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Friday, September 12, 2025, from 7–9 PM

Raúl de Nieves, Tega Brain, and Sam Lavigne

 weaves oral history, hard-hitting journalism, and memoir into a powerful portrait of Indigenous survival, love, and resurgence. Raised between his Secwépemc and St’at’imc father’s heritage and the urban Native community of Oakland, California, NoiseCat explores his past and identity while bringing the traditional “Coyote Story”—the trickster tale of Indigenous creation—to life for contemporary readers. To launch the book at Pioneer Works, NoiseCat was joined in conversation by filmmaker, video artist, and photographer Sky Hopinka. ♦

At some point, after he stocked the rivers with salmon and peopled the villages with descendants and in-laws, Coyote disappeared. Of course, he did not die—at least not permanently. Coyote, like the Coyote People, could not be put down forever. He would come back. Someday... probably? And we would too. At least that’s what the Coyote People believed back when we still called ourselves Coyote People.

The most common account held that Coyote would reappear in the End Times. When things came full circle, the trickster who molded the world into its Indigenous state would be there. Just to do whatever trickster shit needed to be done—make something, like a son; or break something, like the witches’ fishing weir; or steal something, like goose eggs or a wife; or invent essential ergonomic functions, like the elbow; or live a life full of damn good stories. Because how the world ends is just as important as how it begins.

Some said Coyote would reappear as a cooler version of Jesus. Cooler because if you listen to stories of his feats, Coyote resurrected way more than just once and did more to create our world than Jesus. Jesus died for our sins, and yet thereafter we were still sinners who could be damned to Hell. In the single act of liberating salmon—just one of many feats—Coyote provided over half of the Coyote People’s calories most years. While Christianity hands down eternal sentences for life mistakes, Coyote fills bellies, lives his own mistakes, and laughs about it all. According to a belief common among the Coyote People in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Coyote’s next coming would mark the renewal of the world and the return of an old and good Indian way of life.

Christians fingered Coyote as the Antichrist. Many believed the Indian way of life was the Devil’s work. That the Coyote People and our beliefs were wrongheaded, and that we would be punished for all time if we did not renounce Coyote and follow Jesus. And to make sure we did, they kidnapped our children and took them to schools where kids and even newborns were physically, psychologically, and sexually abused, assaulted, traumatized, neglected, diseased, starved, raped, and sometimes even killed.

I have come to see Coyote as creator and destroyer, messiah and Antichrist, forefather and deadbeat dad. He is the embodiment of forces greater than ourselves that drive and ride the metamorphoses of the world: of climate, geology, environment, technology, and culture. Coyote was change incarnate. And as his descendants, we carry that same power of transformation. Colonizers tried to remake us in their image or kill us—physically, legally, and culturally— countless times by countless means. But every time we came back, not as whitewashed primordial cultural goo, but as ourselves— as distinct peoples with prior and rightful claims to these lands carrying in our culture, memory, and blood the knowledge of how to live well upon them. To survive, we remade ourselves and the world around us in whatever way we could—often, and especially, by getting into trouble like Coyote, who broke that fishing weir, or my pé7e Zeke, who, amidst a genocidal apocalypse, almost single-handedly repopulated the Coyote People all up and down the Fraser River watershed; or my dad, who narrowly escaped the incinerator and many other brushes with death to bring the NoiseCat name and family back from the Land of the Dead.

In late May 1808, in this era of mass death, incipient invasion, and earth-shattering transformation, three birchbark canoes carrying a party of two dozen white men and two Indigenous translators came barreling down the Fraser River just after the spring floods, when the river was roaring in freshet. At their helm was a stubborn, barrel-chested, and heavy-browed 32-year-old Scotsman born in the colony of New York named Simon Fraser. He planned to follow the wild, unnavigable river that would eventually bear his name all the way to the Pacific. It was a preposterous mission. After he announced his intentions to the Coyote People, one of Fraser’s men fired off a swivel gun mounted on one of the canoes in an attempt to shock and awe the Natives. But the gun backfired, and the gunner was wounded. It was an appropriately slapstick entrance for this foolish voyage of discovery. Understandably, some of our ancestors went, “Coyote? Is that you?”

