,1,Join us ahead of the San José Earthquakes' epic alumni player-attended California Classico game at Stanford University for an in-depth discussion with Gary Singh, a lifelong fan of the team, as he celebrates the legendary history of the Quakes in his new book, The Unforgettable San Jose Earthquakes: Momentous Stories On & Off the Field.
When the San José Earthquakes first started playing soccer in 1974, no one imagined how their efforts would reverberate 50 years later. The Quakes and their fans have overcome a multitude of issues in the last five decades, including leagues collapsing, attempted rebrandings, local apathy, political indifference and even a franchise relocation, yet they never gave up. While players like Johnny Moore, Chris Wondolowski and Landon Donovan have come and gone—along with coaches, general managers and owners—the multigenerational family this San José team created over the last half century stands as strong as ever.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Singh photo by Cherri.
June 25, 2024
Speakers
Gary Singh
Author; Columnist, Metro Silicon Valley
Kevin Nguyen
Journalist, San Francisco Standard—Moderator
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Discover the rich history of Commonwealth Club World Affairs (CCWA), the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. The product of a 2023 merger between The Commonwealth Club of California, founded in 1903, and The World Affairs Council of Northern California, founded in 1947, CCWA is dedicated to reenergizing dynamic civic space in the Bay Area by cultivating new ideas, connection and action through engaging live programs and inspiring stories.
CCWA organizes weekly in-person, virtual and hybrid events covering politics, culture, society, the economy and much more. Join us as we reimagine what a public affairs forum can be in the 21st century.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, CCWA reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Join Commonwealth Club World Affairs and Council for Korean Americans for an inspirational and thought-provoking fireside conversation with James Rhee, the acclaimed CEO, investor and national bestselling author of red helicopter – a parable for our times. Rhee is one of the top thought leaders and innovators in leadership, change, and entrepreneurship—his TED Talk and interview with Brené Brown about his shocking and transformative tenure as the CEO of Ashley Stewart, a business with deep roots in the African American community, have captured the imagination of millions.
Rhee is changing hearts and minds about the role of kindness and math in our society, including the workplace. For his efforts, he earned an unprecedented appointment at Howard University, where he serves as the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship. Rhee also holds appointments at MIT Sloan School of Management and Duke Law School. He was elected to serve in the inaugural class of Ashoka E-to-E Fellows and was recently honored as the recipient of 2023 Council of Korean Americans Trailblazer. He continues to serve on the boards of Xponance and JP Morgan Chase Advancing Black Pathways.
In conversation with Yul Kwon, CKA board member and vice president of product management at Google, Rhee will discuss the themes and predictions underlying his book, which made its debut as USA Today’s #7 overall book across all formats and channels. He will also discuss red helicopter’s rapid global expansion (the Korean translation will be finished later this year) and the adaptation of the operating system into music, curricula, and film.
Please join us as we celebrate community and Korean American identity. Copies of the book will be available to purchase during registration and at the event.
NOTES
This program is presented in partnership with the Council of Korean Americans.
Speaker photo courtesy the speaker.
June 20, 2024
Speakers
James Rhee
Owner and Author, red helicopter―a parable for our times
Yul Kwon
Vice President, Google; Winner, "Survivor"—Moderator
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Discover the rich history of Commonwealth Club World Affairs (CCWA), the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. The product of a 2023 merger between The Commonwealth Club of California, founded in 1903, and The World Affairs Council of Northern California, founded in 1947, CCWA is dedicated to reenergizing dynamic civic space in the Bay Area by cultivating new ideas, connection and action through engaging live programs and inspiring stories.
CCWA organizes weekly in-person, virtual and hybrid events covering politics, culture, society, the economy and much more. Join us as we reimagine what a public affairs forum can be in the 21st century.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, CCWA reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Mary C. Daly leads the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and will deliver remarks on monetary policy and the economy followed by Q&A. In 2024, Dr. Daly became a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the monetary policymaking body of the Federal Reserve System.
Dr. Daly assumed leadership of the San Francisco Fed in October 2018, building on a distinguished career at the Bank that began in 1996. Starting as an economist specializing in labor market dynamics and economic inequality, she has since served as research advisor, vice president and head of macroeconomics, senior vice president and assistant director of research, and executive vice president and director of research.
In Partnership with The San Francisco Press Club.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
June 24, 2024
Speakers
Dr. Mary C. Daly
President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
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Discover the rich history of Commonwealth Club World Affairs (CCWA), the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. The product of a 2023 merger between The Commonwealth Club of California, founded in 1903, and The World Affairs Council of Northern California, founded in 1947, CCWA is dedicated to reenergizing dynamic civic space in the Bay Area by cultivating new ideas, connection and action through engaging live programs and inspiring stories.
CCWA organizes weekly in-person, virtual and hybrid events covering politics, culture, society, the economy and much more. Join us as we reimagine what a public affairs forum can be in the 21st century.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, CCWA reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Join us for an afternoon focused on automation and innovation for public good.
Autonomous vehicles have the potential to revolutionize transportation in our cities, offering increased accessibility and efficiency in our urban transport systems. The 8th Autonomous Vehicles and the City symposium at The Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California will feature global discussions from senior executives and experts across the AV industry and the public sector. From integrating automation and AI within public transit systems to optimizing resources like curbs and city rights-of-way for autonomous vehicle operations to reduce vehicle miles traveled, the conference will touch on the variety of ways AV platforms are being used to serve diverse populations and help global cities meet climate goals.
Agenda
Welcome / Overview of Conference
Dr. William (Billy) Riggs, Professor at the University of San Francisco and Director of the Autonomous Vehicles & the City Initiative
Dr. Otgontsetseg Erhemjamts, Dean of School of Management at the University of San Francisco
Introductory Keynote: "AVs and the Future"
Opportunities for the future of automation?
Sharon Giovinazzo, CEO of LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired San Francisco
"Roadway Management and Innovations for Public Sector Integration
How can we make the best use road of roadways in the context of automation? What does this mean to for curbs and roadway infrastructure? What does it mean for customers of multimodal transport? How can we use roadway networks, parking, and other physical resources to reduce empty miles and total VMT/VKT?
• Mollie Cohen D'Agostino, Executive Director of Mobility Science, Automation and Inclusion Center (MoSAIC) at UC Davis
• Arielle Fleisher, Policy Development and Research Manager at Waymo
• Brook Dubose, Associate Principal and Cities, Planning & Design Leader at Arup
• Dr. William (Billy) Riggs of the University of San Francisco
"Insights from European initiatives"
Report about EU deployments and roadmaps for AV mobility services.
• Dr. Henriette Cornet, Professor at the University of San Francisco and Strategic Mobility Consultant
"AV Services, Innovations and Partnerships for Sustainable Transport Futures"
What is happening to innovate AV services? What are opportunities for transit integration and traffic operations? What are our long-term visions? How can we ensure the most sustainable outcomes for automated and autonomous vehicles in cities?
• Dr. Henriette Cornet, Professor at the University of San Francisco and Strategic Mobility Consultant
• Tim Haile, Executive Director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA)
• Dr. James Fishelson, Executive Director of PATH at UC Berkeley
• Dr. Sven Beiker, Managing Director at Silicon Valley Mobility and Lecturer at Stanford University
3.55 p.m. "Insights from Student Work"
Presentation of student work related to future AV innovations.
4:40 p.m. Parting Thoughts and Thanks
• Dr. William (Billy) Riggs, Professor at the University of San Francisco and Director of the Autonomous Vehicles & the City Initiative
• Dr. Michael Goldman, Professor at the University of San Francisco and Associate Dean of Graduate Programs
Hosted by the University of San Francisco School of Management. In partnership with The Commonwealth Club of California
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,1,Just what is the machinery that powers hugely influential propaganda? How does it work? Who’s behind it? And what can people do about it?
