you just need to be in a state to receive it, that's a very comforting thought because it takes the onus off of you. You don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be this big creator. You just have to read and keep healthy and keep yourself open and the idea will arrive. And the funny thing is, usually it arrives to you and then you're typing." www.shehanwriter.com www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: David Parry/Booker Prize Foundation | |||
| 29 Aug 2023 | Highlights - SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA - Booker Prize-winning Author of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida | 00:12:43 | |
"The notion that the idea is out there, but you just need to be in a state to receive it, that's a very comforting thought because it takes the onus off of you. You don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be this big creator. You just have to read and keep healthy and keep yourself open and the idea will arrive. And the funny thing is, usually it arrives to you and then you're typing." What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be? In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning? Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore. www.shehanwriter.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 05 Sep 2023 | JAMES BROWNING - Founder of F Minus: Calling for Divestment from Fossil Fuel Lobbyists | 00:44:22 | |
Why are fossil fuel lobbyists also allowed to work for communities, schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations being harmed by the climate crisis without declaring their conflict of interest? Why divestment from fossil fuels should include divesting from lobbyists which play for both sides. James Browning is the founder of F Minus, a research and advocacy group that tracks the extent to which fossil fuel lobbyists also represent victims of the climate crisis. He is also a writer and game designer, and his novel The Fracking King was named one of the best 100 books of 2014 by Amazon. "The fossil fuel industry is very good at propaganda. They are also very good at targeting students and environmentalists. And they surround themselves with clients like museums, hospitals, charities, public schools, and all of these groups who are doing wonderful work at the local level and who aren't going complain about their oil and gas lobbyist work because they are bringing in money to them as well.” www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 05 Sep 2023 | Highlights - JAMES BROWNING - Founder & Exec. Director, F Minus Research & Advocacy Group | 00:10:41 | |
"The fossil fuel industry is very good at propaganda. They are also very good at targeting students and environmentalists. And they surround themselves with clients like museums, hospitals, charities, public schools, and all of these groups who are doing wonderful work at the local level and who aren't going complain about their oil and gas lobbyist work because they are bringing in money to them as well.” Why are fossil fuel lobbyists also allowed to work for communities, schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations being harmed by the climate crisis without declaring their conflict of interest? Why divestment from fossil fuels should include divesting from lobbyists which play for both sides. James Browning is the founder of F Minus, a research and advocacy group that tracks the extent to which fossil fuel lobbyists also represent victims of the climate crisis. He is also a writer and game designer, and his novel The Fracking King was named one of the best 100 books of 2014 by Amazon. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 08 Sep 2023 | LESLEY HUGHES - Lead Author of IPCC 4th & 5th Assessment Reports - Director of Climate Council of Australia | 00:37:23 | |
Now in the 21st century, with an abundance of renewable technologies, why is the world still using 18th-century energy technology? How can each of us harness our unique skills to help solve the climate crisis? Lesley Hughes is a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Interim Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at Macquarie University. She is an ecologist whose main research interest has been the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems, and the implications of climate change for conservation. She was a Lead Author of the IPCC’s 4th and 5th Assessment Report, Director for the WWF Australia and federal Climate Commissioner and is now a Councillor and Director with the Climate Council of Australia. She is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. "It's certainly not the case that scientists should be the only people communicating. We have to have everybody in this mix because we're all in this together. So we have to have good science that's communicated. We have to have smart engineers who can work on the technological solutions. We have to have lawyers who are undertaking climate litigation. We have to have creative artists who can tell stories and appeal to people's emotions. No one group should have a responsibility to solve the climate crisis. It's got to be all of those groups bringing what they call the time, the talent, and the treasure to work together on this. We are all in this together, and we've all got a suite of different skills that have to be harnessed to solve this problem." https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/lesley-hughes www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 08 Sep 2023 | Highlights - LESLEY HUGHES - Lead Author, IPCC 4th, 5th Assessment Reports - Biology Professor, Macquarie University | 00:10:09 | |
