Over the last 500 years, 755 animal species and 123 plant species have gone extinct. One species can take primary responsibility for this mass annihilation: homo sapiens. From hunting and fishing to factories and farming, humans (with the assistance of diseases and other natural disasters) have managed to decimate large swaths of the planet. But beginning in the late 18th century, one group of people has managed to slow, and in some cases even reverse, the disappearance of many endangered species. From William T. Hornaday—the first director of the Bronx Zoo—to Rachel Carson—who helped launch the environmental movement—conservationists have fought an uphill battle to protect animals and habitats around the world. What drives humans to save species—some majestic (bison and bald eagles) but others decidedly less charismatic (desert tortoises and perch)? What lessons can we learn from conservationists, past and present, as we confront the growing threat of climate change to all species? 

Science journalist Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, visited Zócalo with Cynthia Barnett, author of Rain: A Natural and Cultural History to discuss how the history of conservation might help us change the future. This Zócalo/Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County discussion streamed live on Twitter on Tuesday, March 9, 2021.



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Can We All Become Conservationists?

Recorded live from ASU California Center at the historic Herald Examiner Building: Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, and essayists and novelists Laila Lalami and Pankaj Mishra visited Zócalo to discuss why the English-speaking world can’t seem to fully absorb one of the central events of the recent past, and what it all means for our collective future. This event was presented in partnership with UCI Forum for the Academy and the Public and moderated by international relations expert Kal Raustiala. 

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Can Decolonization Explain Everything?

Boxing is a sport of contradictions. Known as the “sweet science” because of the technical skills its fighters need to succeed, it is also incredibly brutal. Boxing has provided a creative outlet and a path out of poverty for generations of California strivers, forging cultural and individual identity, promoting dignity, pride, and agency, and delivering million-dollar paydays for some. But the sport has also destroyed some of its most talented practitioners, seemingly abandoning them to post-career bankruptcies and grievous injury.

What accounts for boxing’s disconnects? Boxers themselves, who take epic risks with few safety nets? Promoters, agents, and managers who forget clients once they’re past their prime? The industry’s structure and sanctioning bodies, that allow abuse and neglect? California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster, former middleweight champ Sergio “the Latin Snake” Mora, and Kali “KO” Mequinonoag Reis, professional boxer and actress, visit Zócalo for a panel discussion, moderated by sport and ethnic studies scholar Rudy Mondragón, to reflect on boxing’s future—as an athletic endeavor, as a business, and as a cultural force—in California and beyond.

What Does Boxing Owe Its Champions?

Early this year, an uncrewed Chinese-operated high-altitude balloon floated across U.S. airspace, stoking anxiety and fascination among Americans, who assumed it was spying on them, and ultimately provoking President Biden to order the Pentagon to shoot it down. Just as alarming as foreign espionage, though, is the fear of information-gathering turned inward. American anxieties around the “surveillance state” have only grown since the Watergate scandal; with the post-9/11 passage of the USA PATRIOT Act; and with revelations that federal agencies sift through ordinary Americans’ phone and email communications, financial information, and Internet usage. Add in the rise of artificial intelligence, and our addictions to smartphones and sharing personal data, and pressing questions arise: Is Big Brother watching, and do we like it? What is the role of surveillance in our democracy, and to what ends do government and business use it? Does being watched keep us safe, or are we being snookered into becoming our own unwitting informants? What standards for digital privacy do we even want? 
 
ArtCenter College of Design art and tech scholar Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, Brennan Center government surveillance expert Faiza Patel, and ACLU SoCal attorney Mohammad Tajsar—experts working in and thinking deeply about surveillance and what it means for our 21st-century public and private lives—visit Zócalo for a timely discussion moderated by Ramesh Srinavasan, tech and society scholar at UCLA and director of the UC Digital Cultures Lab.

This discussion was co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, ACLU of Southern California, and The Progress Network.

What Is The State Of Surveillance?

The state of California has some of the nation’s strongest legal protections for workers. But Californians continue to suffer from various forms of abuse by their employers—from unpaid overtime to dangerous working conditions; from wage theft to racial, ethnic, gender discrimination. What are the biggest challenges for agencies and communities as they seek to turn pro-labor legislation into better workplace realities? To what extent do our systems—from the courts to workers’ compensation to federal and state labor enforcement—create obstacles to realizing California’s promises to workers? And what steps could state and local governments, and workers themselves, take to make jobs safe from discrimination and abuse?

