February 2022
Does The First Amendment Still Protect Free Speech?
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution is supposed to provide the world’s strongest protections of free speech and a free press. But you wouldn’t know that from reading the news. Public officials routinely pressure tech companies to censor content. Conservative lawmakers are moving to ban more books, limit protests, and curb school curriculums. Progressive leaders and activists are successfully pressuring employers to punish and fire people for expressing views seen as harmful or dangerous. Even the ACLU is…
Find out more »April 2022
A Special Zócalo Music Presentation: How Immigrants Composed L.A.
In 1933, Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg immigrated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles; he would spend the rest of his life writing music and teaching composition at USC and UCLA. Following him, in 1940, came Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor Stravinsky, who settled in Hollywood after making the move from France. Then, in 1942, fellow Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor Sergei Rachmaninoff arrived in Beverly Hills. These immigrants—and others who followed them—fused L.A.’s free-spirited culture with the traditions…
Find out more »May 2022
Is This What Direct Democracy Looks Like? With Shirley Weber
Direct democracy is supposed to be a people’s process, allowing everyday citizens to enact their own ideas for laws or constitutional amendments. But does California’s system live up to that promise? Qualifying a measure for the ballot costs so many millions of dollars that only the richest people and interests can bring their proposals forward. Elected and appointed officials have considerable sway over the process, and routinely use it for their own aims. And voters have little information, and few…
Find out more »What Do We Want From the Next L.A. Mayor?
Moderated by Janaya Williams, KCRW’s Host of All Things Considered Mayoral candidates in Los Angeles love to offer plans and make promises. But in L.A., City Hall is more likely to follow than to lead. Change here has always come from Angelenos themselves, and the ways we interact with each other and cope with the accidents, disasters, and ongoing challenges that define life in L.A. Before June’s first-round mayoral election, Zócalo tunes out the politicians and asks the people: what do…
Find out more »June 2022
12th Annual Zócalo Book Prize: Will Americans Ever Be In This Together?
From tax cuts and voting rights to healthcare and labor coalitions, middle- and working-class Americans frequently vote for politicians and support policies that go against their interests. The reason, argues economic and social policy scholar Heather McGhee, is racism. Prosperity and success, as the majority sees it, is a zero-sum game: Whatever benefits Black Americans, as well as immigrants and other minority groups, costs white Americans. In reality, explains McGhee, the opposite is true—whether it’s draining public swimming pools after integration,…
Find out more »September 2022
What Can We Laugh About?
What is the relationship between dissent and comedy? Is there civic virtue in laughter? Are there any issues that it is “too soon” to joke about? Should comedians around the world draw inspiration from American humor? And can comedy break through apathy, discontent, and division in a democracy under pressure—serving as release valve, remedy, and respite? Political satirist Bassem Youssef, and playwright, actor, and performance artist Kristina Wong visit Zócalo to discuss the current comedic zeitgeist, and why the joke can be…
Find out more »How Should We Prepare for Aliens to Arrive on Earth?
What will contact with a new intelligent lifeform mean for humanity’s future? Can the close encounters Hollywood has imagined help us plot our way forward? And, is it possible that humanity will find unity in how we present ourselves to the new arrivals? A panel including astrobiologist, theoretical physicist, and ASU associate professor Sara Imari Walker, and Corey Gray, senior operations specialist at LIGO Hanford Observatory, visit Zócalo – not to discuss whether there is life out there, but to reflect upon…
Find out more »November 2022
Do We Even Need a City Council?
Zócalo Public Square and KCRW present, “Do We Even Need a City Council?” A panel moderated by KCRW’s host of All Things Considered, Janaya Williams, will discuss where things went wrong and imagine new futures. Government officials, reformers, and scholars visit Zócalo to discuss where things went wrong, and imagine new futures for L.A.’s city council. This event is free and open to the public, in person and online. Zócalo and KCRW invite the in-person audience to continue the conversation at…
Find out more »How Does L.A. Inspire First-Time Novelists?
Zócalo Public Square and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles present, “How Does L.A. Inspire First-Time Novelists?” Debut novelists Fatimah Asghar, Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi, and Ryan Lee Wong visit Zócalo and ALOUD to read from their new books, and to discuss the excitement and challenges of putting out a first novel, what inspires their craft, and why Los Angeles had to be a part of it all. This event is free and open to the public in person and online. Zócalo and…
Find out more »December 2022
How Can Women and Girls Win in Iran?
On December 6, Zócalo Public Square presents “How Can Women and Girls Win in Iran?,” co-presented with the Goldhirsh Foundation. Today, people are pouring into the streets of Iran demanding change. But can a century of feminist resistance combined with a new generation of activists have what it takes to turn the tide on a 40-year crackdown on freedom? Iran analyst Holly Dagres, artist Sahar Ghorishi, and anthropologist Pardis Mahdavi join Zócalo to discuss if young women hold the key to a just…
Find out more »January 2023
A Special Zócalo/Da Poetry Lounge Spoken Word Performance: Does Democracy Need Poets?
