Latest Videos

Latest Videos

A library of interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers.

4mins
Miller remixed D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” as a critique on racial politics. His Antarctica project touches on many of the same ideas, differently.
7mins
“Go to the most remote place that you can imagine, set up a studio and see what music comes out of it.”
4mins
DJing is like being a conductor, and a composer of collage—you get to “mess around with people’s memories of songs.”
2mins
Paul Miller is more of a nuts and bolts kind of guy, while DJ Spooky can be wilder.
4mins
The author of the classic writing guide “Bird by Bird” shares some of her favorite ways to get the creative juices flowing.
3mins
Unlike Faulkner, the “Imperfect Birds” author doesn’t believe you should be willing to run over your grandmother for the sake of a great novel.
3mins
Anne Lamott embraces her reputation as a popular novelist, but admits that she sometimes gets caught up in the pretentious side of her profession.
4mins
A story of meditation, black coffee, and Safeway cakes.
4mins
Anne Lamott used to seek inspiration in “drugs, alcohol, and poetry.” But writing her novels has always been more like arduous manual labor than an ecstatic high.
5mins
Creating fictional people that seem real requires, among other things, writing a final draft in which you “take out all the lies.”
4mins
Some social problems are too complex to attack in a 1,500-word editorial.
2mins
“The difference between a writer who toughs it out and one who doesn’t is that you push through the parts where you know that you’ve just written seven pages when […]
2mins
The 21st century economy will evolve from a U.S.-dominated landscape to a “multiple power” system whose success will hinge on cooperation, not competition.
3mins
With competitive local search companies waiting in the wings, will Chinese users really mourn Google’s absence?
2mins
The financial meltdown caught China off guard—and may make the country hesitate to follow Japan and other East Asian neighbors into full-fledged capitalism.
4mins
Will China’s future economic success hinge on its willingness to democratize? Or will U.S. debt make the country a superpower sooner than we think?
2mins
“There’s no point in going into a field like English literature unless you’re going to have fun with it.”
2mins
The Harvard critic recalls feeling genuinely anxious about how things would turn out for the hero of “The Magic Mountain.”