Renée DiResta, a writer and former researcher with Stanford’s Internet Observatory, comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to share her research into the way power and influence have been profoundly transformed, how a virtual rumor mill of niche propagandists increasingly shapes public opinion. She says that while propagandists position themselves as trustworthy Davids, their reach, influence, and economics make them classic Goliaths—invisible rulers who create bespoke realities to revolutionize politics, culture, and society. Their work is driven by a simple maxim: if you make it trend, you make it true.
By revealing the machinery and dynamics of the interplay between influencers, algorithms, and online crowds, DiResta vividly illustrates the way propagandists deliberately undermine belief in the fundamental legitimacy of institutions that make society work. This alternate system for shaping public opinion, unexamined until now, is rewriting the relationship between the people and their government in profound ways. It has become a force so shockingly effective that its destructive power can seem limitless. Scientific proof is often powerless in front of it. Democratic validity is bulldozed by it. Leaders are humiliated by it.
But they need not be. Join us as DiResta not only predicts the consequences of these online propagandists but offers ways for leaders to rapidly adapt and fight back.
Photo by Bill Wadman.
June 17, 2024
Speakers
Renée DiResta
Former Technical Research Manager, Stanford Internet Observatory; Author, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality
In Conversation with Quentin Hardy
Independent Technology Journalist
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The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Despite his many alleged improprieties, no group has been more intensely and closely aligned with Donald Trump than white evangelical Christians—some even going so far as to elevate him to the status of "savior." Yet, just as Trump fractured political norms, his presidency has splintered white evangelical families with a reactionary movement of people leaving the church: EXvangelicals.
Drawing on her own personal religious journey, NPR reporter Sarah McCammon is a guide to understanding the immense support for Trump among white evangelical Christians, the backlash among former believers, and what this tells us about a divided America and the culture wars.
After spending her early adult life striving to make sense of an unraveling worldview, by her 30s, she found herself face-to-face with it once again as she covered the Trump campaign for NPR, where she witnessed first-hand the power and influence that evangelical Christian beliefs held on the political right. Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, McCammon was strictly taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather would go to hell unless she could reach him, or that her Muslim friend would need to be converted, McCammon was a rule-follower and—most of the time—a true believer. But through it all, she was increasingly plagued by fears and deep questions as the belief system she'd been carefully taught clashed with her expanding understanding of the outside world.
Part memoir, part investigative journalism, McCammon’s The Exvangelicals is the first definitive book to explore the cultural, social and political impact of the post-evangelical movement.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
McCammon photo by Kara Frame.
June 18, 2024
Speakers
Sarah McCammon
National Political Correspondent, NPR; Co-host, "NPR Politics" Podcast; Author, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living and Leaving the White Evangelical Church
Brad Onishi
Adjunct Professor, University of San Francisco; Co-host, "Straight White American Jesus" podcast; Author, Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism – And What Comes Next
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🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
Discover the rich history of Commonwealth Club World Affairs (CCWA), the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. The product of a 2023 merger between The Commonwealth Club of California, founded in 1903, and The World Affairs Council of Northern California, founded in 1947, CCWA is dedicated to reenergizing dynamic civic space in the Bay Area by cultivating new ideas, connection and action through engaging live programs and inspiring stories.
CCWA organizes weekly in-person, virtual and hybrid events covering politics, culture, society, the economy and much more. Join us as we reimagine what a public affairs forum can be in the 21st century.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, CCWA reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Don’t miss this rare chance—right here in the Bay Area—to hear directly from Ukrainian heroes at the forefront of rebuilding their nation while under attack. Go beyond the headlines to truly understand how life in Ukraine changed after the brutal and unrelenting Russian invasion that began almost two years ago. Discover how the whole-of-nation response has unfolded: driving back Russian forces while steeling national resolve and overcoming the war’s destruction.
Join us for personal insight as we host a distinguished Ukrainian delegation of parliament members, governing officials, civic leaders and cultural heritage experts. Hear the mayor of Irpin’s experience of devastating attacks as retaliation for halting Russia’s advance on Kyiv. Learn about Kharkiv, a city just 20 miles from the Russian border, where its citizens are rebuilding while on the frontlines of entrenched war in eastern Ukraine. Discover the inspiring story of Dobrobat, a volunteer builders’ brigade, leading the civil response to rapid response repair. Our resilient and inspiring guests will share their experiences and strategies for mending and rebuilding physical infrastructure, entire communities and cultural heritage vital to national identity.
NOTES
Co-presented by the Center for Innovation.
January 24, 2024
Speakers
Konstiantyn Demenkov
Department for Cooperation with International Agencies and Financial Institutions, Kharkiv City Council
Volodymyr Kreidenko
Member of Parliament, Ukraine
Oleksandr Markushyn
Mayor of Irpin, Ukraine
Daryna Nedzelska
Culture Consultant, UNESCO Kyiv Desk
Ashley Archie
Partnerships Officer, U.S State Department Office of Global Partnerships
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🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,**Some video clips used in the presentation have been removed due to restrictions set by the YouTube platform. Here are the links to the clips for reference:
Video clip 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukS7qDd4pDA
Video clip 2: TBA
Video clip 3: TBA
On November 8, 1623, just seven years after Shakespeare’s death, his plays were collected and published in what is now known as The First Folio. It is surmised that half his plays might have been lost if the First Folio had not been created when it was, and Humanities West is celebrating not losing that much literary gold with a 400th anniversary program on Shakespeare’s cultural contributions.
Roland Greene will speak on "The First Folio as Cultural Engine." If the Folio had not been published, we would have been left without several famous plays, but also without many other cultural influences that still resonate centuries later. Shakespeare’s plays continue to have such a strong effect on our world today that it is hard to imagine our culture without them. But imagine that; Professor Greene will.
Kip Cranna will speak on "Shakespeare in Song: Operas Inspired by the Bard." Shakespeare has been the source of more operas than any other writer. Generations of composers have brought his dramas to musical life in fascinating ways in a vast variety of styles. Cranna will explore some of these intriguing page-to-stage transformations using video examples (with subtitles) that will take you on a brief literary tour of Shakespearean operas. To quote the Bard, “If music be the food of love, sing on till I am fill'd with joy!”
In association with Humanities West and the Stanford Humanities Center.
Cranna and Greene photos courtesy the speakers; Street art photo by Jessica Pamp / Unsplash
January 19, 2024
SPEAKERS
Clifford (Kip) Cranna
Dramaturg Emeritus (Scholar in Residence), San Francisco Opera; Opera Appreciation Lecturer, the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) at University of California Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and Dominican University
Roland Greene
Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Stanford University; Director, Stanford Humanities Center; Author, Five Words: Critical Semantics in the Age of Shakespeare and Cervantes
George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates—Moderator
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Silicon Valley Reads celebrates its 21st year with Lily Brooks-Dalton, Favianna Rodriguez, Alexandria Villaseñor, and Heather White.
Our featured authors and book contributors will focus on environmental sustainability and explore the challenges and opportunities of creating a more sustainable future, not only in Santa Clara County but worldwide.
They will share more about their work and efforts to create awareness and meaningful change for the future.
January 31, 2024
Speakers
Lily Brooks- Dalton
Author, The Light Pirate
Favianna Rodriguez
Artist; President, the Center for Cultural Power; Contributor, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis
Alexandria Villaseñor
Teen Climate Activist; Contributor, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis
Heather White
Author, One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet
In Conversation with Damian Trujillo
Reporter, NBC Bay Area News
Hosted by Santa Clara County Library District, Santa Clara County Office of Education, San José Public Library, and DeAnza College.
Photos courtesy the speakers; Rodriguez photo by Bobby Gordon.
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Join us for a celebration of Chinese culture and cuisine and look forward to the Year of the Dragon!