California State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, warehouse worker Sara Fee, and California Labor Commissioner Assistant Chief Daniel Yu talk with Zócalo on the Capitol steps in Sacramento to discuss how to make jobs more fair for workers. Introductory comments by Don Howard, President & CEO of The James Irvine Foundation.

This program is part of “What Is a Good Job Now?”, a series supported by The James Irvine Foundation, focusing on workers in the low-wage sectors of California’s economy, in communities across the state. Public programs and essays, grounded in workers’ experiences and realities, will explore how to make the hardest jobs more rewarding, and make life better for those who do them.

What Is A Good Job Now? For Fairness In the Workplace

Environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez (Xochimilco), L.A. LGBT Center communications officer and former editor-in-chief of Out magazine Phillip Picardi, and “On Being” founder, executive producer, and host Krista Tippett visit Zócalo to discuss how society might draw strength and coax vision from the shortcomings and failures of its collective past, moderated by University of Pennsylvania historian and author of Hattiesburg, William Sturkey. Featuring a special live performance by the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arktet. 

This is the final program in Zócalo's series, “How Should Societies Remember Their Sins?,” supported by The Mellon Foundation. 

Find all essays and previous programs in the series here: https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/feature/societies-sins-mellon/

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How Does Confronting Our History Build A Better Future?

Can artists shield themselves from the demands of politics and polarized discourse or—in places and periods where activism puts their life and liberty at risk—from bodily danger? Does all their work, in a moment of crisis, have to address that crisis? And how can they know when that moment has come?

Two women artists—social-practice artist Suzanne Lacy and photographer Catherine Opie—discuss the role they see themselves, their work, and their peers playing in sustaining, enhancing, or even strengthening democracy when it feels like everything is going up in flames. Moderated by Karen Mack, Founder and Executive Director of LA Commons. 

This program was co-presented with the Thomas Mann House and Los Angeles Review of Books    as part of “Arts in Times of Crises: The Role of Artists in Weakened Democracies,” on November 18, 2023. 

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Must Artists Be Activists?

How are institutional leaders navigating the warring tides of politics and public opinion—tides that may steer them toward uncertain futures? Can organizations help artists, patrons, and the public find common ground, or productive ways to discuss their differences, in this moment of deep democratic and cultural conflict? And, even as they themselves struggle to stay afloat, how do arts institutions serve as spaces of civic engagement, community, and inclusion?

MOCA director Johanna Burton, Center Theatre Group artistic director Snehal Desai, former Oregon Shakespeare Festival executive artistic director Nataki Garrett, and Whitney Museum director emeritus Adam D. Weinberg discuss how the culture wars have impacted their work, and where they see institutions, and the arts at large, going next. Moderated by Kristin Sakoda, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

This program was co-presented with the Thomas Mann House and Los Angeles Review of Books as part of “Arts in Times of Crises: The Role of Artists in Weakened Democracies,” on November 18, 2023. 

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How Should Arts Institutions Navigate The Culture Wars?

Artists across disciplines have harnessed generative AI as mind-extenders, expanding the possibilities of their work, and unleashing new ways to see the world. But as bots get more adept at human-like thought, writers, actors, and others protest in lawsuits and on picket lines, asking: What’s left for artists? Should tech companies be allowed to use existing art to train AI engines? Who gets credit—and paid—for AI-assisted creative work? What do we lose when machine brains take over aspects of our creativity, once a defining feature of humanity? And, tantalizingly, what do we gain?

LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab program director Joel Ferree, Concept Art Association co-founder Nicole Hendrix, Writers Guild of America AI working group member John Lopez, and interdisciplinary artist Sarah Rosalena join Zócalo, Arts for LA, the ASU Narrative and Emerging Media program, and LACMA to discuss whether AI heralds the end of humans making art to make sense of the world, or a new key to being and seeing. Moderated by Anuradha Vikram, art curator and author of Use Me at Your Own Risk. 

This program was co-presented with Arts for LA, the ASU Narrative and Emerging Media Program, and LACMA on November 28, 2023. 

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Is AI The End Of Creativity—Or A New Beginning?