On January 17, Zócalo Public Square and Da Poetry Lounge present, “Does Democracy Need Poets?” As long as there have been poems, there have been political poems meant to sway opinion and inspire action. As long as there have been poems, there have been political poems: verses, intended to be heard aloud, meant to sway opinion and inspire action. Poetry played a crucial role in the Athenian democracy of ancient Greece; throughout American history, poet luminaries such as Walt Whitman,…
Find out more »How Has Computer Code Shaped Humanity?
On January 31, Zócalo Public Square and Future Tense present, “How Has Computer Code Shaped Humanity?” It can be easy to forget that software springs from the minds of living, breathing people with the same insights and failings that have driven human history for centuries. Nearly 80 years after engineers programmed the first electronic computers, most of us still regard machines as supremely rational collections of electrical circuits, speaking in binary “1”s and “0”s. It can be easy to forget…
Find out more »February 2023
What Is the Value of Art?
The week before the international art fair Frieze Los Angeles descends upon Southern California, contemporary artist and activist Andrea Bowers; artist, cultural organizer, and co-founder of Meztli Projects Joel Garcia; and director and CEO of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Sandra Jackson-Dumont visit Zócalo to consider the value of art beyond a financial investment
Find out more »What Is the Value of Art?
Zócalo Public Square and KCRW present, “What Is the Value of Art?,” in partnership with NeueHouse and Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. The week before the international art fair Frieze Los Angeles descends upon Southern California, contemporary artist and activist Andrea Bowers; artist, cultural organizer, and co-founder of Meztli Projects Joel Garcia; and director and CEO of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Sandra Jackson-Dumont visit Zócalo to consider the value of art beyond a financial investment. Writer Helen Molesworth moderates a discussion about…
Find out more »March 2023
Can Decolonization Explain Everything?
People place blame for inequality, climate change, political polarization, and other current woes on all kinds of bad actors and influences: authoritarians, corporations, globalization, social media. But the decline of Western empires during the 20th century was arguably the catalyst for it all. Decolonization changed millions of people’s lives—primarily for the better—transforming art, culture, global and local politics, economics, and our ways of understanding the world in the process. But decolonization is also profoundly misunderstood. Have Westerners in particular failed…
Find out more »May 2023
What Does Boxing Owe Its Champions?
Boxing is a sport of contradictions. Known as the “sweet science” because of the technical skills its fighters need to succeed, it is also incredibly brutal. Boxing has provided a creative outlet and a path out of poverty for generations of California strivers, forging cultural and individual identity, promoting dignity, pride, and agency, and delivering million-dollar paydays for some. But the sport has also destroyed some of its most talented practitioners, seemingly abandoning them to post-career bankruptcies and grievous injury.…
Find out more »June 2023
2023 Zócalo Book Prize: How Does a Community Save Itself?
America’s high-poverty cities and counties have suffered for decades, enduring skyrocketing inequality, the opioid epidemic, rising housing costs, and widespread disinvestment. Governments have offered a variety of failed solutions, from luring wealthy outsiders to slashing public services. But four communities are turning inward instead: Stockton, California; rural Josephine County, Oregon; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Detroit, Michigan. In these diverse places—all of which went broke in the wake of the Great Recession—locals are building networks and trust in one another and their…
Find out more »September 2023
What Is the State of Surveillance?
Early this year, an uncrewed Chinese-operated high-altitude balloon floated across U.S. airspace, stoking anxiety and fascination among Americans, who assumed it was spying on them, and ultimately provoking President Biden to order the Pentagon to shoot it down. Just as alarming as foreign espionage, though, is the fear of information-gathering turned inward. American anxieties around the “surveillance state” have only grown since the Watergate scandal; with the post-9/11 passage of the USA PATRIOT Act; and with revelations that federal agencies…
Find out more »January 2024
“What Is a Good Job Now?” For the Formerly Incarcerated
It’s been over 50 years since the era of mass incarceration started in the United States. Over the past decade, and especially in the pandemic, California has made major changes in its criminal justice system to reduce its prison population and sentences. But it has been slower to develop and invest in new systems to support Californians as they transition out of jail or prison into workplaces. What are the best ideas and models for finding good jobs for the…
Find out more »February 2024
Would Parliamentary America Have More Fun?
With the 2024 election season upon us, Americans feel political despair. The president and his leading challenger, a former president, are deeply unpopular. Huge majorities, in both parties, tell pollsters that the two-party system is broken. For many, the prospect of engaging in upcoming political contests evokes downright dread. So, where can we find the inspiration and ideas to fundamentally repair our democracy, climb out of this political rut, and turn the mood around? In other democracies around the world,…
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