Anthropology and Social Change

A CIIS graduate degree in Anthropology and Social Change opens doors in academia, nonprofits, communications, and beyond.

How CIIS honors the Earth through curriculum, retreats, events, and practices that root learning in the living world.

Rowen White on Indigenous Seedkeeping and Food Sovereignty

Seedkeeper, author, mentor, and founder of Sierra Seeds, Rowen White is a passionate activist for Indigenous seed and food sovereignty. With the increasing industrialization of our food and the erosion of biodiversity within cultural contexts, Rowen works to guide and mentor mindful eaters and food/seed sovereignty leaders in their capacity to lead, vision, and nourish a deep-rooted transformation. For Rowen and many others, cultivating a culture of belonging needs to be at the heart of food systems change—inviting a diversity of perspectives and voices, cosmologies and values.

In this episode, Rowen is joined by CIIS Associate Professor of Anthropology and Social Change Michelle Glowa for an inspiring conversation exploring Indigenous seedkeeping and food sovereignty.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on November 19th, 2025. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In 1979, Loretta Ross was a single mother who’d had to drop out of Howard University. She was working at Washington, DC’s Rape Crisis Center when she got a letter from a man in prison saying he wanted to learn how to not be a rapist anymore. At first, she was furious. As a survivor of sexual violence, she wanted to write back pouring out her rage. But instead, she made a different choice, a choice to reject the response her trauma was pushing her towards, a choice that set her on the path towards developing a philosophy that would come to guide her whole career: rather than calling people out, try to call even your unlikeliest allies in. Hold them accountable—but do so with love.

A Black Feminist, activist, professor, and author, Loretta has spent five remarkable decades in activism.  She’s deprogrammed white supremacists and taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism and it’s worked because the power of Loretta Ross’s message comes from who she is and what she’s lived through.  

Join CIIS Women’s Spirituality Professor Dr. Alka Arora for a powerful and inspiring conversation with Loretta about her life’s work and her latest book Calling In, a memoir-manifesto-handbook about how to rein in the excesses of cancel culture so we can truly communicate and solve problems together. Loretta discusses how using conversation instead of conflict—by focusing on your shared values over a desire for punishment—is the more strategic choice if you want to make real change.  

Whether in the workplace, on a college campus, or in your living room, learn how to transform frustrating and divisive conflicts that stand in the way of real connection with the people in your life.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In her work, author, organizer, and designer Aida Mariam Davis explores the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism, making explicit the ways that extraction, oppression, and enslavement serve the goals of empire—not least by severing ancestral connections and disrupting profound and ancient relationships to self, nature, and community. Her recent book, Kindred Creation, is a call and response to dream and design better worlds rooted in African lifeways: a path to Black freedom, a love letter to Black futures, and a blueprint to intergenerational Black joy and dignity—all (and always) on Black terms.

In this episode, Aida is joined by CIIS Director of the Center for Black & Indigenous Praxis Preston Vargas for a powerful conversation exploring African epistemologies and recalling the dignity and distinction of the African way of life. Aida shares her philosophical framework: remember, refuse, and reclaim as a vital guide for birthing new worlds and reclaiming land, language, lifestyle, and labor.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 19th, 2025. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance. Many activist projects and resistance groups fall apart because people treat each other poorly, trying desperately to live out the cultural myths about dating and relationships that we are fed from an early age. How do we bring our best thinking about freedom and justice into step with our desires for healing and connection?

In this episode, Dean is joined by CIIS Anthropology and Social Change Associate Professor Targol Mesbah in a liberating conversation on how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, better preparing us for the work of changing the world.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on February 28, 2025. 

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

At each CIIS Open House event, a community panel of faculty and alumni discusses what drew them to CIIS and their experiences at the University.

Black Queer Feminists Cara Page and Erica Woodland’s work focuses on political and spiritual liberation grounded in Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Queer and Trans healing justice lineages. Their work guides individuals through the history, legacies, and liberatory practices of healing justice—a political strategy of collective care and safety that intervenes in the generational trauma caused by systemic violence and oppression.

In this episode, Cara and Erica discuss their recent collaboration as editors of the anthology Healing Justice Lineages, a profound and urgent call to embrace community and survivor-led care strategies as models that push beyond commodified self-care, the policing of the medical industrial complex, and the surveillance of the public health system.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 2, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Caste is one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world. It negatively impacts 1.9 billion people worldwide, crippling their quality of life.

Brahmins, who created this system in Hindu scripture, are at the top of the caste system and have benefited from centuries of privilege, access, and power because of it. Dalits, who sit at the bottom of this hierarchy, are branded “untouchable” and sentenced to a violent system of caste apartheid with separate neighborhoods, places of worship, and schools.

Dalit American activist and author Thenmozhi Tenmori Soundararajan has been working to end caste oppression around the world for decades. In her work, she endeavors to help Dalit individuals and families heal through international solidarity with other oppressed people, working together to dismantle caste apartheid.

In this episode, author, meditation teacher, and law professor Rhonda Magee has a powerful conversation with Thenmozhi about the ongoing trauma of the caste system and Dalit people’s fight against oppression.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 16th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

For over two decades, Deborah Egerton has been teaching the Enneagram—a popular personality typing tool—as a valuable device for social justice and anti-racism. In this episode Dr. Egerton is joined by Micky ScottBey Jones, Enneagram teacher and multi-faith movement chaplain, for an empowering conversation exploring social justice through the lens of the Enneagram.

