At a Distanc‪e‬ The Slowdown

Danny Dorling, author of the book “Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration—and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives” and the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, talks with us about geography as a means to understand culture; how and why, despite our sped-up modern lives, the world has been in a global slowdown since the late 1960s; and the ways in which this slowdown illuminates women’s aptitude for leadership.

London-based artist, author, and master potter Edmund de Waal, whose work is currently on view at the British Museum and Gagosian’s galleries in London and Hong Kong, discusses the psychological value of human touch, the intimate relationship between pottery and poetry, and the importance of kindness as a societal response to the pandemic.

Boston city councilor at-large Michelle Wu, a progressive Democrat currently running in the 2021 Boston mayoral race, speaks with us about transitioning cities to a “community-based” leadership model, why governing bodies need to reflect the people they serve, and the role that local administrations can play in the global climate-justice conversation.

Melissa Harris-Perry, the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University and co-host of The Nation’s new System Check podcast, talks with us about the camera’s monopoly on shaping public conversation, having the courage to be wrong, and why personal experience is an apt way to develop hypotheses, but the wrong way to test them.

Dominican artist, curator, and activist Lizania Cruz, whose latest project, “Obituaries of the American Dream,” was commissioned by El Museo del Barrio for “Estamos Bien: La Trienal 20/21,” discusses the difference between integration and assimilation, storytelling as a means for understanding, and why traveling between states in the U.S. should be considered migration in the context of the climate crisis.

Turkish-born, Copenhagen-based activist and former politician Özlem Cekic, author of the new book “Overcoming Hate Through Dialogue: Confronting Prejudice, Racism, and Bigotry with Conversation―and Coffee,” speaks with us about friendship as a vaccination against prejudice, the importance of remembering that people are more than their opinions, and why being on the receiving end of hateful language is opportunity to initiate a meaningful exchange.