Come celebrate with us with traditional Chinese food and alcohol as we transition from the Year of the Rabbit to the Year of the Dragon. What does the new year bring to the People's Republic of China?
We will talk to Consulate General Zhang Jianmin from the People’s Republic of China, who will present his views on China’s role in California, the United States and the recent APEC conference. Afterward, all attendees are invited to sample regional Chinese cuisine and alcohol sponsored by the Chinese consulate.
January 24, 2024
Speakers
Consulate General Zhang Jianmin
The People's Republic of China
Dr. Kalidip Choudhury
Moderator
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,The Ku Klux Klan rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan had tens of thousands of members, many of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. The Klan’s mission was to obliterate the democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrific means imaginable.
To repel the tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against both armed Southern enemies of Reconstruction and Northern politicians seduced by visions of postwar reconciliation. In his new book Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction, historian Fergus Bordewich transports us to the hamlets of the former Confederate States and to the marble corridors of Congress, where an unsung generation of Black leaders tried to hold onto Reconstruction-era political gains, and where senators such as Carl Schurz from Missouri, and the ruthless former slave trader and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, worked to eliminate the rights of Black Americans in the name of political “reform.”
Join us for a special online-only program as Bordewich shares the stunning history of the first national anti-terrorist campaign waged on American soil, as Ulysses S. Grant wielded the power of the federal government to dismantle the KKK. It is also a bracing reminder of the bloody, Reconstruction-era roots of current battles to protect the ballot box and to undercut resurgent white supremacist ideologies.
NOTES
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Bordewich photo by David Altschul.
January 16, 2024
SPEAKERS
Fergus Bordewich
Author, Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,It's the beginning of the season of caucuses and primaries, as we get ready to pick our next president. And that's just one of the many things we'll be tracking all year, starting with this kickoff program.
As usual with Week to Week, our panelists will discuss the latest political developments in an informed, civil (and fun) manner. And come early before the program for our social hour for some wine and light bites and an opportunity to talk with other Club members and friends.
Join us for a whole new year of lively political discussion at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.
January 17, 2024
SPEAKERS
Tim Anaya
Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Pacific Research Institute
Melissa Caen
Host, "Get Out the Bet" Podcast; Attorney; Political Analyst
Guy Marzorati
Correspondent, California Politics & Government Desk, KQED
Image - John Zipperer
John Zipperer
Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club of California—Host
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,The Ku Klux Klan rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan had tens of thousands of members, many of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. The Klan’s mission was to obliterate the democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrific means imaginable.
To repel the tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against both armed Southern enemies of Reconstruction and Northern politicians seduced by visions of postwar reconciliation. In his new book Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction, historian Fergus Bordewich transports us to the hamlets of the former Confederate States and to the marble corridors of Congress, where an unsung generation of Black leaders tried to hold onto Reconstruction-era political gains, and where senators such as Carl Schurz from Missouri, and the ruthless former slave trader and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, worked to eliminate the rights of Black Americans in the name of political “reform.”
Join us for a special online-only program as Bordewich shares the stunning history of the first national anti-terrorist campaign waged on American soil, as Ulysses S. Grant wielded the power of the federal government to dismantle the KKK. It is also a bracing reminder of the bloody, Reconstruction-era roots of current battles to protect the ballot box and to undercut resurgent white supremacist ideologies.
NOTES
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Bordewich photo by David Altschul.
January 16, 2024
SPEAKERS
Fergus Bordewich
Author, Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Drawing on her personal journey from economic hardships to financial prosperity, Arlan Hamilton shares her conviction that wealth is not just about affluence, but more important, it's about options. The freedom to chase dreams, take bold leaps, and transform one's life trajectory.
Arlan Hamilton has defied the odds, garnering respect and recognition for her entrepreneurial spirit and financial acumen. In her new book, Your First Million, Hamilton provides an insightful guide for those aspiring to chart a similar path. She provides actionable strategies for achieving entrepreneurial success and emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurs reinvesting in their neighborhoods. She passionately believes by altering the landscape of decision-makers and innovators, we can not only better individual lives but also usher in societal change on a grand scale.
Join us as Arlan Hamilton, a source of inspiration to many in the world of entrepreneurship, shares her invaluable insights on achieving financial empowerment and catalyzing change—and maybe discover how you, too, can forge a legacy of prosperity and impact.
NOTES
January 11, 2024
Photo by Sarah Deragon.
SPEAKERS
Arlan Hamilton
Founder and Managing Partner, Backstage Capital; Author, Your First Million
Michelle Meow
Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California Board of Governors—Co-host
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Join host Michelle Meow as our panel discusses the contributions women and non-binary filmmakers have made in film, talking with Liz Sargent, Julia Gouw, and Michelle Sugihara of CAPE (the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment). We will screen "Take Me Home," Sargent's short film and a 2024 Oscar contender for best action short film, followed by a reception to meet and greet the filmmakers and API leaders in the industry.
This program is generously supported by Nielsen, Alaska Airlines, Julia S. Gouw and Priscilla S Y Lim.
Our partners for this program:
Janet Yang Productions
CAPEfilm challenge
Community Partners:
CAAM
SWA
CalAsian
Photos courtesy the speakers.
January 8, 2024
Speakers
Julia S. Gouw
Former President and Chief Operating Officer, East West Bank
Liz Sargent
Filmmaker, Take Me Home and Strangers' Reunion
Michelle Sugihara
Executive Director, CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)
Pat Ratulangi
Vice President, Global Communications, Diversity & Inclusion/Corporate Social Responsibility, Nielsen
Michelle Meow
Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California Board of Governors—Co-host
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Extreme weather in the wake of climate change, causing wildfires, drought and flooding, threatens to turn the American West into a region hostile to human habitation—a “Great American Desert” as early U.S. explorers once mislabeled it. Bruce Cain suggests that the unique complex of politics, technology and logistics that once won the West must be rethought and reconfigured to win it anew in the face of these accelerating threats.
These challenges are complicated by the region’s history, the deliberate fractiousness of the American political system, and the idiosyncrasies of human behavior. Cain analyzes how, in spite of coastal flooding and spreading wildfires, people continue to move into, and even rebuild in, risky areas, how local communities are slow to take protective measures, and how individual beliefs, past adaptation practices and infrastructure, and complex governing arrangements across jurisdictions combine to flout real progress. Driving this analysis is Cain’s conviction that understanding the habits and politics that lead to procrastination and obstruction is critical to finding solutions and making necessary adaptations to the changing climate.
In his new book Under Fire and Under Water, Cain offers a detailed look at the rising stakes and urgency of the various interconnected issues. Join us in-person to hear Cain lay out the rethinking and reengineering that will allow people to live sustainably in the American West—even under the conditions caused by future global warming.
November 29, 2023
Notes
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
Speakers
Bruce Cain
Professor of Political Science, Stanford University; Director, Bill Lane Center for the American West; Author, Under Fire and Under Water: Wildfire, Flooding, and the Fight for Climate Resilience in the American West
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
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The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,During the height of the Cold War, a group of small-town young men would lead their underdog hockey team from the little country of Czechoslovakia against the mighty Soviet Union, the juggernaut in their sport and the superpower in their neighborhood. As they battled on the ice, the young players would keep their people’s quest for freedom alive, and forge a way to fight back against the authoritarian forces that sought to crush them.
Join us as University of California, Davis, political science professor Ethan Scheiner, whose research focused on the intersection of politics and sports, discusses what he found out while researching and writing his new book Freedom to Win: A Cold War Story of the Courageous Hockey Team That Fought the Soviets for the Soul of Its People—and Olympic Gold.
