Zócalo Public Square

U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine joined Sacramento Bee editorial page editor Stuart Leavenworth in Fresno to discuss whether social isolation is a threat to democracy. In a wide-ranging conversation they discussed poetry, Levine's youth in Detroit, the community he came to love in Fresno, and the future of American democracy.

LAPD Chief Charle Beck, Pepperdine University economist Angela Hawken, and UCLA political scientist Mark Peterson joined moderator Mark Kleiman, a UCLA public policy analyst, to discuss the legacy of the late political scientist and long-time Southern California resident James Q. Wilson. How did Wilson's broken windows theories change our cities? Where did his greatest influence lie? And what made him special?

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.

Actor Adrian Grenier sees the paparazzi as storytellers. Us Weekly editor Carolyn Davis publishes their photos to entertain. And celebrity photographer Galo Ramirez is just trying to make a living. But why do the rest of us crave photographs of Brad and Angelina’s wedding, or Jennifer Aniston’s baby bump—the two hottest “dream shots” of the moment—and what makes a great paparazzi photo? Grenier, Davis, and Ramirez joined the Los Angeles Times' Carla Hall and curator Carolyn Squiers to discuss the art and allure of the work of the paparazzi at the Getty Museum.

In the story of China's aviation industry, The Atlantic's James Fallows, author of China Airborne, found a window into the country's struggles and contradictions, as well as where it might be going next. Chinese companies aren't going to be overtaking Boeing and Airbus any time soon. But the pace of China's aerospace modernization--100 airports are being built there right now--is astonishing.

The New Yorker's Steve Coll, author of Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, explains how America's largest corporation wields its power within and without, and how it has stayed on top for over a half century. After the Exxon Valdez spill, the corporation placed an intense focus on rules and regulations, trying to eliminate the possibility of human error. At the same time, many of its operations take place in the world's least stable and poorest countries. Coll explains how ExxonMobil negotiates the tension between risk and profits--and how its energy policy has become American energy policy by proxy.

The world is moving faster than ever, and democracies are struggling to keep up. Meanwhile, China's rise has been facilitated by the heavy hand of its one-party leadership. In a conversation moderated by Zócalo California editor Joe Mathews, Deng Xiaoping biographer Ezra Vogel, attorney and activist Christine Pelosi, and civic participation expert Janice Thomson discuss whether the EU and the U.S. could use a little more authoritarianism.

The Central Valley is one of California and America's unhealthiest regions. What is causing problems like asthma, obesity, and diabetes--and what can we do about it? According to California Endowment Central Valley Program Manager Sarah Reyes, Central Valley Health Policy Institute Executive Director John Capitman, and San Joaquin Valley Rehabilitation CEO Edward C. Palacios, the answers lie in improving education, access, and addressing inequalities.

What if we repealed the 14th Amendment, and no one could become a citizen because of birth alone? Civic entrepreneur, author, and former Clinton speechwriter Eric Liu imagines an America where we don't take the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship for granted. He argues that we need to re-Americanize Americans in order to revitalize civics and strengthen our citizenship.

Americans are trading places, according to urbanologist Alan Ehrenhalt, author of The Great Inversion and the Future of American Cities. The more affluent are moving into city centers, and the lower classes are being displaced to the suburbs. This demographic inversion is going to change our concepts of cities, suburbs, and urban mobility. And it will even change our most sprawling cities, like Phoenix and the rest of the Sunbelt.

Cardiologist Eric Topol, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine, believes that digital technology has the potential to change healthcare as we know it--but only if consumers demand change from doctors and the medical establishment. Healthcare is currently population-based, and thus wasteful, expensive, and inefficient. Wireless technology and genomics can build a new, individualized paradigm for healthcare that can help patients and save the nation billions of dollars.

KCRW "Good Food" host Evan Kleiman talks with journalist Tracie McMillan, author of The American Way of Eating, about McMillan's journey from farm fields to Wal-Mart to Applebee's--doing some of the most menial jobs in the American food system to find out what it would take for everyone to eat well. Is it possible to eat well on minimum wage? Not really. For all of us to eat well, said McMillan, change needs to come not just on our plates and in our shopping carts but in getting everyone easy access to good food.

In the 2012 Zócalo Book Prize lecture, sociologist Richard Sennett, author of Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation, discusses how today's diverse societies can learn to cohere. Cooperation is a craft, he argues, that we can learn--but we must develop certain skills in order to do so: dialogical listening skills, using the subjunctive voice, and practicing empathy rather than sympathy.

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.

We are on the verge of becoming a society of breadwomen--where women out-earn men--which will change society on many levels. Journalist Liza Mundy, author of The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners is Transforming Sex, Love and Family, explains why this is a good development for men and women alike.

Slate Magazine's Julia Turner, Stephen Metcalf, and Dana Stevens discussed Mike Daisey's monologue on Apple in China--and Ira Glass's retraction of the story on This American Life and Zooey Deschanel's role on the television show The New Girl. Actress Elizabeth Banks joined the conversation to talk about The Hunger Games movie, and playing the villain Effie Trinket.

UCLA political scientist Michael Ross, author of The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, explains why oil wealth is bad for developing countries: because of the extraordinary power and kinds of revenue it generates for governments, and because of the industry's lack of transparency. It's not a coincidence that the world's most volatile countries are rich in oil, he argues.

An Evening With Josefina Vázquez Mota (spanish)

An Evening With Josefina Vázquez Mota (english translated)

Washington Post writer Anne-Marie O'Connor, author of The Lady in Gold, explores the artistic and cultural ferment of Vienna--driven in part by women and Jews--at the turn of the 20th century. This was the setting in which Gustav Klimt painted his famous portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer--a painting that was then stolen by the Nazis, renamed "The Lady in Gold," and displayed for decades in Austria's national Belvedere Museum. After years-long lawsuits, Bloch-Bauer's heir, Los Angeles dressmaker Maria Altmann, won the painting back.