Drawing on Dr. Egerton’s work and latest book, Know Justice Know Peace, their conversation illuminates how the inner work of each of the nine Enneagram archetypes creates healing, elevates consciousness, and aligns us as individuals with the heart of humanity in order to eliminate systemic racism. They invite us to explore our own personality archetype in order to activate ourselves as allies within a beloved community; a community that acknowledges that, while we may come in many shades and colors, we are part of one human race.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 30th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Popular belief assumes that mixedness gives you the ability to feel at home in more than one culture, but the flipside reveals you can feel just as alienated in those spaces.

Born to a white American and a South Asian immigrant, scholar and essayist Samira Mehta grew up feeling more comfortable with her mother’s family than with her father’s—her white family never carried on conversations in languages that she couldn’t understand or blamed her for finding the food too spicy. But in adulthood, she realized that some of her Indian family’s assumptions about the world had become an indelible part of her—and that her well-intentioned parents had not known how to prepare her for a world that would see her as a person of color.

In this episode Samira is joined by the Director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University A-lan Holt for a conversation about Samira’s life and recent book The Racism of People Who Love You that tackles questions around authenticity and belonging, conscious and unconscious cultural inheritance, appropriate mentorship, and the racism of people who love you.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on April 20th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Integrative physician, author, and activist Tanmeet Sethi’s work focuses on shifting our nervous system and biochemistry into a form of joy at the cellular level. Dr. Sethi has worked globally and locally on the frontlines with the most marginalized communities, as well as with victims of school shootings, survivors of hurricanes, and citizens impacted by police violence. She shares her methods and lessons learned in her recent book Joy Is My Justice.

In this episode, Dr. Sethi is joined by licensed marriage and family therapist Anjuli Sherin for a conversation about rediscovering joy and how to reframe joy as an act of resistance to reclaim resilience and sense of purpose as a unique human right.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on May 2, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author, creative, host, and self-proclaimed "pleasure doula" Sara Elise is on a quest to examine the ingredients of our lives—those essential components that make up our days—in support of systemic transformation and radical change. Sara’s work, and latest book, A Recipe for More, offer a profound and challenging inquiry into the forces that keep us in a state of survival and limitation, asking us to consider a new way to live. 

In this episode, Sara is joined in conversation with Meckell Milburn, founder of the holistic wellness organization, Revolutionary Healing, and an Integrative Health Practitioner. Sara and Meckell explore the ideas of abundance, pleasure, and self-expansion by examining our connection to concepts like self-inflicted suffering, toxic positivity, rest, rage, visibility, and agency and share ways of bringing the ingredients of abundance to our own lives.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on May 11, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

How do ordinary people with busy lives leverage our actions in support of liberation, justice, and authentic connection? How can activists and social change-makers avoid burning out? How does the body factor into what our social movements might miss? 

Drawing on the somatic arts, trauma-informed psychology, and anti-oppressive movements, scholar/activist Rae Johnson helps us explore and transform the political realities of our everyday lives in a new way: by harnessing the felt experience of our bodies as the sites of our activism. In this episode, vocalist, sacred scholar, and artivist Amber McZeal talks with Rae about their latest book, Embodied Activism, and their perspectives on changing the world, one body at a time.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 23rd, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In his latest book, Grounded, James Canton recounts his journey into the places where our ancestors experienced profound emotion—otherwise known as numinous experiences—to help us better understand who we are.

In this episode, scholar and CIIS faculty in Philosophy and Religion Laura Pustarfi joins James for an inspiring conversation exploring how the sacred can be accessed by looking to the past, to our ancestors and where and how they fostered spiritual communion with the natural world.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 22nd, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

What role does dominant culture play in how we experience the sensations, thoughts, feelings, and deeper existential mysteries of our bodies? Dr. Roger Kuhn, a Poarch Creek Two-Spirit Indigequeer activist, artist, sex therapist, and somacultural theorist, believes that Two-Spirit people hold a unique and valuable perspective. Straddling colonial imposition and tribal significance, Two-Spirit identity offers a powerful decolonizing framework to achieve freedom and navigate the toxic systems of domination that impose upon the precious truth of who we are.

In this episode, Dr. Kuhn is joined by queer nonbinary therapist and mediator Jay Tzvia Helfand for a conversation illuminating the ways our bodies offer portals to our own liberation and how viewing our bodies through a somacultural lens can help us better understand how dominant culture informs and, all too often, misinforms our relationship to our bodies.

Dr. Kuhn discusses his latest book, Somacultural Liberation, based on his revolutionary mode of inquiry, Somacultural Liberation, an embodied practice that helps people connect with the intersections of their identity. Dr. Kuhn’s approach illuminates the full impact of our cultural reality in shaping both our individual and shared sense of self.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on June 20th, 2024. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Across what we now call California, Indigenous communities are fighting to protect and preserve languages, cultural practices, and ways of being.

In this episode, Two-Spirit Tongva/Ajachmem artist and tribal activist L. Frank and Ramaytush (Rammaytush) descendant and Founder of Muchia Te' Indigenous Land Trust Catalina Gomes share their personal journeys of learning and reconnecting with their tribal languages and discuss the fight for the visibility of Indigenous languages and cultural practices across California.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on October 10th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Sonya Renee Taylor is a world-renowned activist and thought leader on racial justice, body liberation, and transformational change. Her best-selling book, The Body Is Not an Apology, offers a radical framework for self-love and has helped many to identify and dismantle bodily-based hierarchies to build new worlds of possibility and justice.

In Sonya’s newest book, The Book of Radical Answers, she provides honest, empowering and age-appropriate answers to real questions from young readers about health, sex, gender, race, and justice.