From the sudden invasion of Czechoslovakia by an armada of tanks and 500,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers, to a hockey victory over the Soviets that inspired half a million furious citizens to take to the streets in an attempt to destroy all representations that they could find of their occupiers, Scheiner tells a story that ranges from iconic moments in history to courageous individual stories. At the heart of the tale is the Holíks, a Czechoslovak family whose resistance to the Communists embodied the deepest desires of the people of their country. Faced with life under the cruel and arbitrary regime that had stolen their family butcher shop, the Holík boys became national hockey icons and inspirations to their people.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Photo by Steven B Studios.
December 7, 2023
Speakers
Ethan Scheiner
Professor of Political Science, University of California, Davis; Author, Freedom to Win: A Cold War Story of the Courageous Hockey Team That Fought the Soviets for the Soul of Its People—And Olympic Gold
In Conversation with Steven Boyd Saum
Executive Director of Strategic Communications and Content, Saint Mary’s College
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
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The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,One of the most controversial topics today is the issue of gender and the related matters of identity, language and law.
Schuyler Bailar's story of becoming the first openly transgender athlete to compete on an NCAA Division 1 team in any sport appeared everywhere from "60 Minutes" to "The Ellen Show" to The Washington Post. In an effort to explain the issues surrounding gender identity and how it's discussed, Bailar has written He/She/They. His approach is to use storytelling and the art of conversation to give us the fundamental language and context of gender so that we can meet people where they are and pave the way to understanding, acceptance, and inclusion.
Join us for an in-depth talk about the issues driving laws in dozens of states and being discussed across the country.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
See more Michelle Meow Show programs at The Commonwealth Club of California.
Photo by Sean Black.
December 6, 2023
Speakers
Schuyler Bailar
DEO Advisor; Author, He/She/They and Obie Is Man Enough
Michelle Meow
Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Co-host
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Fox News Channel Chief Political Correspondent Bret Baier returns for a Club program exploring the critical role George Washington played in securing the future of the United States.
Baier, author of the new biography To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment, focuses on Washington's return from retirement to lead the Constitutional Convention and establish the foundation of American governance.
George Washington rescued the nation and the Constitution three times: first by winning the Revolutionary War, second by presiding over the Constitutional Convention and ushering the Constitution through a fractious ratification process, and third by leading the nation as president in its first years. There is no doubt, says Baier, that the struggling new nation needed to be rescued.
After the victorious war, the states were no more than a loosely knit and contentious confederation, and they were in constant conflict. Setting aside his plan to retire to Mount Vernon, Washington agreed to be a delegate at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. There he was unanimously elected president of the convention. After successfully bringing the Constitution into being, Washington then sacrificed any hope of returning to private life by accepting the election to be the nation’s first president.
Washington was not known for brilliant oratory or prose, but his quiet, steady leadership gave life to the Constitution by showing how it should be enacted.
Join us as Baier explores the dramatic moments when Washington’s leadership brought the nation from the brink of collapse. He says early America was grittier and far more divided than it is often portrayed—one we can see reflected in today’s political conflicts.
NOTES
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Photo by Fox News.
December 5, 2023
Speakers
Bret Baier
Host, "Special Report with Bret Baier," Chief Political Anchor, Fox News Channel; Author, To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment; Twitter @BretBaier
In Conversation with Debra J. Saunders
Fellow, Discovery’s Institute Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership; Columnist, Creators Syndicate; Twitter @debrajsaunders
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,The whole goal of physics is to explain what we observe. For centuries, physicists believed that observations yielded faithful representations of what is out there. But when they began to study the subatomic realm, they found that observation often interferes with what is being observed―that the act of seeing changes what we see. The same may also be true about cosmology: our view of the universe may be inevitably distorted by observation bias. And so whether they’re studying subatomic particles or galaxies, physicists might need to first explain consciousness. Searching to answer that question, George Musser turned to neuroscientists and philosophers of the mind.
Neuroscientists have built up ever-better understandings of the structure of the brain. Musser asks whether that could help physicists better understand the levels of self-organization they observe in other systems. At the same time, physicists are trying to explain how particles organize themselves into the objects we perceive around us. So Musser also has asked whether those discoveries could help explain how neurons produce our conscious experiences.
Join us for a special online-only program in which Musser tackles the potential interconnections between quantum mechanics, cosmology, human consciousness and artificial intelligence, providing a revelatory exploration of how a "theory of everything" may very well depend upon our understanding of the human mind.
Musser photo by Phil Cantor Photography (for 'Equation').
November 29, 2023
Speakers
George Musser
Journalist; Contributing Editor, Scientific American; Author, Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,For more than five decades, Ms. magazine has been a beacon of feminist ideas, sparking conversations and setting the stage for transformative discussions on women's rights, equality and empowerment. As the first magazine to feature prominent American women demanding the repeal of laws that criminalized abortion, explain and advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, rate presidential candidates on women’s issues, feature domestic violence and sexual harassment on its cover, and commission and publish a national study on date rape, the voice of Ms. has shaped modern day feminism and many contemporary issues.
Join us in a celebration of Ms. at The Commonwealth Club as our featured speakers Katherine Spillar (Ms. executive editor), Dr. Sophia Yen (CEO and co-founder of Pandia Health), Hon. Betty Yee (former California state controller), and Aimee Allison (founder and president of She the People) explore the voices that have shaped feminism and continue to shape our world.
About the Speakers
Aimee Allison is the founder and president of She the People, a national organization that elevates the voice and power of women of color as leaders of a new political and cultural era. She organized and moderated the nation’s first presidential forum for women of color in 2019.
Katherine (Kathy) Spillar is the executive editor of Ms. and editor of and contributor to 50 Years of Ms: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine that Ignited a Revolution. She is also the executive director of Feminist Majority Foundation and Feminist Majority, national organizations working for women’s equality, empowerment and nonviolence; one of the founders, she has been a driving force in executing the organizations’ diverse programs securing women’s rights both domestically and globally since its inception in 1987.
Hon. Betty Yee has served as the female vice chair of the California Democratic Party since May 2021 and also recently served as California state controller from 2015 to 2023. She has 35 years of experience in state and local finance and tax policy.
Sophia Yen, M.D., M.P.H. is the CEO and co-founder of birth control delivery service Pandia Health and has a passion for making women’s lives easier, preventing unplanned pregnancies, and educating women about Periods Optional. She also serves as a clinical associate professor at Stanford Medical School in the Department of Pediatrics in the Division of Adolescent Medicine.
November 27, 2023
Allison photo by Justin Buell; Spillar, Yee and Yen photos courtesy of speakers.
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The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,“The Influence of Environmental Activism on Gen Z Voting” unites four environmental leaders from a variety of backgrounds for a thought-provoking discussion about environmental activism and civic engagement. Representing the voices of student activists as well as professional environmentalists, our speakers will explore the movement’s impact on voting and youth turnout in recent elections and discuss the strength of environmental activism as a form of civic engagement. Accomplished leaders in their own right, panelists will share their personal journeys and provide key takeaways from the intersection of environmentalism and politics, to inspire the next generation of voters and citizen leaders.
This event is part of the Creating Citizens Speaker Series at UC Berkeley, a partnership between The Commonwealth Club, the Associated Students of the University of California Vote Coalition, and the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. The series gives UC Berkeley students and community members opportunities to listen to and ask questions of leading minds in politics, media and education as they learn how to become better, more involved citizens.
We look forward to welcoming community members and students from around the Bay Area to participate in this riveting conversation and to join us for future programs in the Creating Citizens Speaker Series.
NOTES
This program is part of The Commonwealth Club’s civics education initiative, Creating Citizens.
Creating Citizens is supported by the KORET Foundation
Produced in partnership with the EAVP Vote Coalition.
Photos courtesy the speakers.