What are the best ideas and models for finding good jobs for the formerly incarcerated? How can we improve the low pay and challenging working conditions in those industries that are most likely to employ people who have been in the system? And what policies and economic changes would open more possible career paths and economic opportunities for this population?

Amity Foundation president and CEO Doug Bond, Root & Rebound executive director Carmen Garcia, and Anti-Recidivism Coalition executive director Sam Lewis visit Zócalo to discuss how to build better career pathways for formerly incarcerated people. 

This is the fourth program in Zócalo's series “What Is a Good Job Now?” supported by the James Irvine Foundation, and was presented on January 24, 2024. 

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What Is A Good Job Now? For The Formerly Incarcerated

Maxwell L. Stearns, constitutional law professor and author of the new book Parliamentary America, visits Zócalo to outline a three-part plan to turn the United States into a multi-party parliamentary democracy that could make our politics less maddening, more collaborative—and perhaps even more fun. What are the legal, constitutional, and political steps needed to modernize American democracy and reignite civic zeal and joy? And how different might the U.S. look if governed by a parliament of multi-party coalitions? 

This program is co-presented by the Los Angeles Times, and is moderated by Los Angeles Times columnist Erika D. Smith. 

This program is part of Zócalo’s inquiry, “Can Democracy Survive This Election Year?,” an editorial and event series about voters’ experiences around the world in 2024, the biggest election year in history.

Would Parliamentary America Have More Fun?

Live from the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, CA: Gig worker and advocate Sergio Avedian, Gigs founder and CEO Allen Narcisse, and the Workers Lab chief research officer Shelly Steward visit Zócalo to help us understand how we might make gig work good work. This is the fifth event in Zócalo's series “What Is a Good Job Now?,” co-presented with the James Irvine Foundation. This discussion is moderated by CalMatters reporter Levi Sumagaysay.

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What Is A Good Job Now? In Gig Work

Live from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA: Artist and Bloom & Plume founder Maurice Harris, sports agent and former NFL player Jacques McClendon, and poet aja monet visit Zócalo and Kinsey Collection at SoFi Stadium to discuss what one of the world’s largest private collections of Black art and historical objects is doing at one of the world’s grandest football stadiums, why it matters, and where similar efforts are scoring big. This discussion is moderated by Khalil Kinsey, curator of the Kinsey African American Art & History Collection.

Can A Football Stadium Be A Black History Museum?

San Diego's arts scene is vibrant, but also lacks many factors that would allow it to attract global attention: media coverage, communication between people and arts institutions, and sufficient financial support from local governments, art patrons, and collectors. At a Zócalo Public Square event moderated by Kinsee Morlan of the Voice of San Diego, four panelists both celebrated and criticized the arts in San Diego, and discussed what steps need to be taken to improve the city's approach. Featuring: Artist Jenessa Goodman, museum and urban planner Priya Sircar, City of San Diego Senior Public Art Manager Christine Jones, and curator and educational director at A Ship in the Woods Lianne Thompson Mueller.

Will San Diego Ever Become a Great Art City?

At an event exploring the legacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's legacy hosted by Zócalo Public Square/Getty “Open Art” at the West Hollywood Council Chambers, panelist Jonathan Weinberg argued that the photographer "mainstreamed and made slick a certain kind of presentation of the homoerotic." Weinberg, a painter, art historian, and author of Male Desire: The Homoerotic in American Art, was joined on the panel by an author, two curators and a photography collector. Though the controversy that began in 1989 over a traveling solo exhibit with homoerotic and sadomasochistic themes gained Mapplethorpe significant fame, the panelists agreed that the ongoing interest in his work demonstrates a provocation far deeper than shock.

What Did Robert Mapplethorpe Teach Us?

Every year, Los Angeles needs more than 4,000 affordable new homes to accommodate low-income residents, but builds only 1,000 -- and loses 3,000. One solution to keeping life affordable in L.A., and the many cities across America following the same trend, may be transportation. At a discussion co-presented by Metro and moderated by Curbed L.A. editor Adrian Glick Kudler, four panelists -urban planning policy analyst Joan Ling, developer Tony Salazar, L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin, and Metro managing executive officer for countywide planning & development Calvin Hollis -- considered ways new transit projects can connect people to jobs and make city living less expensive. 