In this episode, CIIS Dean of Faculty Development, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Danielle Drake joins Sonya for a healing and transformative conversation that explores how we can open ourselves to seeking radical answers to the world’s most pressing and painful questions, and how we may find our own liberation through the journey.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 25th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Dr. Lyla June is a renowned Indigenous musician, songwriter, poet, hip-hop artist, human ecologist, and community organizer. Her music and message center around intergenerational and inter-ethnic healing and are poetic articulations of Indigenous philosophies.

Through her vibrant art across mediums and extensive community organizing efforts, Lyla offers pathways forward for Indigenous liberation and creates solidarity for Indigenous communities and their allies.

This episode was recorded live in San Francisco on November 3rd, 2023. Lyla was joined on stage by Preston Vargas, CIIS Director of the Center for Black and Indigenous Praxis, for a powerful evening of song and conversation exploring her life, art, and community organizing. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

The Zapatista movement emerging from Chiapas, Mexico over the past three decades has impacted people all over the world who struggle to liberate themselves from colonial capitalism and Cis-Heteropatiarchy.

Between 2012 and 2019, several delegations of CIIS students, staff, and faculty traveled to Chiapas. There they attended various educational encounters that compose part of what CIIS faculty Charlotte María Sáenz calls “Zapatista Seed Pedagogics,” a way to describe the mutual education between Zapatistas and those outside their autonomous territory.

In this episode Charlotte is joined by fellow CIIS faculty member Zara Zimbardo for a conversation exploring the ways the Zapatista movement bridges different worldviews, politics, and geographies to collectively revision and remake “a world in which many worlds fit,” an oft-repeated Zapatista slogan.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on November 11th, 2023. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

African-centered scholars often point to mindfulness and meditation as important practices for those of African ancestry to tend to their inner landscapes and heal from the harm of systemic and internalized oppression.

For Jenée Johnson, the Founder and Curator of The Right Within Experience, a mindfulness immersion program for people of African ancestry, mindfulness is a tool to cultivate a liberatory lifestyle of joy and well-being. These are the human rights and exalted emotions that are eroded in Black lives through consistent exposure to the trauma of racism.

In this episode, Jenée is joined by filmmaker and activist Shakti Butler for a powerful conversation exploring mindfulness as a tool for Black Americans to reclaim joy, self-love, and well-being.

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on February 2, 2024. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who works within the complexity of systems and cultural change. In his most recent book, Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma, Thomas examines how our world’s profoundly complex challenges demand a new level of human collaboration.

In this episode, Thomas is joined by CIIS faculty Drew Dellinger for an empowering conversation on healing our world through understanding our interconnectedness and healing our individual, ancestral, and cultural trauma.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 29th, 2024.  A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Bayo Akomolafe is a posthumanist thinker, philosopher, poet, author and founder of the Emergence Network, a planet-wide initiative that seeks to convene communities in new ways in response to the critical, civilizational challenges we face as a species. Through Bayo's writings, speeches, and work he inspires new ways of thinking and being in the world, inviting us to ask questions that undermine everything we are told to believe.

In this episode, Bayo is joined by artist, writer, mindfulness practitioner, facilitator, and emerging filmmaker Damali Robertson as they explore postactivism and how this concept, which is so imbued with possibility and creativity, can be supportive of pathways to healing.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 14th, 2024. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want To Talk About Race, writer Ijeoma Oluo offered a vital guide for how to talk about important issues of race and racism in society. In Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, she discussed the ways in which white male supremacy has had an impact on our systems, our culture, and our lives throughout American history.

But now that we better understand these systems of oppression, what can we do about them? In her latest book, Be A Revolution: How Everyday People are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too, Ijeoma aims to show how people across America are working to create real positive change within our structures.

In this episode, Ijeoma is joined by Preston Vargas, the Director of the CIIS Center for Black & Indigenous Praxis, for an inspiring conversation encouraging all of us to engage with our communities and examine how we can start creating positive systemic change.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 20, 2024. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

With over 20 years of experience practicing and teaching Kingian Nonviolence, leading trainer Kazu Haga offers a practical approach to resolving conflict first practiced by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement. In his work, Kazu reclaims the energy and assertiveness of nonviolent practice and shows that a principled approach to nonviolence is the way to transform not only unjust systems, but broken relationships.

In this episode, Kazu Haga is joined by CIIS professor and restorative justice expert Sonya Shah for a conversation about his life, Kingian Nonviolence, and his book, Healing Resistance.

This episode contains explicit language. This episode was recorded at a live event in front of a live audience at CIIS in February 2020. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Joy and resilience: we need both to thrive. But even though resilience is rightly buzzing as a self-care goal, we live in a world that makes it attainable to some and inaccessible to others.

In her latest book, Joyous Resilience: A Path to Individual Healing and Collective Thriving in an Inequitable World, Pakistani American Clinical Therapist Anjuli Sherin offers a culturally informed, body-centered model of healing accompanied by the compelling and diverse stories of Black, POC, LGBTQIA+, Immigrant, and other marginalized people, who found ways to thrive and embrace joy using this model to heal intergenerational and collective trauma.

In this episode, Monique LeSarre, executive director of Rafiki Coalition joins Anjuli for a moving and joyful conversation about her work as a therapist and the lessons she shares in Joyous Resilience.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 26, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted twice for Donald Trump. Mónica is also the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, which brings her to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt—broken conversations among confounded people.