NOVEMBER 15, 2023
SPEAKERS
Sharon Daraphonhdeth
Director, Student Environmental Resource Center, UC Berkeley; Instagram @SERCBerkeley
Abigail Dillen
President, Earthjustice; Instagram @earthjustice
Daniel Kammen
James and Katherine Lau Distinguished Professor of Sustainability, Department of Nuclear Engineering, and Director, Center for Environmental Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley; X @dan_kammen
Ashi Mishra
Senior, UC Berkeley, and Associated Students of the University of California Eco-Senator; Instagram @asucecooffice
Valeria Espino
Junior, UC Berkeley; Environmental Justice and Climate Change Policy Lead, External Affairs Vice President's Office—Moderator
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,“There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”
—David Brooks
Really knowing another person is not something people seem to do well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. David Brooks set out to help people do better, posing questions that are essential: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?
Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. He brings that message to The Commonwealth Club, to help people become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way he offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility and misperception.
How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? To find out, join us in Silicon Valley as David Brooks explains.
NOTES
Photo by Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein.
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,When the Library of Congress (LoC) was authorized in 1800, its first collection consisted of 740 books and three maps. Today, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. Housing about 173 million items and employing more than 3,000 employees, the LoC is led by Dr. Carla Hayden, the first woman and first Black librarian of Congress. She assumed her position on September 14, 2016. and is only the 14th person to hold this position in 221 years.
Serving as the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and housing the U.S. Copyright Office, the LoC gets direct appropriations from Congress to fund its work. But it also receives gifts and private donations that support a broad range of activities by the library, including hundreds of projects that have been supported by the James Madison Council's philanthropic members.
Find out about this important national institution, how it works, why it receives hundreds of thousands of in-person visitors and more than 150 million online visitors a year, and the role it plays in a knowledge-based society. Join us for an inside look at the nation's library.
NOTES
Hayden photo by Shawn Miller.
November 9, 2023
SPEAKERS
Carla Hayden
Ph.D., Librarian of Congress; Twitter @LibnOfCongress
In Conversation with Sakurako Fisher
Co-founder, O2 Initiatives; Member, Library of Congress James Madison Council
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Colleges and universities across the country are the scenes of controversy these days, with students, faculty, lawmakers and donors all seemingly locked in high-volume debate over campus rights, free speech, human rights and international conflicts.
Almost every institution of higher education touts its ability to set its graduates on a course for successful careers in their desired fields. Also high on the list of their brags are the cultural life and sports teams on campus. But colleges and universities have also played important roles in the curation and development of values in our society. Whether they are religious or secular institutions, public or private, their graduates go out into the world not only armed with job skills and networks of friends but also having been exposed to values instruction in many ways.
Sometimes our colleges and universities are out of step with the rest of the country in terms of the nation's values; other times, they preserve and deepen values that most Americans hold dear.
Just what is the role of these institutions when it comes to American values—in teaching, in challenging, in deepening those values? What exactly are the American values at issue here? Who's succeeding, and what still needs to be done? Join us for a special program addressing these important issues.
This program is part of our American Values Series, underwritten by Taube Philanthropies.
Additional program support provided by Pepperdine University.
November 8, 2023
Speakers
Suresh V. Garimella
Ph.D., President, University of Vermont
Jim Gash
President and CEO, Pepperdine University
Kiron Skinner
W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow, Hoover Institution—Moderator
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,The popular image of Edgar Allan Poe is that of a sickly, gloomy, dour fellow obsessed with all things eerie and terrifying. Tragically, both for his personal life and because it reinforced this literary myth, Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. The literary effect of his untimely death was also compounded by the mystery of what happened to him, during the three days he went missing, before he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own. There has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of his death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are based on the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how he lived, we intend to come closer to understanding the real Poe.
Poe scholar Amy Branam Armiento will discuss select works by the master of the macabre. She will explain the temptations and dangers of linking Poe to his insane narrators and grief-stricken speakers as well as cover some examples of how he incorporated contemporary events into his poems and tales. Drawing upon her scholarship on Poe and women, Armiento will also elucidate the roles women have played in inspiring his writing, restoring his reputation, and sustaining his literary legacy for more than 200 years.
Mark Dawidziak will discuss how the grotesque stereotypes about Poe have little basis in fact, and will undercut the many myths and misconceptions that have obscured the versatile, prolific and dedicated artist responsible for such classic works as "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Purloined Letter," "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee." Dawidziak also will examine how Poe’s death, under haunting circumstances that reflect the mystery and horror genres that he took to new heights, has been one of the key factors keeping him alive in the 21st century as one of the best-read and most-recognized American writers.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
October 27, 2023
Speakers
Amy Branam Armiento
Professor of English, Frostburg State University; Past President, Poe Studies Association; Co-editor, Poe and Women: Recognition and Revision
Mark Dawidziak
Former Television, Film and Theater Critic, Akron Beacon Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer; Author, A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,We've all been through a lot in the past five years, but it's difficult to figure out what it all means, and how it applies to our shared existence in this democratic experiment. Heather Cox Richardson aims to remedy that.
As a historian she has been examining and explaining modern events aided by her deep understanding of history and insight into the forces working for and against democracy. In her new book Democracy Awakening, Heather Cox Richardson looks at the state of American democracy and the forces that have been driving it toward authoritarianism. In whose interest is the obfuscation of history? Who benefits if Americans are turned off or prevented from taking part in democratic acts? Who and what can help change things and rededicate this country to its founding ideals?
Join us in person as she explains how we got to this perilous point, what our history tells us about ourselves, and what the future of democracy can be.
This program is part of The Commonwealth Club’s Future of Democracy Series, supported by Betsy and Roy Eisenhardt.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
November 6, 2023
Speakers
Heather Cox Richardson
Professor of History, Boston College; Author, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America; Twitter @HC_Richardson
In Conversation with T.J. Stiles
Biographer; Historian; Author; Twitter @TJStiles_Author
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,“Country music is the people’s music. It just speaks about real life and about truth and it tells things how they really are.” —Faith Hill
Miko Marks and Tookta Topline are two women who have both embraced and recoiled from the major music scenes in Nashville and Thailand before finding their true voices in San Francisco. Join us for a night of musical performance and conversation about how race and sexuality challenge what we think about country music. Revel in their musical talent while exploring each of their journeys as immensely talented musicians who don’t fit the industry mold.
This immersive experience will make use of The Commonwealth Club as an intimate, limited-capacity music venue for one night only! Delicious bites and drinks will be served as you mingle and engage directly with our artists.
About the Artists
Miko deftly blends country, blues, southern rock and even gospel to create a sound and experience that has literally brought every audience to its feet. Miko’s life as a Black woman in country and roots music is only a small part of the story. After living what seems to be multiple lives over, Miko has finally come into the life she was born to live—one of truth, authenticity, vulnerability, joy and honesty. Recent EPs include: "Our Country," described by The Wall Street Journal as a “genre and industry-defying mission”; "Race Records," which shined a light on the arbitrary divisions forced upon artists and audiences in the early days of music marketing in the 1940s; and the critically-acclaimed "Feel Like Going Home." Miko debuted at the renowned country music venue the Grand Ole Opry in 2022.
Tookta is a famous Thai Molam (folk, country) singer. She started singing at the tender age of 12 years old. Her sound and genre is specific to the Isaan region of Thailand. She has performed for an audience of over 100,000 on Mother’s Day for Thailand’s Queen. In addition to a successful career as a Molam singer, Tookta has also performed as a popular stand up comedian. Tookta’s latest release elevates the music style to expand beyond traditional narrative themes, inspired by LGBTQ+ activists and their own lived experience and has been embraced by millions pursuing a more inclusive Thailand during a tumultuous political period this year.
NOTES
Produced by The Commonwealth Club of California, World Affairs, and Michelle Meow.
Photos courtesy the speakers.
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The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Join us in-person for a Halloween edition of our political discussion series.
At Week to Week, we're dedicated to the lively and informed discussion of politics—with a good sense of humor—as a platform for healthy involvement in the issues that drive our society. The Commonwealth Club's Week to Week Political Roundtable and social hour, now in its 12th year, will take a look at the politics of the day—the issues, the people, and the trends affecting our political world.