Does a Transit Boom Have to Lead to a Real Estate Bubble?

What is the historic "California dream" -- the one people still talk about today? How does California’s 21st-century reality differ from that dream? And what is the California dream of today and the future? Zócalo's Joe Mathews, author of the weekly Connecting California column, talked about what our places and people have in common, and why, if we want to keep them together and help them flourish once again, we need to start forging a new California story.

Joe Mathews: What Is the California Dream Now?

Can Americans Learn to Reconcile Politics and Reason?

Can Americans Learn to Reconcile Politics and Reason?

How much does math matter? In a New York Times op-ed last summer, political scientist Andrew Hacker suggested that the answer is not very much. Algebra, contended Hacker, isn’t necessary for all high school students—and it’s a barrier to graduation for some. But Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews, The Calculus Diaries author Jennifer Ouellette, Southern California math teacher Sarah Armstrong, and workforce expert Caz Pereira expressed a very different point of view.

How Much Does Math Matter?

Should we just adapt to climate change? The question raises the hackles of environmentalists and global warming deniers alike—yet it’s one we should be asking sooner rather than later. That was the consensus of New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin, UCLA climate scientist Alex Hall, and UCLA environmental historian Jon Christensen during a panel discussion at The Actors’ Gang, an event put on in partnership with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and with Environmental Humanities at UCLA.

Should We Just Adapt to Climate Change?

Black Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied--Natalie Portman's husband and a recently retired New York City Ballet principal dancer--talks with Amanda Fortini, a contributing writer to The New Yorker, about why he loves L.A., his plans for his new L.A. Dance Project, and the making of Black Swan. Millepied plans to take advantage of the city's vibrant arts culture to collaborate with many different kinds of artists, and to incorporate his own background--his classical ballet training as well as the African and modern dance he performed in his youth--into the company's work.

An Afternoon with Benjamin Millepied

Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum interviews Cheryl Strayed, author of WIld: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, about the perils and pleasures of memoir-writing, and the 1,100 mile hike that changed her life. Strayed reveals why she loves redemption but not redemption stories, how to walk the line between making confessions and telling the truth, and the physical and mental hardships she faced on the trail.

Redemption, Memoirs, and Going Wild with Cheryl Strayed and Meghan Daum

In an event sponsored by the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University's Washington Center in Washington, D.C., Colin Woodard, author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, talked with Zócalo editorial director Andrés Martinez about America's divisions. Since the founding of the nation and into the present, 11 regional cultures--as distinct in many ways as different countries--have clashed over politics, economics, and values.

Colin Woodard on America's Rival Cultures

“The same idea in your head can be represented along with its contradiction.” At least that’s what Robert Kurzban, author of Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind, believes. Kurzban is professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He joins Zocalo to explore the psychological causes of hypocricy, focusing on the specialized mind and the evolutionary benefits of ignorance.

Reasoning With Hypocrisy: Robert Kurzban on the Modular Mind

In the last 20 years, the Internet has transformed the way we live, easing communication, speeding connections, spreading information, and spurring activism. But its power has prompted governments and corporations to seek to control its uses and limit access. If they succeed, it wouldn’t be the first time a new technology has revolutionized the world before being clamped down. From telephones to radio to television, information mediums have long been consolidated and regulated, often in ways that limit how we communicate and connect. Could the Internet be next, and what would it mean for our lives, our jobs, and our economy? Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, visited Zócalo to trace the century-long struggle between flowing information and corporate control, and to ask whether the Internet will stay free.

Tim Wu, Can the Internet Stay Free?

Over the next 20 years, hundreds of millions of people will move to cities, demanding the economic opportunities and material comforts of urban life: air conditioning, personal computers, rich diets, cars, cell phones. In 1950, only 30 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas; by 2030, that figure will rise to 60 percent. While cities have long propelled economic growth and brought prosperity to their residents, how will they fare as populations increase, temperatures rise, natural disasters threaten, and resources grow scarce? In an event co-presented with the UCLA School of Public Affairs Luskin Center for Innovation, UCLA Luskin Scholar and professor at the School of Public Affairs Matthew Kahn, author of Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future, visited Zócalo to explain what Los Angeles will look like in a few decades and how we can best prepare for the urban future.