In this episode, Damali Robertson talks with Mónica about her life, work, and her recent book, I Never Thought of It That Way, in which she shares ways for us all to have fearlessly curious conversations.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 24th, 2022. Access the transcript below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Native or tribal sovereignty refers to the right of American Indians and Alaska Natives to govern themselves. In some definitions native or tribal sovereignty is an inherent right, whether the tribe is federally recognized or not. But what does native sovereignty mean to Indigenous peoples, non-Indigenous peoples, governments, organizations, and beyond?

Gregg Castro, Cultural Director for the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, has worked on preserving his Indigenous heritage for three decades as a writer-activist and by educating the broader world about the Ramaytush Ohlone—the Indigenous people of the land now called San Francisco.

In this episode, Gregg is joined by Lazzuly Mello, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Core Faculty in the Community Mental Health program at CIIS, for an illuminating conversation exploring the complexities of native sovereignty from his perspective as a member and advocate for multiple California tribes.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 22nd, 2022. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

The term Two-Spirit is translated from a Northern Algonquin word and is used by some Native peoples of North America to signify variations of gender and sexual orientation. The term gained popularity in the 1990s as a counterpoint to colonial terminology used by anthropologists and academics alike to signify practices of nonbinary gender and sexual orientation among the Native peoples of North America.

Despite over five centuries of ongoing colonial terminology and ideology, Two-Spirit people have survived. Now, they are coming together and returning to values and traditions that existed prior to the invasion of the land we now call North America. But what does Two-Spirit and the transition from surviving to thriving mean to Two-Spirit peoples?

In this episode, Chickasaw Two-Spirit activist, drag queen, and community organizer Landa Lakes is joined by Poarch Creek Two-Spirit artist, activist, and educator Roger Kuhn for an inspiring conversation on Native American ideas on gender, cultural expression, and art as a platform for—and a pathway to—activism.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on November 10th, 2022. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, author Jabari Asim is in conversation with former CIIS Dean of Diversity and Inclusion Denise Boston about his book, We Can't Breathe.

The book is about a different side of American history - one that doesn't depend on a narrative steeped in oppression, but rather reveals African American voices telling their own stories.

This episode was recorded during an event on November 1, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina and curator Dorothy R. Santos explore the long, winding road from innocuous cat memes to the central practice for civic engagement that memes have become today.

This episode was recorded during an event on January 19, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, comedian, activist, and author Franchesca Ramsey is joined in conversation by author and comedian Sarah Cooper about the many ways we communicate with each other.

This episode was recorded during an event on June 2, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, Boots Riley, the writer and director of Sorry To Bother You, and lead singer of The Coup discusses creativity and activism with local writer Chinaka Hodge.

This episode was recorded during an event on September 7, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, award-winning young author JM Holmes is joined in conversation by Stephanie Anne Johnson to discuss the inspiration for his debut collection of short stories.

This episode was recorded during an event on August 23, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

There are few subjects in American life that prompt more discussion and controversy than immigration. Drawing on his own experience as an Indian-born teenager growing up in New York City, and on years of reporting around the world, author and journalist Suketu Mehta tackles this issue head-on.

In this conversation with multicultural counseling expert Jyoti Rao, Suketu talks about his latest book This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto and his belief that immigrants bring great benefits, enabling countries and communities to flourish.

This episode was recorded during an event on June 8, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Author, editor, and Baltimore native D. Watkins is joined by equity expert Y-Vonne Hutchinson for this conversation about the lessons D has learned navigating two very distinct worlds—the hood and the elite sanctums of prominent black thinkers and public figures.

This episode was recorded during an event in 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

As one of the country’s leading organizers, Principal at Black Futures Lab, and a co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter, Alicia Garza's work has helped shape the discourse on movements and empowerment for more than a decade.

In this episode, performer, social worker, and activist Honey Mahogany talks with Alicia about her life, her work, and her latest book, The Purpose of Power.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 20th, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Like many Americans, social psychologist Devon Price believed that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Dr. Price was an overachiever from the start, graduating from both college and graduate school early, but that success came at a cost. After Dr. Price was diagnosed with a severe case of anemia and heart complications from overexertion, they were forced to examine the darker side of all this productivity.

Dr. Price began a thorough examination of what they call the “laziness lie”—which falsely tells us we are not working or learning hard enough. Their in-depth research revealed that people today do far more work than nearly any other humans in history, yet most of us still feel we are not doing enough.

In this episode, CIIS Integral and Transpersonal Psychology program director Kendra Diaz-Ford joins Dr. Price in a conversation encouraging us all to let go of guilt, become more attuned to our own limitations and needs, and resist the pressures to meet outdated societal expectations.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 28, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author, Black feminist, and social justice activist adrienne maree brown has been talking, writing, and celebrating the intersection of pleasure and activism since her much-lauded 2019 book, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good.

In this episode, CIIS professor and restorative justice expert sonya shah joins adrienne for a powerful and joyful conversation exploring how to tap into the full spectrum of our sensual desires and emotional needs while organizing for justice.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on February 12, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In her work, racial justice educator Rachel Ricketts has developed heart-centered and mindfulness-based practices to dismantle white supremacy by addressing anti-racism from a comprehensive, intersectional, and spiritually aligned perspective.

In this episode, A-Ian Holt, director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford joins Rachel for a conversation about her latest book, Do Better, an actionable guidebook and a loving, assertive call to do the deep—and often uncomfortable—inner work that precipitates much-needed external and global change.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 18, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety? In a time when the most powerful institutions in the United States are embracing repressive and racist systems that keep many communities struggling and in fear, we need to reimagine what safety means.

In this episode, community leader and lawyer Zach Norris is joined in a conversation with CIIS professor and restorative justice expert sonya shah about how we can shift our mindset and embrace a new vision for public safety that overturns more than 200 years of fear-based discrimination, othering, and punishment.