Come early before the program and enjoy some wine and (Halloween-themed) snacks with others, then grab a seat in the auditorium to hear our panel of political experts discuss the latest.
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,We constantly hear about cybercrime in the news, but do you have the knowledge to protect yourself from it?
In this talk, information security expert Dr. Carrie Gates will cover the clues that can alert you to something being a scam, along with some of the common types of attacks, such as phishing, smishing and vishing.
Dr. Gates joined Bank of America in October 2018 as a senior vice president in global information security. She has established a research program, working in partnership with universities, to pursue longer-term, higher-risk research in the security space that has the potential to improve the bank’s security posture. Her current portfolio includes broad investigations into audio deep fakes, misinformation, smishing, and adversarial machine learning.
Previously, Gates has worked at a start-up as a distinguished engineer for both Dell and CA Technologies, and with CERT at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting her research career, she was the systems manager for the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University in Canada. She has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and has been awarded more than 20 patents in the computer and network security field.
Illustration by Mohamed_hassan/Pixabay.
September 27, 2023
Speakers
Carrie Gates
Senior Vice President, Bank of America
Gerald Harris
President, Quantum Planning Group; Chair, Technology & Society Member-led Forum, and Member, Board of Governors, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Throughout his career, Rajiv J. Shah has tackled some of the world’s most intractable challenges head on. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Shah played an integral role in the colossal effort to vaccinate 900 million children. At the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under President Obama, he led the U.S. response to the Haiti earthquake and the West African Ebola pandemic, served on the National Security Council, and elevated the role of development as part of our nation’s foreign policy. Now, as president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Shah oversees the global institution in its mission to promote the well-being of humanity around the world.
His approach to tackling some of the biggest humanitarian efforts of the 21st century? A "big bets" philosophy—the idea that seeking ambitious solutions rather than making incremental improvements can attract the unlikely partners with the power and know-how to achieve results.
His debut book, Big Bets, offers a masterclass in approaching challenges—regardless of magnitude—through decision-making, leadership and, of course, a willingness to make bets.
Come hear Shah as he illuminates his "big bets" philosophy on creating transformational and lasting change—in our own lives and well beyond.
Photo by Ralph Alswang.
October 25, 2023
Speakers
Rajiv Shah
President, The Rockefeller Foundation; Author, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens; Twitter @rajshah
In Conversation with Marne Levine
Former Chief Business Officer, Meta Platforms
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Join us for the 13th annual Lundberg Institute Lecture, featuring Bob Matthews of MediSync discussing the advances artificial intelligence is making in health care.
AI’s advances into various health-care fields have recently burst into public consciousness—generating excitement, concern and confusion among lay and professional observers. AI has already been relied upon in genomic medicine and in the automated analysis of diagnostic studies, but ChatGPT and Bard have liberated imaginations to consider many more potential applications. The task at hand, though, is determining whether those liberated imaginations are being realistic or unrealistic.
Medical news tends to focus on the newest and most technically glitzy innovations. even though they sometimes perform less well than advertised. Matthews will explore the immediate opportunities AI has for affecting the care of the most prevalent and important medical conditions, like chronic diseases, as that could quickly influence both the quality and the total cost of such care for the largest number of patients.
Speaker photos courtesy the speakers; robot image by Alex Knight/Unsplash.
October 10, 2023
Speakers
Robert Matthews
President and CEO, MediSync
Dr. George Lundberg
M.D., Editor in Chief, Cancer Commons; Editor at Large, Medscape; Executive Adviser, Cureus; Clinical Professor of Pathology, Northwestern University; President and Chair, The Lundberg Institute
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco, catching most of the city asleep. For approximately one minute, shockwaves buckled streets, shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, crushed hundreds of residents to death and trapped many alive. For the next three days, fires ignited and nearly destroyed what was then the largest city in the American West.
Join us in-person as Matthew Davenport describes the massive devastation and combines history and science to tell the dramatic true story of one of the greatest disasters in American history.
NOTES
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Photo courtesy by Rob Taylor Photography.
OCTOBER 16, 2023
SPEAKERS
Matthew Davenport
Author, The Longest Minute: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
In Conversation with Julia Flynn Siler
Author; Journalist; California Book Award Juror; Twitter @jsilerauthor
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,It's a challenge to make the best decisions in a world that is unpredictable and full of contradictions. Help is now available in the form of advice from quantum physicist Jim Al-Khalili, who shares 8 lessons from the heart of science that he says can help people get the most out of life.
As he writes in The Joy of Science, Al-Khalili invites people to engage with the world as scientists have been trained to do. The scientific method has served mankind well in its quest to see things as they really are. Underpinning the scientific method are core principles that can be deployed outside of the laboratory too, in our own lives. Knowing the nature of truth and uncertainty, the role of doubt, the pros and cons of simplification, the value of guarding against bias, the importance of evidence-based thinking and more—Al-Khalili says these are all deeply relevant to everyday lives.
Jim Al-Khalili is distinguished professor of theoretical physics at the University of Surrey and is one of Britain’s best-known science communicators. His other books include The World According to Physics, Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed, and Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology.
In Association with Wonderfest.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
October 16, 2023
Speakers
Jim Al-Khalili
Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Surrey; Author, The Joy of Science; Twitter jimalkhalili
In Conversation with Kishore Hari
Program Manager, Science in Society, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Twitter @sciencequiche
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,When Joe Biden took his oath of office, the trajectory of his presidency—and the fate of our nation—remained unknown. Thousands of Americans were still sick with COVID, former presidents and first ladies sat masked on the balcony of the Capitol building—while Biden’s predecessor was notably absent. Just two weeks prior, the same building was under siege by a group of insurrectionists who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election. On top of it all, suffering from the many unforeseen consequences of the pandemic, the American economy faced a looming economic crisis.
As a staff writer for The Atlantic, Franklin Foer had exclusive access to Biden and his inner circle. Foer revisits the challenging and consequential formative years of the Biden presidency from an insider’s perspective in his forthcoming book, The Last Politician.
Join us for a conversation with one of our nation’s leading political journalists as we cover topics ranging from the withdrawal of the last troops from Afghanistan, to the war in Ukraine, to covering politics at a time when the stability of American democracy remains imperiled.
Foer photo by Melanie Dunea.
October 4, 2023
Speakers
Franklin Foer
Staff Writer, The Atlantic; Author, The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future; Twitter @FranklinFoer
In Conversation with Clara Jeffery
Editor in Chief, Mother Jones; Twitter @clarajeffery5296
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,The past three years of the pandemic and the widespread practice of working from home have had a huge impact on our cities, businesses, individuals, and real estate of all types around the world. What will the future look like when considering long-term trends in population, employment, office attendance, housing prices, and other factors?
Join us for a special presentation featuring the results of a new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, "Empty spaces and hybrid places: The pandemic’s lasting impact on real estate." MGI Director Lola Woetzel will take the lead in a discussion of the report's findings and implications, such as the ripple effects of hybrid work on the way we live, work, and shop; the resulting impact on demand for office, residential, and retail space in cities; and how urban stakeholders can adapt to the new reality. They will be joined by Peter Calthorpe, urban design and planning principal at HDR, and Charles Atkins, Partner at McKinsey and Company.
Photo courtesy McKinsey.
October 5, 2023
Speakers
Peter Calthorpe
Urban Design & Planning Principal, HDR
Lola Woetzel
Director and Senior Partner, McKinsey Global Institute; Twitter @JonathanWoetzel
In Conversation with
Charles Atkins – Partner, McKinsey & Co.