Matthew Kahn, How Will Cities Survive Climate Change?

James Ellroy, the author of the bestselling L.A. Quartet novels — The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, and White Jazz — has just concluded another high-selling set of novels: the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy. Like the prior two volumes, American Tabloid and The Cold Six-Thousand, Ellroy's latest, Blood's A Rover, captures the explosive 1960s, placing Ellroy's strange characters — a Klan-raised, Yale-educated FBI agent, an ex-cop and heroin runner, and a wheelman for divorce lawyers — in the middle of that decade's fierce battles over race, sex, and crime. The great Ellroy visited Zócalo to ballyhoo, consecrate, deconstruct and ridicule his bestselling new novel, and to reflect on the nature of his historical fiction and the America it invents. He chats with his girlfriend, writer Erica Schickel.

An Evening with James Ellroy

From his first concert piece, written when he was 17, to his expansive, 19-movement, 4,000-measure opus “Epitaph,” Charles Mingus built a remarkable legacy as a jazz bassist, band leader, and composer. Thirty years after his death, Zócalo hosts a panel -- featuring music and culture journalist Oscar Garza, music producer Hal Willner, writer Emory Holmes II, Mingus contemporary and friend William "Buddy" Collette, and the jazz great's son Eric Mingus, also a musician -- to discuss the jazz great.

Remembering Charles Mingus

In 2016, Californians voted to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana. But three years later, the very basics of regulating legal weed remain uncertain, and the new markets for marijuana have become another confounding California mess. It’s unclear how much marijuana can be consumed before police can make an arrest for driving under the influence, or whether the state can guarantee that marijuana being sold is safe and effective. Vaping—popular yet controversial—confuses the issue further. How can local and state governments bring more clarity to the new world of legal marijuana? Why is the black market for marijuana surviving, and even thriving, during the transition to legalization? And what regulations will ensure that legal weed delivers on its promises of crime reduction and increased tax revenue? UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative clinical psychiatrist Tim Fong, executive director of the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation Cat Packer, and UCLA criminal justice and drug policy scholar Brad Rowe visited Zócalo to discuss the regulatory challenges of bringing a black market into the light. Moderated by Rolling Stone columnist Amanda Chicago Lewis, this Zócalo event took place at Cross Campus, in downtown Los Angeles.

Will California Learn to Regulate the Marijuana Business?

More than half of our nation’s fruits and vegetables are produced by California workers—who often risk their health to put food on our tables. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, farmworkers have been designated “essential workers” along with doctors and nurses. Yet most farmworkers lack health care coverage, even as they face health hazards including noise, heat, harmful chemicals, and musculoskeletal injuries. As they maintain our consistent food supply during the disruptions of our COVID-19 responses, farmworkers are potentially exposed to the virus while struggling with long hours, low wages, polluted air, overcrowded housing, and frequent relocations. What do Americans owe to the laborers who put fruits, vegetables, nuts, and milk on our tables? How are changes in technology and immigration enforcement reshaping the nature of farm work and its health—including mental health—concerns? What progress has been made in protecting the health of farmworkers, and what important steps are regulators or the agricultural industry refusing to take? Organic farmer and artist Nikiko Masumoto, Huron Mayor Rey León, health researcher Chia Thao, and Tania Pacheco-Werner, co-assistant director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute, visited with Zócalo to consider how to make farm work healthier. Moderated by Alice Daniel, News Director, KVPR, this event was held on Zócalo’s YouTube channel.

How Can We Make Farm Work Healthier?

The United States—once revered for its political stability—now seems gripped by political mania. American discourse, particularly around government and elections, is full of conspiracy theories, paranoia, xenophobia, and overheated denunciations. Such hysteria might be the product of more recent economic dislocation, failed wars, the digital revolution, or divisive elected officials. But perhaps it has deeper roots in America’s imperial history, and the contradictions within the country’s concept of itself. What explains the demented politics of the United States, and other countries in the West? Are the leading thinkers and policymakers of the West, who portray themselves as fighting political fanaticism, making any real progress—or are they making things worse?

Essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra, author most recently of Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race and Empire, visits Zócalo with Ronald Brownstein, Atlantic senior editor and author of The Second Civil War, to discuss whether the United States has lost its political mind.

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Has Hysteria Conquered America?

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