"It's certainly not the case that scientists should be the only people communicating. We have to have everybody in this mix because we're all in this together. So we have to have good science that's communicated. We have to have smart engineers who can work on the technological solutions. We have to have lawyers who are undertaking climate litigation. We have to have creative artists who can tell stories and appeal to people's emotions. No one group should have a responsibility to solve the climate crisis. It's got to be all of those groups bringing what they call the time, the talent, and the treasure to work together on this. We are all in this together, and we've all got a suite of different skills that have to be harnessed to solve this problem." Now in the 21st century, with an abundance of renewable technologies, why is the world still using 18th-century energy technology? How can each of us harness our unique skills to help solve the climate crisis? Lesley Hughes is a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Interim Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at Macquarie University. She is an ecologist whose main research interest has been the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems, and the implications of climate change for conservation. She was a Lead Author of the IPCC’s 4th and 5th Assessment Report, Director for the WWF Australia and federal Climate Commissioner and is now a Councillor and Director with the Climate Council of Australia. She is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/lesley-hughes www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 11 Sep 2023 | ROB VERCHICK - Leading Climate Change Scholar - Author of The Octopus in the Parking Garage | 00:51:15 | |
Rob Verchick is one of the nation’s leading scholars in disaster and climate change law and a former EPA official in the Obama administration. He holds the Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans. Professor Verchick is also a Senior Fellow in Disaster Resilience at Tulane University and the President of the Center for Progressive Reform, a research and advocacy organization that advocates for solutions to our most pressing societal challenges. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Octopus in the Parking Garage. A Call for Climate Resilience. “I was an English major in college. But here's the thing. I believe that the strongest machine we have, the strongest empathy machine that we have is literature. The best way to get people to feel what someone else is feeling is through literature and stories. And I also think that feeling and emotion are an important part of reasoning and governing too. It's not the only part, but I think you have to understand how people see the world and how they feel about the world. So in my classes, I teach law classes. I teach policy classes. I often assign novels. We read in one of my classes Their Eyes Were Watching God, the case about a hypothetical hurricane in Florida written by Zora Neale Hurston. We read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which is a kind of dystopian novel that involves climate change. We've read The Handmaid's Tale in my classes. But I think what these books do is they, number one, certain books that are speculative, like Margaret Atwood's work, Joyce Carol Oates has written some things like this too. What's interesting about them is that they make us, they open up our imaginations and say, Oh, I never thought something like that could happen. We hope it doesn't, but it could, right? And so how do we change the way we look at the future? And it also changes, I think, the way that we understand people's lives. So even in a book like Their Eyes Were Watching God, which takes place in the early 20th century, and obviously involves race issues and a whole lot of other things. It leads us to think and see the world through a young black woman's perspective in the early 20th century. And there's something about that exercise of being able to some extent put yourself in the shoes of somebody else that I think is really important for governance. I think it's really important for policy. I think it's really important for advocates of any kind because listening and trying to understand what another person is perceiving...You can never do it completely, obviously, but I think it is really one of the most important parts of collective action of working with other people.” Twitter/X/Instagram/Facebook: @robverchick @robsoctopusbook www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| 15 Sep 2023 | BENOIT DELHOMME - Cinematographer of At Eternity’s Gate w/ Willem Dafoe, The Theory of Everything w/ Eddie Redmayne - Part 1 | 00:30:33 | |
What makes films memorable and meaningful? Great cinematographers are not only translators of a director’s vision but are involved in a dance between director and actor. When combined with personal techniques like handheld, the camera itself can become a character, bringing us back in time and behind the eyes of well-known figures like Van Gogh and Stephen Hawking, which is what Benoît Delhomme did in the films At Eternity’s Gate and The Theory of Everything. Benoît Delhomme studied cinematography at the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière and went on to make his breakthrough as a director of photography for the movie The Scent of Green Papaya directed by Tran Anh Hung. The film went on to win the Caméra d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. Benoît has established himself as an international cinematographer and has worked with creatives such as Al Pacino, Julian Schnabel, and James Marsh. Over the years, Benoît Delhomme has worked on a wide array of films where his focus has been to tell a strong story through the visual. This focus has shined not only through his work as a cinematographer, but also his work as a painter. "I certainly like a handheld camera, It's a bit like playing a saxophone. It's like the pace of walking or how I stop or I decide to go closer to the actor or to take more distance is so free. No one is telling me to go one step forward or one step back. I have to decide on the spot. So there certainly a freedom like a painter with a brush. It's nice because you have even the vibrations, your rhythms, the actor's rhythms. It's this dance." www.benoitdelhomme.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||