Arts
The Latest
Podcasts, Blogs, and More
October is National Book Month, and we’re celebrating by looking back at some of our favorite conversations about reading and writing from the Aspen Ideas Festival and Aspen Ideas: Health. Hear from beloved journalist Nicholas Kristof, National Book Award winner Imani Perry, poet and memoirist Javier Zamora, bestselling novelist Amor Towles, Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine...
Jump in by watching our 15 most popular talks of all time. From black holes to jazz and civil rights to psychology hacks, we've collected the talks that remain audience favorites over the years.
The arts are not just forms of expression, but powerful forces that shape culture and the human experience, both reflecting and influencing our world. Join renowned artists, writers, musicians, actors, and thought leaders — including comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus, award-winning musician Common, legendary producer Brian Grazer, and public intellectual Henry Louis Gates Jr. —...
As one of the foremost reporters of his generation, Nicholas Kristof has been witness to century-defining events and atrocities around the world. How has he managed to weaponize his pen against regimes and groups violating basic human rights, and still maintain faith in humanity?
Amid seismic shifts in the entertainment world, Oscar-, Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning Brian Grazer has managed to keep pivoting to new ways to tell stories in movies, TV and documentaries. In this session, Grazer discusses how he stays ahead of the creative curve with Michael Eisner, the entertainment powerhouse who transformed the Walt Disney Company.
In the last 30 years, conglomerates from Amazon to Netflix to Spotify have changed the way we interact with media, books, fashion and music. Creatives are struggling to maintain artistic integrity, make money and fight off AI robots that “create” at breakneck speed. Here’s how industry leaders in entertainment, fashion and journalism are forging new paths.
Hurray for the Riff Raff is more than Alynda Segarra’s musical moniker; they spent their youth hopping trains across America, capturing that life in youthful poetry then and acclaimed songwriting now. Join a songwriting adventure of love, loss and reflections on America.
Images communicate truths, and also lies. Learning to pay attention to photographs can help us discern. An art and cultural historian and a visual artist host a master class on how to read the visual record in the context of racial justice and equity.
When people in prison are given creative outlets, the impact is life-changing. Hear from a hip-hop artist setting up prison recording studios, an architect designing more humane spaces and a visual artist displaying letters, essays and poems from prisoners around the world.
Whether as Elaine Benes from “Seinfeld” or Selina Meyer from “Veep,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus delivers laughter. But in the upcoming film “Tuesday,” she communicates with death — in a quite unexpected form. The acclaimed actress sits down with Sam Fragoso for a live recording of the podcast, “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso.”
You may not know what typeface this sentence is written in, but typography is crucial to how we convey, process and retain information. How has the form evolved? Hear from design experts and a graphic-arts great as they trace the roots of typography from Gutenberg to Bauhaus and beyond, drawing on how innovation in design is always in conversation with the past. Book sign...
Maybe all of us feel like we’ve been raised by Hollywood, but being raised in Hollywood is a different kind of drama. Actor, producer and director Griffin Dunne joins friend (and fellow multihyphenate) Fisher Stevens to discuss Dunne’s new memoir, “The Friday Afternoon Club,” with tales of adventure, fame and grief so gripping, it could be a movie. Join Griffin Dunne for...
Here’s a radical proposal: Make access to the arts free for everyone. Leaders on a mission to bring Americans into art spaces discuss the transformative power of the arts, and how to give everyone the chance to be transformed.
Rosalind, Viola, Portia and Beatrice are unforgettable roles in Shakespeare’s plays. But there were real women behind these characters — women who spoke out against patriarchy, primogeniture and arranged marriage. How does our vision of the past change when we hear the other half of the story?
Architecture doesn’t just build edifices; it shapes societies. Even as transportation infrastructure creates and locks in racial inequality, there is hope that intentional design can create more equitable, sustainable and joyous communities. Together, a visionary architect and the president of the ACLU grapple with how architecture both mends and maintains social division.
Join NBC's Jenna Bush Hager as she discusses her Read With Jenna July book club selection with its New York Times bestselling author. Explore the epic love story and thriller, delving into its themes of love, obsession, hope and the complexities of human connection.
Shakespeare's plays, rich with political intrigue, power struggles and ethical dilemmas, provide profound commentary on the nature of governance and leadership — and draw unsettling parallels to the political landscape today.
What if the threat to American democracy came from within our own military? “War Game,” a 2024 Sundance Official Selection documentary, imagined just such a scenario and convened a bipartisan group of policymakers to respond. What did they learn — and how real is the threat?
In the aftermath of the sentencing of disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, celebrated author Michael Lewis shares new insights about the spectacular downfall of SBF, whom he shadowed for months for his book “Going Infinite.” Lewis sits down with Tina Brown to reflect on what this tells us about fast money, the crypto-world, billionaire worship and the naivety of those caug...