This episode contains mentions of violence and death by suicide. This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 23, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

What makes cults so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Author and journalist Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has.

In this episode, CIIS professor, writer, and speaker Zara Zimbardo talks with author and journalist Amanda Montell about her latest book, Cultish, in which she argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. Zara and Amanda discuss influence, the social science of cults, and how to recognize the language of fanaticism all around us.

Many of the topics discussed on our podcast have the potential to bring up feelings and emotional responses. We hope that each episode provides opportunities for growth, and that our listeners will use them as a starting point for further introspection and growth.

If you or someone you know is in need of mental health care and support, here are some resources to find immediate help and future healing:

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Free, confidential support 24/7 for people in distress, prevention, and crisis resources for you or your loved ones.

San Francisco Suicide Prevention – A local nonprofit offering crisis intervention, grief support, and education programs.

CIIS Counseling & Acupuncture Clinics – Affordable integrative mental health services provided by supervised graduate students at CIIS.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on July 14th, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Fat Black people in the United States are subject to socio-politically sanctioned discrimination, abuse, condescension, and trauma. In their writing and work, Da’Shaun Harrison—a fat, Black, disabled, trans writer and community organizer—offers an incisive, fresh, and precise exploration of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness.

In this episode, Afro-Caribbean photographer, herbalist, and multidisciplinary artist KaliMa Amilak joins Da’Shaun for a conversation about their latest book, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, their life and work, and how we can all work to dismantle our cultural programming to create real change.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on August 19th, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In a society where unconscious bias, microaggressions, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustices are deeply ingrained, healing is an ongoing process. Author, meditation teacher, and law professor Rhonda Magee teaches that in order to have the difficult conversations required for working toward racial justice, inner work is essential.

In this episode, Damali Robertson has a conversation with Rhonda about her life and work, as well as her latest book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, in which Rhonda shares ways mindfulness can heal ourselves, and transform our communities.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 22nd, 2021. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Apela Colorado is a traditional cultural practitioner and Indigenous scientist dedicated to creating a bridge between Western thought and Indigenous worldviews. In her latest book, Woman Between the Worlds, Dr. Colorado invites us to explore how Indigenous wisdom resonates in modern life while lovingly teaching us to honor its power, beauty, and potential.

In this episode, CIIS faculty Susana Bustos joins Dr. Colorado for a conversation about her lifelong journey connecting with the essence of Indigenous spirituality and culture, and reawakening to the wisdom of her Native American and French Gaul ancestors.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on November 4th, 2021. Access the transcript below.

Poet, journalist, and professor Nicholas Powers describes his youth as growing up with tales of counter culture for bedtime stories.

In this episode, he talks with Natalie Metz, a licensed Naturopathic Doctor, herbalist, faculty member and mentor in the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at CIIS.

Nicholas shares stories from his journey exploring psychedelic experiences and events in a discussion about what psychedelic integration could be in the 21st Century.

This episode contains explicit language. A transcript is available below.

In this episode, author and hip hop journalist Jeff Chang is joined in conversation with novelist and poet Adam Mansbach on the cultural history - and future - of race in America.

Jeff Chang is the author of Who We Be, a cultural history of race in post-civil rights America and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, the history of the hip-hop generation. He's also the executive director of The Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 11, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. A transcript is available below.

In these pandemic times, and times of racial justice uprising and reckoning, the failure of U.S. and global health care systems to meet human need or to even ensure the basic safety of health care providers continues to be revealed. How did we get here?

In this episode, CIIS faculty and multi-sector social justice organizer Mordecai Ettinger offers an exploration of the hidden history of white supremacy and colonization embedded in the Medical Industrial Complex (MIC)—a web of institutions—from hospitals, dialysis centers, and nursing homes, to health insurers, big pharma, and the corporate polluters that they are entangled with.

Mordecai addresses the myriad ways in which the MIC generates, perpetuates, and upholds ableism—particularly racialized medical ableism—as among the most dangerously violent and destructive forces of our times. Finally, Mordecai offers a vision for hope, a path forward for transforming the MIC and creating alternatives for health and healing, a crucial part of humanity’s collective liberation in which we all have a role to play.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 30, 2020. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Disability studies scholar Sara Acevedo discusses disability culture and identity, from the perspective of disability communities themselves.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 14, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. A transcript is available below.

Shot at by police as an 11-year-old child for playing baseball in the wrong spot, as an adult Larry Ward continued to experience racialized trauma when his home was firebombed by racists. At Plum Village Monastery in France, he found a way to heal with his teacher, Vietnamese peace activist and Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

Now a Zen Buddhist teacher and author, Dr. Ward's work examines the causes and conditions that have led us to our current state, and he finds—hidden in the crisis—a profound opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a human being. This is an invitation to transform America’s racial karma.

In this episode, Women's Spirituality Professor Alka Arora talks with Dr. Ward as he shares what he has learned through his own life and work, and invites us to transform our society and heal our racial karma.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 6, 2020. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

One of the most distinguished voices in American literature, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet N. Scott Momaday has devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially its oral tradition.

A member of the Kiowa tribe who was born and grew up on Indian reservations throughout the Southwest, Dr. Momaday has a deep attachment to the land he knows well and loves deeply. In his latest book, Earth Keeper: Reflections on an American Land, Dr. Momaday reflects on his native ground and its influence on his people and the person that he is.

