Afternoon of Conversation
Setup
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.
Speakers
-
Volodymyr ZelenskyyPresident of Ukraine -
Erin McLaughlinCorrespondent for NBC News -
Erin TriebPhotojournalist -
Jervon HicksLife coach with Youth Peace Center of Roseland -
Aaron TaylorAlumnus of Chicago CRED -
Billy MooreAlumni coordinator at Chicago CRED -
Rob PortmanUS senator for Ohio -
Dan PorterfieldPresident and CEO, Aspen Institute -
Richard EngelChief foreign correspondent at NBC -
Mitch LandrieuWhite House infrastructure coordinator -
Arne DuncanFormer US secretary of education -
Jeffrey GoldbergEditor in chief of The Atlantic -
Katie CouricJournalist -
Mary Louise KellyCo-Host, “All Things Considered,” NPR -
Cesar CondeChairman, NBCUniversal
Explore More
World
Global conflicts and health crises have put into stark relief deeply-ingrained gender roles in society. Yet the past years have also seen record-high numbers of women running...
The world seems to be moving and evolving faster than ever before, and democratic ideals are under threat in many countries around the globe. New York Times columnist and jour...
How is constitutional law being harnessed to address climate change? Ahead of Aspen Ideas: Climate, we caught up with Andrea Rodgers, Senior Attorney at Our Children's Trust,...
History has the power to teach us what to do in the present, but do we actually make good use of that tool? Many events in our recent past might suggest otherwise. American hi...
Of course, Black history shouldn’t just be a month-long nod on our yearly calendar — it is inextricable from American history and fundamental to the very soul of our nation an...
The unflinching humanity and morality that Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied is part of what makes his legacy so lasting. In addition to his preeminent civil rights work, he sp...
The stories we hear about migrants trying to escape difficult circumstances tend to focus on hardship, conflict, statistics and policy. We rarely get a deep look at any of the...
Most Americans today would agree that the dream of supporting a family and living a good life on one full time salary is not available to vast numbers of people. Wages have no...
Climate change catastrophes are already happening with increasing regularity, and it’s clear we need to take action. The Biden administration has set a target of zero carbon e...
Even when the economy is booming and unemployment is low, millions of Americans still face economic hardship. And in the last few years the United States has dealt with supply...
Almost everyone agrees that immigration policy in the United States is lacking, but despite decades of debate, Congress has not been able to pass comprehensive reform on the i...
The international community faces unprecedented threats. What will geopolitical arrangements look like going forward? Is it time to rethink America’s relationship with China?...
Americans seem more culturally and ideologically divided than at any point in most of our lifetimes, with no prospect of bridging those divides any time soon. The only thing w...
It’s a fact: In communities where voting rates are higher, health outcomes are better. That’s why ER physician Alister Martin, the Founder of Vot-ER and CEO of A Healthier Dem...
Populations around the world have been electing more and more autocratic leaders in the past couple decades, via supposedly free, fair, and democratic elections. The freedom o...
Merely defining gun violence is difficult, and coming to agreement on what to do about it often seems near-impossible in the United States. But people on all sides of the deba...
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to issue major decisions that have profound impacts on the lives of Americans and the political future of the country. During the term that ju...
At the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, we dug into some of the most important and fascinating issues of our time, from rebuilding trust in our institutions and the promise and peri...
In this new Aspen Ideas format, all attendees gather each morning to kick off the day by exploring a current issue of deep complexity. With heightened political tensions an...
If one dives deeply into the statistics, the American Dream is actually quite alive and well. In his provocative book, The Myth of American Inequality, former U.S. senator Phi...