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,When Joe Biden took his oath of office, the trajectory of his presidency—and the fate of our nation—remained unknown. Thousands of Americans were still sick with COVID, former presidents and first ladies sat masked on the balcony of the Capitol building—while Biden’s predecessor was notably absent. Just two weeks prior, the same building was under siege by a group of insurrectionists who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election. On top of it all, suffering from the many unforeseen consequences of the pandemic, the American economy faced a looming economic crisis.
As a staff writer for The Atlantic, Franklin Foer had exclusive access to Biden and his inner circle. Foer revisits the challenging and consequential formative years of the Biden presidency from an insider’s perspective in his forthcoming book, The Last Politician.
Join us for a conversation with one of our nation’s leading political journalists as we cover topics ranging from the withdrawal of the last troops from Afghanistan, to the war in Ukraine, to covering politics at a time when the stability of American democracy remains imperiled.
Foer photo by Melanie Dunea.
October 4, 2023
Speakers
Franklin Foer
Staff Writer, The Atlantic; Author, The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future; Twitter @FranklinFoer
In Conversation with Clara Jeffery
Editor in Chief, Mother Jones; Twitter @clarajeffery5296
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Who is the most successful woman ever to compete on "Jeopardy"?
Amy Schneider’s impressive 40-game winning streak was accompanied by an even greater prize—the joy of being herself on national television and blazing a trail for openly queer and transgender people around the world.
Her new memoir, In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life explores some of the innumerable topics that have fascinated Amy throughout her life—books and music, Tarot and astrology, popular culture and computers, sex and relationships—but they all share the same purpose: to illustrate, and celebrate, the results of a lifetime spent asking, why?
Join Amy as she returns to The Commonwealth Club and shares her singular journey that led to becoming an unlikely icon and hero to millions.
This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation
See more Michelle Meow Show programs at The Commonwealth Club of California.
Photo by Sean Black.
September 28, 2023
Speakers
Amy Schneider
Contestant, "Jeopardy!"; Author, In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life
Michelle Meow
Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Co-host
👉Join our Email List! https://www. http://commonwealthclub.org/mms.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Bestselling author and popular speaker Suneel Gupta knows what it's like to fail and to succeed. He's done both, and he says the key to creating a balanced, joyous life that integrates ambition, work and well-being is to find your dharma—your inner calling.
He says we’ve been conditioned, from an early age, to believe that one day we’ll reach a moment of “arrival.” But no matter how much we achieve or acquire we still don’t feel as satisfied or as fulfilled as we thought we would be. Exhausted, we become burned out and cynical, questioning the purpose of it all.
An expert on happiness and work, Gupta argues that for too long we have compartmentalized work and well-being and ignored the fact that both are essential for sustained success. We’ve assumed that outer success leads to inner well-being, despite history showing us otherwise.
In his latest book, Everyday Dharma, Gupta weaves personal stories, history, science, Eastern philosophy, and Western modalities in this prescriptive book.
Gupta, a visiting scholar at Harvard Medical School, will share his ideas for empowering people to let go of anxiety, follow their ambitions, produce their life’s work, and experience true joy.
Gupta photo by Emily Rose Photography.
September 25, 2023
Suneel Gupta
Founding CEO of RISE; Co Founder of the Gross National Happiness Center in the United States; Author, Everyday Dharma: 8 Essential Practices for Finding Success and Joy in Everything You Do
In Conversation with DJ Patil
Former U.S. Chief Data Scientist; General Partner, GreatPoint Ventures; Member, The Commonwealth Club of California Board of Governors
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Feel like you are always running out of time? What would you do differently with an extra 25 years of longevity to build a fulfilled life?
Please join us for a conversation on making the most of our increased longevity and designing lives with greater well-being, meaning and purpose. Dr. Laura Carstensen and Mark T. Johnsen will touch on the multiple facets of building a wealthier life with increased life spans.
Health—align health spans to life spans: One-hundred-year lives are quickly becoming commonplace, but healthy long lives require us to consider what we should be doing at all life stages to promote well-being.
Career—working more flexible years to provide well-being beyond just financial stability: Having a fulfilling career helps give us a sense of purpose but can also be taxing on us in this fast-paced world, particularly when we have so many obligations to our families, friends and communities. How should we be thinking of education and work in order to foster meaningful and healthy career spans?
Building Financial Stability—assessing the risks and rewards of a 100-year life span: Supporting 100-year lives requires creative and flexible roadmaps at all stages of life from early education for children and teaching financial literacy at an early age to re-thinking the safety nets of Medicare and Social Security.
Family and Friends—multigenerational families and communities: The energy and curiosity of youth combined with wisdom and life experiences of older generations creates opportunities for families, friends and workplaces to reap the benefits of age diversity.
Life Transitions—opportunities to reset: One-hundred-year lives can present multiple transitions, such as retirement, birth of a child, divorce, death of a loved one, and provide us with lifelong learning opportunities and ways to discover and pave a new path, course-correct, and find purpose.
Photos courtesy the speakers.
September 14, 2023
SPEAKERS
Laura L. Carstensen
Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Founding Director, the Stanford Center on Longevity; Professor of Psychology and the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy, Stanford University
Mark T. Johnsen
Founder and CEO, Chief Wealth Architect, Wealth Architects; Advisory Council Member, Stanford Center of Longevity
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,The Bay Lights by artist Leo Villareal first went live on March 5, 2013. Exactly one decade later, the beloved artwork went dark. Ben Davis is the driving force behind The Bay Lights and the effort to bring the artwork back with twice the number of LEDs in a radically accessible new configuration. With the project 75 percent funded—and $2.5 million more needed to proceed—Davis will reveal what's next for the historic effort: organizational vulnerability.
Davis is the founder and leader of Illuminate, the art nonprofit behind many of San Francisco's large-scale and iconic public artworks, including lighting The Pink Triangle on Twin Peaks, activation of the Golden Mile on JFK Promenade, the Summer of Love lighting on the Conservatory of Flowers, Grace Light in Grace Cathedral, the revival of the Golden Gate Bandshell, and the series of giant laser art installations across San Francisco this summer.
Davis will also talk about his vision for San Francisco as the City of Awe.
The program talk will be followed by a reception and live music by "KAVIN" on the rooftop. In-kind food donations provided by local SF Hot Cookies and Casa Sanchez.
Community partner: Beyond The Fog Radio
September 8, 2023
Speakers
Ben Davis
Founder and Chief Visionary Officer, Illuminate; Creator, Bay Lights
Carolyn Tyler
Former Anchor and Reporter, KGO-TV/ABC7; Member, San Francisco Film Commission—Moderator
Robert Melton
Art Curator andCo-Chair, Arts Member-led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—Program Host
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Famed astronomer Avi Loeb returns to The Commonwealth Club to answer some of the biggest questions facing humankind: How do we prepare ourselves for interaction with interstellar extraterrestrial life? And can our species itself become interstellar?
Loeb, the longest-serving chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department, shook the scientific community when he theorized that our solar system had been visited by a piece of advanced alien technology from a distant star. The object, dubbed 'Oumuamua, sparked worldwide discussions and arguments, and Loeb was at the center of it all.
Now, in his new book Interstellar, Loeb builds on that original idea and asks, What's next? He gives a call to arms that reimagines the idea of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Dismantling our science-fiction-fueled visions of a human and alien life encounter, he provides a blueprint for how such an interaction might actually occur, resetting our cultural understanding and expectation of what it means to identify an extraterrestrial object. From awe-inspiring searches for extraterrestrial technology, to the heated debate of the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena, Loeb provides a thrilling, front-row view of the monumental progress in science and technology currently preparing us for contact. He also lays out the profound implications of becoming—or not becoming—interstellar; in an urgent, eloquent appeal for more proactive engagement with the world beyond ours, he contends why we must seek out other life forms, and in the process, choose who and what we are within the universe.
Tens of thousands of people have viewed Dr. Loeb's 2022 Commonwealth Club program. Don't miss his return engagement as he raises some of the most important questions facing us as humans and argues that scientific curiosity is the key to our survival.
