Justice

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.

The American prison and jail population has grown 500% since the 1970s, and calls for change are growing louder. Hear stories from a headlining musician and cultural leader, a nonprofit thinker and a MacArthur Fellow and scholar on the need to reinvent the toxic structures of incarceration.

While elected officials debate the necessity and scope of reparations for the historical stain of slavery, some individuals and private institutions with ties to the slave trade are stepping forward. What can we learn from their efforts to reckon with the past?

The pressure on cultural institutions to return artifacts to their places of origin is growing in intensity, but some argue that repatriation threatens the preservation and study of these treasures. Who, in the end, does history belong to?

From a father-daughter dance in a prison to playtime with incarcerated parents in a children’s museum, keeping families close has lasting ripple effects beyond bars. Hear from storytellers and leaders working inside the criminal justice system to help families stay connected.

Antisemitic incidents are on the rise in the United States, leaving Jewish communities feeling vulnerable — a sentiment both new and sadly familiar. Among the responses is the first ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, released by the White House, advocating a whole-of-society approach because all of us are affected by hate and it takes all of us to fight i...

Over a century ago, Andrew Carnegie wrote the “Gospel of Wealth,” challenging his wealthy peers to be generous with their largesse. Today, in his new book, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker writes that inequality far surpasses that which Carnegie witnessed, and argues that the widening chasm between haves and have-nots demands a new approach to philanthropy.

Hate takes many insidious forms: as a mass shooting targeting a Black community, as an antisemitic remark, as a wave of anti-Asian violence. Intolerance and hate crimes have spiked in recent years, and experts, activists, and community members themselves are working hard not only to quantify the problem but to find actionable solutions. What does it take to stop hate in co...

The Afternoon of Conversation is the Aspen Ideas Festival's pinnacle programming moment. Over 2,000 people gather in the Benedict Music Tent, an open-air venue with acoustics that mimic an amphitheater, to hear from global leaders, community change-makers, journalists, politicians, and more.

Yuliya Tychtivska is the dynamic executive director of Aspen Institute Kyiv, an Aspen Institute partner organization in Ukraine, founded in 2015. Less a conversation about the war and of strategies and global actions to support a Ukrainian victory, this will be an opportunity to probe the human dimensions of the tragedy. Tychtivska will talk about her experiences, emotion...

As the rest of human activity has been globalized, so has corruption — and to such a degree that it has fueled global inequality, created extremist groups, and converted democratic institutions into autocratic regimes stripping wealth from entire nations. These organized criminals are supported by technology that can anonymize money, by a global criminal-services industry,...

In the last decade, the people of democratic societies across the globe have elected autocratic leaders. These populist strongmen have undermined democratic institutions with a disregard for the rule of law, expertise, and the truth. Is their election the symptom of already advanced societal illnesses, or is it the disease itself? In countries where the damage to democracy...

Before signing the $1.2 trillion dollar Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, President Biden put Mitch Landrieu in charge of executing its vision. In this role, the former New Orleans mayor oversees the biggest investment in American infrastructure in generations. With promises of generating millions of high-paying jobs, fixing supply chains, and repairing America’s roa...