In this episode, Indigenous scholar and activist Melissa Nelson talks with Dr. Momaday about his life, his work, and the importance of remembering that the Earth is a sacred place of wonder and beauty; a source of strength and healing that must be protected before it’s too late. Dr. Momaday reminds us that we must all be keepers of the Earth.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on November 12, 2020. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Professor and Students Step Up for Sacred Lands Under Threat

Fariha Róisín is a multidisciplinary artist and author who was born in Ontario, Canada and raised in Sydney, Australia. She is now based in Los Angeles, CA. As a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, she is interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Fariha’s latest book Who Is Wellness For? explores the ways in which the progressive health industry has appropriated and commodified global healing traditions. She reveals how wellness culture has become a luxury good built on the wisdom of Black, brown, and Indigenous people while both ignoring and excluding them.

In this episode, Fariha is joined by CIIS Associate Professor of Anthropology and Social Change Targol Mesbah in an engaging conversation that explores the commodification and appropriation of wellness through the lens of social justice and provides resources to help anyone participate in self-care regardless of race, identity, socioeconomic status, or able-bodiedness.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on July 13th, 2022. A transcript is available below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Watch and listen to the recordings of past years' memorial lectures for David Graeber

Disability is often described as a tragedy, a crisis, or an aberration even though 1 in 5 people worldwide have or will have a disability. Why is this common human experience rendered exceptional? Disability studies scholar Jennifer Natalya Fink argues that this originates in our families.

Weaving together stories of members of her own family with socio-historical research, in her latest book, All Our Families, Jennifer illustrates how the eradication of disabled people from family narratives is rooted in racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic sorting systems inherited from Nazis. Inspired by queer and critical race theory, Jennifer calls for a lineage of disability: a reclamation of disability as a history, a culture, and an identity.

In this episode, autistic Mestiza, critical educator, and disability studies scholar-activist Sara M. Acevedo joins Jennifer for a conversation that challenges us to reconnect disability within the family as a means of repair toward a more inclusive and flexible structure of care and community.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on April 7th, 2022. Access the transcript below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

According to renowned political economist Raj Patel and physician and activist Rupa Marya, our bodies, our societies, and our planet are inflamed. In their recent book, Inflamed, Raj and Rupa reveal the links between health and structural injustices—and offer a new deep medicine that can heal our bodies and our world.

In this episode, Raj and Rupa are joined in a rich, unique conversation with CIIS professor Charlotte María Sáenz as they illuminate the hidden relationships between our biological systems and the profound injustices of our political and economic systems.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 8th, 2022. Access the transcript below.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Anthropology and Social Change Alumna Shares Work That Matters

Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few.

In Mikki Kendall's latest book, Hood Feminism, she takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hyper-sexualization, she delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux and issues a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists.

In this episode, psychologist and CIIS Professor Danielle Drake talks with Mikki about writing Hood Feminism, her life, and the lessons she has learned.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 23, 2020. You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Sherri Mitchell (Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset) is a Native American attorney, teacher, and award-winning activist who grew up on the Penobscot Indian Reservation (Indian Island), Maine, and is the author of Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change.

In this episode, she is joined in a conversation with healer and movement builder Brenda Salgado. Together they explore Native American mythology and cosmology as a means of healing our collective wounds.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 1, 2020. You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Fifty years after meaningful efforts toward civil rights, the United States remains overwhelmingly unjust. Our current solutions to make the world more equitable and just—from desegregation to diversity and representation—are not enough.

In this episode, somatic psychologist Sherri Taylor talks with author Calvin Baker about his book A More Perfect Reunion, in which he presents a profound, masterful reading of US history from the colonial era forward, along with a trenchant critique of the obstacles in our current political and cultural moment. It is also a timely call to action.

Calvin and Sherri's conversation reminds us that we live in a revolutionary democracy and that we are at a crucial moment to finish the revolution.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on July 23, 2020. You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

As the first Latinx person to direct national domestic policy issues, Cecilia Muñoz knows the difficulties of getting ahead without trailblazers to follow.

In her latest book, More than Ready, she offers lessons inspired by both the challenges she faced and the victories she achieved in the White House. Cecilia’s own life and work taught her tactical tools, tools that women of color can look to, and be inspired by, to reach unprecedented levels of power and success—without compromising who they are.

In this episode, Sonia Mañjon, Executive Director of LeaderSpring Center, talks with Cecilia about working through fear, overcoming injustices, facing down detractors, and more.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on July 9, 2020. You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Activist and writer Kevin Powell has emerged as one of the most acclaimed voices in America today, tackling some of the biggest issues of our time through his writing and speaking.

In this conversation with Kathy Littles, Kevin shares his thoughts shortly after the publication of his most recent book, My Mother. Barack Obama. Donald Trump. And the Last Stand of the Angry White Man.

This episode was recorded during an event on October 15, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Modern technology has, and continues to transform the ways we grow, prepare, distribute, eat, and think about our food.

In this episode, food journalist Larissa Zimberoff and social sciences professor Julie Guthman share insights into food culture and examine the trends and technologies that are transforming the world of food. Is the future of food looking bleak or better than ever?

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during an event on June 14, 2017 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

For most of his life, Boston-based artist P. Carl lived as a girl and a queer woman, building a career, a life, and a loving marriage, yet still waiting to realize himself in full. After fifty years, he embarked on his gender transition amid the rise of the Trump administration and the #MeToo movement—a transition point in America’s own story.

In this episode, recorded shortly after the release of P. Carl’s memoir, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition, CIIS Human Sexuality Program Chair Michelle Marzullo talks with P. Carl about his personal journey, as well as gender, power, and inequality in America.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 19, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

For more than four decades, Don Lattin has written about the social, spiritual, and political aspects of the psychedelic drug movement as a newspaper reporter, freelance journalist, and the author of four books of narrative non-fiction.