In association with the Club's Humanities Forum and Wonderfest.
September 5, 2023
Speakers
Avi Loeb
Ph.D., Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and Former Chair of the Department of Astronomy, Harvard University; Author, Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Join us in-person and online for a discussion with journalist Katie Hafner, who covers scientific advances, especially those by women, and her husband, Dr. Robert Wachter of UCSF, who is on the forefront of the digital transformation of health care and has been influential in advancing public understanding of the COVID crisis. Dr. Wachter coined the term “hospitalist” in 1996 and has overseen that medical specialty, the fastest growing specialty in modern medical history. His tweets on COVID-19 have been a trusted source of information on the clinical, public health, and policy issues surrounding the pandemic, garnering more than 500 million views.
Hafner and Wachter are at the center of advancing public understanding of science and health care through various media. We will discuss Hafner’s popular "Lost Women of Science" podcast, her groundbreaking nonfiction books, and her recent switch to fiction with The Boys. We’ll also discuss Dr. Wachter’s perspective on COVID—including lessons learned—as we enter a new phase of the pandemic, how health care will be transformed by digital tools like ChatGPT, and how to communicate about science in the face of uncertainty, political polarization, and misinformation. In addition, they’ll discuss the experience of working and writing together as a married couple, particularly when the pandemic forced them—like so many couples—into the same bubble.
In Association with Wonderfest.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
September 5, 2023
Speakers
Katie Hafner
Journalist; Host and Co-Executive Producer, "Lost Women of Science" Podcast; Author, The Boys and Mother Daughter Me
Robert Wachter
Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco; Author, Understanding Patient Safety and The Digital Doctor
In Conversation with George Hammond
Author, Conversations With Socrates
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Summer's over and fall is about to begin. Come on out to our beautiful headquarters on San Francisco's waterfront for an end-of-summer Week to Week political roundtable!
At Week to Week, we're dedicated to the lively and informed discussion of politics—with a good sense of humor—as a platform for healthy involvement in the issues that drive our society. The Commonwealth Club's Week to Week Political Roundtable and social hour, now in its 12th year, will take a look at the politics of the day—the issues, the people, and the trends affecting our political world.
Come early before the program and enjoy some wine and snacks with others, then grab a seat in the auditorium to hear our panel of political experts discuss the latest developments with knowledge, civility and humor.
August 30, 2023
Speakers
Tim Anaya
Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Pacific Research Institute
Josh Koehn
Senior Political Reporter, San Francisco Standard; Former Editor at the San Francisco Chronicle; Former Communications Director in the California Legislature
Melissa Caen
Host, "Get Out the Bet" Podcast; Attorney; Political Analyst
John Zipperer
Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club of California—Host
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Two eclipses of the sun are coming to North America during the 2023–24 school year—an annular (“ring of fire”) eclipse on October 14, 2023 and a total eclipse on April 8, 2024. People in two narrow paths will have the full eclipse experience each time. Everyone else (an estimated 500 million people, including all of us in the Bay Area) will see a nice partial eclipse, where the moon covers a good part of the sun.
Dr. Andrew Fraknoi will describe how eclipses come to be (and why they are total only on Earth), what scientists learn during eclipses, exactly when and where the eclipses of 2023 and 2024 will be best visible, and how to observe the eclipses and the sun safely.
In Association with Wonderfest.
Fraknoi photo courtesy the speaker' eclipse images from NASA.
August 28, 2023
Speakers
Andrew Fraknoi
Chair Emeritus, Astronomy Department, Foothill College; Former Executive Director, Astronomical Society of the Pacific; Astronomy and Physics Lecturer, Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University; Lead Author, Astronomy
Gerald Harris
President, Quantum Planning Group; Chair, Technology & Society Member-led Forum, and Member, Board of Governors, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,In today’s world, the acceleration of megatrends—increasing longevity and the explosion of technology, among many others—is transforming life as we know it.
Leading sociologist and business economist Mauro F. Guillén explains that a new postgenerational workforce known as “perennials”—individuals who are not pitted against each other either by their age or experience—will level the playing field so everyone has a chance at living a rewarding life.
He argues that outmoded terms like Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have long been used to pigeonhole us into rigid categories and life stages that artificially prevent people from reaching their full potential.
Join us as Guillén reveals how this generational revolution will impact young people just entering the workforce as well as those who are living and working longer.
This program is generously supported by the Jackson Square Partners Foundation.
In Partnership with World Affairs.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
August 28, 2023
Speakers
Mauro F. Guillén
Professor of Management and Vice Dean for the MBA for Executive Programs, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; Author, The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society; Twitter @MauroFGuillen
In Conversation with Ray Suarez
Host, KQED’s “On Shifting Ground”; Author, We are Home: Becoming in American in the 21st Century (forthcoming); Twitter @RaySuarezNews
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Michelle Meow will sit down with American actress and transgender activist Shakina, to discuss the current state and future of the transgender arts and how we can uplift and support their community.
Join us for this free program in Palo Alto!
This program is part of a collaboration with TheatreWorks New Works Festival: Songs and Stories with Shakina. Please visit https://theatreworks.org/new-works/nwf/shakina/to find out more about how to participate in other events after this program has concluded.
Shakina photo by Marques Walls.
August 18, 2023
Speakers
Shakina
Actress; Transgender Activist
Michelle Meow
Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW TV and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors—Co-host
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,Twitter/X - https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/BarbaraLeeforCA/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/BarbaraLeeforCA/
Nationally, Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee is perhaps best known for being the only member of Congress to vote against war authorization after the Sept. 11 attacks, a decision that led to death threats and hate mail. But her willingness to take tough, progressive stands has endeared her to East Bay voters—who have re-elected her 13 times—and liberal Democrats across the country.
Now, Lee is running to fill retiring California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat. “We have to ease the burden on the middle class. We have to find a solution to poverty and homelessness. We have to take on the climate crisis. And we have to stop these MAGA extremists who think they can control people’s bodies and dismantle our democracy,” she said when announcing her candidacy. If she succeeds, Lee would be the sole Black female senator and only the third in U.S. history.
Lee returns to The Commonwealth Club as part of our “Race to the Senate 2024” series of candidate forums. Come meet the candidate in person before you cast your vote for California’s next U.S. senator.
August 14, 2023
SPEAKERS
Barbara Lee
U.S. Congresswoman (D-Oakland); Candidate for U.S. Senate
In Conversation with Melissa Caen
Host, “Get Out the Bet” Podcast; Political Analyst; Attorney; Twitter@ConstitutionMel
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
,1,The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. Heat is the first-order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. As the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy and our values. Journalist Jeff Goodall says the basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow. Stop burning fossil fuels in 50 years, and the temperature will keep rising for 50 years, making parts of our planet virtually uninhabitable. The hotter it gets, the deeper and wider our fault lines will open.
Goodell's book The Heat Will Kill You First is about the extreme ways in which our planet is already changing. It is about why spring is coming a few weeks earlier and fall is coming a few weeks later—and the impact that will have on everything from our food supply to disease outbreaks. It is about what will happen to our lives and our communities when typical summer days in Chicago or Boston go from 90 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. A heatwave, Goodell explains, is a predatory event, one that culls the most vulnerable people; but that is changing—as heatwaves become more intense and more common, they will become more democratic.
As an award-winning journalist who has been at the forefront of environmental journalism for decades, Goodell might be his most provocative yet, explaining how extreme heat will dramatically change the world as we know it.
Photo courtesy the speaker.
August 7, 2023
Speakers
Jeff Goodell
Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone ; Author, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet and The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized ; Twitter @jeffgodell
Andrew Dudley
Co-host and Producer, Earth Live; Chair, People & Nature Member-led Forum, The Commonwealth Club of California—Moderator
👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email
🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership
The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.
Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020.
In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.