In this episode, KQED Science senior editor Kat Snow has a conversation with Don looking back on the long, strange trip his career has been.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 5, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In her latest book, Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World, psychologist and emotion regulation specialist Dr. Sarah Rose Cavanagh leaves no stone unturned in her quest to understand how social technology is reshaping the way we socialize.

In this episode, Dr. Cavanagh is joined by CIIS Professor Zara Zimbardo for a conversation on how communities can sync up around shared ideas, how this hive mentality is contributing to today's polarized times, and how to make sense of the dissonance around us.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 13, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Somatic therapy combines talk therapy and bodywork to treat a wide range of psychological and physiological conditions, ranging from stress and anxiety to depression and PTSD. Nowhere has somatics proven more effective than in the treatment of trauma.

In this episode, author and somatics practitioner Staci Haines is joined in a conversation with therapist and CIIS professor Emily Marinelli. They discuss Staci’s book The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice, and share a restorative justice approach to somatic therapy, integrating mind-body healing with social activism.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 6, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

An equal partner in co-founding the first farm workers unions with Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta has become one of the most defiant feminists of the twentieth century, and one of the most important activists in American history. Now 89 years old, she continues the fight to this day.

In this episode, Latinx studies professor Maria L. Quintana has a conversation with Dolores Huerta about her life and work as a revolutionary and inspirational leader dedicated to activism, feminism, and the future of America.

This episode was recorded during an event in November 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Abby Chava Stein is the tenth-generation descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement. In 2015, she came out as a woman, and she now works as a transgender activist.

In this episode, Keshet LGBTQIA+ education specialist Randi Reed talks with Abby about her book Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman.

This episode was recorded during an event on January 16, 2020 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, Marina Gorbis, Executive Director of the Institute for the Future, talks with internet pioneer and renowned filmmaker Tiffany Shlain about her strategy for living in our 24/7 world: turning off all screens for 24 hours each week.

She and her family call it “Technology Shabbat” or “Living 24/6”. Over the past decade, this weekly practice has completely changed their lives—giving them more time, productivity, connection, and presence.

This episode was recorded during an event on December 5, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In her book, For the Love of Men, award-winning journalist Liz Plank offers a witty, insightful, and deeply researched guide for what we can all do about toxic masculinity.

In this episode, Liz is joined by therapist and Bay Area men’s group leader Sarwang Parikh for a conversation about the future of gender roles and how finding a new way forward for men has the possibility to change the world.

This episode contains explicit language and was recorded during an event on November 14, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

The rise and transformation of information warfare is perhaps one of the most significant global trends of the last few years. The result is a circus atmosphere of constant lies, shock humor, absurdity, and fear-mongering designed to disorient us and undermine our sense of truth.

In this episode, digital intelligence expert Nick Monaco talks with award-winning author and disinformation expert Peter Pomerantsev about what he has learned working behind enemy lines exploring multinational information wars.

This episode was recorded during an event on November 7, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

Andrej Grubacic reflects on the situation in Syria

As artificial intelligence evolves, so too does human culture. In this conversation, futurist Nicole Sallak Anderson and UC Berkeley professor Edward Lee discuss meeting machines and how technology is changing the humans creating it.

This episode was recorded during an event on August 29, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

In this episode, diversity and inclusion specialist Denise Boston has a conversation with author and academic DaMaris B. Hill that spans poetry, history, and current events to illuminate the lives of extraordinary women, and examines the impact they have had on our society today.

This episode was recorded during an event on July 25, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

Join Stanford’s social media expert, Jeff Hancock, and Director of the Trust Project, Sally Lehrman, as they examine the erosion of truth online, how our psychological and social dynamics impact our culture, and what we can do to rebuild our collective grasp on the truth.

This episode was recorded during an event on July 18, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

In this episode, psychotherapist and CIIS professor Gisele Fernandes-Osterhold has a conversation with social anthropologist and researcher Beatriz Labate about the risks and benefits of the globalization of ayahuasca through the lens of her research on new and traditional uses of psychoactive substances.

This episode was recorded during an event on July 11, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

Professor and activist Jennifer Wells talks with author and community organizer Trebbe Johnson about her lifelong dedication to finding and making beauty in the Earth’s broken places.

This episode was recorded during an event on June 27, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

Journalist Ed Morales is joined by CIIS Professor Antonio Ramirez for this conversation on the American Latinx experience and the powerful cultural impact of this frequently overlooked community.

This episode was recorded during an event on June 6, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California. 

Author Irshad Manji talks with KQED journalist Kat Snow to discuss her experiences as a refugee from Africa, a Muslim immigrant to the US, and her Moral Courage project.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 5, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Author Damon Young is joined in conversation by artist A-lan Holt from Stanford's Institute for Diversity in the Arts to discuss the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be black in America.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 15, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Author Lynne Twist is joined in conversation by Liz Beaven to discuss the power money wields over our lives and how we can empower ourselves to re-conceptualize it.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 22, 2019 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, book critic David Ulin and author Matthew Zapruder discuss how reading can function as an act of engaged citizenship and resistance.

This episode was recorded during an event on October 2, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Cornel West is one of America's most provocative public intellectuals and the world-renowned author of Race Matters. His writings weave together the traditions of the Black Baptist Church, social justice, progressive politics, and jazz.

In this episode, Dr. Cornel West is in conversation with former CIIS Dean of Diversity and Inclusion Denise Boston about the burdens black men carry in society.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 10, 2015 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, author and activist Sobonfu Somé explores the importance of grieving and ritual in Burkina Faso, West Africa and how that tradition can be applied to our lives today. Her work has helped move African spiritual practices from the realm of anthropology to a place alongside the world's greatest spiritual traditions.

This episode was recorded during an event on February 26, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, author Huda Al-Marashi talks with Daniela Koenig about the process of navigating love and expectations while straddling two cultures.

This episode was recorded during an event on November 29, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, clinical neuropsychologist Mario Martinez is joined by Natalie Metz to discuss his research on aging and longevity.

This episode was recorded during an event on October 26, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, writer and commentator Lindy West is joined in conversation by body positivity activist Jes Baker for a conversation on feminism, politics, and activism.

This episode was recorded during an event on October 4, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, CIIS professor Craig Chalquist explores how myths jump out of myth books and into our lives, inhabiting current events, our language, politics, and more.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 30, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Civil rights activist, former Black Panther leader, and educator Ericka Huggins is joined in conversation by CIIS professor and restorative justice expert Sonya Shah. 

This episode is presented in collaboration with Bioneers and the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

This episode was recorded during an event on September 8, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Zen priest, author, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care Roshi Joan Halifax is joined in conversation by Brenda Salgado about death and dying, Buddhism, and social activism.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 11, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Comedian, writer, and actress Zahra Noorbakhsh is joined by CIIS faculty member Zara Zimbardo for a conversation that explores being Muslim in America today, and how to counter discrimination with comedy.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 25, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author and journalist Jo Piazza is joined in conversation by CIIS professor Nicolle Zapien to explore wedding and marriage rituals, customs, and traditions throughout the world.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 31, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokno is joined by artist and activist Jadelynn Stahl for a conversation about how to triumph in the new political and social landscape.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 5, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, CIIS faculty Andrej Grubacic uncovers the relatively unknown history of exiles and activists and their impact on the past and future of the capitalist civilization. This talk was part of the Big Ideas at CIIS series.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 26, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Indie game developer turned social activist Zoë Quinn is joined by CIIS faculty Zara Zimbardo for a rare public conversation about her experience at the center of the Gamergate controversy and her journey to overcome it by working to make the internet a better, safer place for everyone.

This episode was recorded during an event on September 27, 2017 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Journalist and author Sasha Abramsky is joined by CIIS professor Andrej Grubacic in this conversation about America's most dangerous epidemic: irrational fear.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on November 16, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Pioneering Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Magdalena Yesil came to the United States in 1976 with two suitcases and $43, unaware of the challenges she would face as an immigrant woman. 

In this episode, Magdalena is joined by CIIS professor Sara Salazar for a conversation about her life and the lessons she learned breaking glass ceilings to rise to the top in Silicon Valley and beyond.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on December 14, 2017.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who challenged Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, is joined by CIIS faculty May Elawar for a conversation about what an American looks like and what being a nation of immigrants really means.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 3, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, artist, creative coder, and researcher, Roopa Vasudevan explores what technology and data can teach us about ourselves. This event was part of the Haresh and Joan Shah Lecture and Performance Series.

This episode was recorded during an event on January 10, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

Alexis Okeowo, a writer for The New Yorker, is joined in conversation by Mimi Lok from Voice of Witness to discuss the stories of ordinary people fighting extremism in Africa.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on January 18, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, author and coder Ellen Ullman is joined in conversation by CIIS writing professor, Carolyn Cooke, to explore the transformation of society through the rise of the internet.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 7, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

In this episode, author Ijeoma Oluo was joined by former CIIS Dean of Diversity and Inclusion Denise Boston in a conversation exploring Ijeoma’s book, So You Want To Talk About Race, and examining the racial landscape in America.

This episode was recorded during an event on January 31, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, author Joy DeGruy was joined in conversation by former CIIS Dean of Diversity and Inclusion Denise Boston to explore how trans-generational trauma and systems of oppression influence race relations in America.

This episode was recorded during an event on January 19, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

In this episode, Doug Vakoch, CIIS professor and President of Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (METI), examines the social and cultural aspects of extraterrestrial contact.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 22, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author and activist Julia Serano is joined by CIIS professor Zara Zimbardo for a conversation about how to make feminist and queer movements more inclusive.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 1, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Author and anthropologist David Graeber is joined by debt researcher Jason Wozniak for a conversation about the phenomena of meaningless jobs.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on February 21, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Human rights advocate and author Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno is joined by Brady Morales-Woolery to discuss corruption in Colombia’s military and political establishment.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on April 25, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Berkeley Professor of Psychology and author Charlan Nemeth is joined by CIIS Provost Liz Beaven to discuss the usefulness of dissent and how we can make better decisions by challenging the status quo.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on May 2, 2018.

You can watch a recording of this episode and many more episodes on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube Channel.

Activist, author, and former Black Panther Party member Angela Davis talks with CIIS Professor Danielle Drake about her life and work.

This episode was recorded during an event on April 13, 2018 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

An interview with Alberto Vallejo Reyna

Lessons learned visiting the Zapatistas

Learning from and with disability communities

Psychoanalysis and Activism In the Era of Trump and Neoliberalism: A Forum and Dialogue

Cat Brooks of San Francisco’s Anti Police-Terror Project is joined in conversation by journalist Manolia Charlotin of The Media Consortium to discuss race, police violence, and criminal justice reform. This event was made in collaboration with public radio program Making Contact.

This episode was recorded during an event on March 16, 2016 in front of a live audience in San Francisco, California.

The scholar who "walks the mystical path with practical feet"

The Anthropology department joins an international network of research centers.