I have come to see Coyote as creator and destroyer, messiah and Antichrist, forefather and deadbeat dad. 

Though not all. Fraser’s identity was hotly debated. Some among the Nlaka’pamux said Fraser must be Coyote returning at the End Times. Others, like St’at’imc, said Fraser and his party were more likely cannibals. They were hungry, dangerous, and consumed many dogs. Still others, like the Coast Salish, said Fraser and his party were transformers, like the ones who shaped the world in the beginning. These ideas are reflected in the words the Coyote People use for white people. “Semé7,” the most common, comes from the root “sem,” meaning “to tell stories.” The word for Frenchman, “Stspetékwllúy,” comes from the word for narratives about tricksters, transformers, and supernatural events: tspetékwll.

Although not all Coyote People believed Fraser was Coyote, there was a common understanding, reflected in our words, that the incursions of colonists were world-changing events marking a new epoch for our people and planet. Some European explorers and historians have trumpeted these historical, linguistic, and ethnographic facts as evidence that Natives believed Europeans were gods. But that’s an arrogant Eurocentric way of looking at things. Because in our accounts, supernatural beings—especially tricksters like Coyote—were often out for themselves and up to no good even while their actions were of incredible consequence. And in all these ways, Fraser fit the bill.

Simon Fraser’s father, a Roman Catholic Scottish Highlander, settled in Mapletown, New York, in 1774. A British loyalist, the elder Fraser fought for the Crown during the American Revolution and was taken prisoner in 1777. Held in an American jail for 13 months, he died a prisoner of war. His widow lost the family farm and fled to Canada, where Simon’s modest upbringing included just two years of formal education. As a teen, Fraser went to work at the North West Company in Montreal, a fur-trading outfit increasingly manned by Scots. Fraser, a capable frontiersman and trader, was named partner by 25.

But the North West Company’s business was far from thriving. The larger Hudson’s Bay Company controlled forts and shipping ports on Hudson’s Bay, pushing the North West Company out toward the Rockies. The North West Company set up operations in the Peace River Country in what is now northwestern Alberta, where the land was rich in furs. But the overland route between Athabasca and Montreal was long and costly. To better compete, the North West Company was actively looking for alternative trading corridors and especially a navigable river route to the Pacific.

Fraser was the second Nor’Wester and Scottish explorer to visit the relatively calm upper stretch of the river that would bear his name. The first was Sir Alexander Mackenzie. When Mackenzie came through searching for a pathway to the sea, the Natives told him he shouldn’t take the river. To the south, it was impassable. (Any child raised on “Coyote and His Son” knew how dangerous our rivers and waterways could be.) And if, somehow, the river didn’t kill him, the warlike downriver Natives would.

Mackenzie listened. He followed an overland grease trail used by the Dakelh or “Carrier” Indians west. A grease trail is an Indigenous trade route so named because it was used to trade valuable, nutrient-rich oil rendered from eulachon, a sardine-like fish that spawns in and returns to river systems on the Northwest Coast. The Dakelh are called “Carrier” in English because they were a trading nation that carried grease and other goods from the coast to the interior and vice versa. Following Indigenous guidance, Mackenzie made it to the coastal territories of the Nuxalk near present-day Bella Coola, British Columbia, becoming the first European to cross the continent north of Mexico. Though Mackenzie’s route was too difficult for the North West Company’s purposes, his journey came a full 12 years before Lewis and Clark’s easier southerly crossing. The Americans reached the Pacific near present-day Portland, Oregon—a metropolis. Bella Coola, by contrast, remains a remote community reachable only via a dangerous switchbacked dirt road, small plane, or infrequent ferry. On a rock overlooking Dean Channel in Nuxalk territory, Mackenzie used a mixture of red vermillion and grease to memorialize his victory in this colonial-era space race. “Alex Mackenzie, from Canada by land, the 22nd of July, 1793.” (Take that, America.)

Unlike Mackenzie, Fraser did not listen. When he encountered the Secwépemc at Chimney Creek, the Coyote People told Fraser that if he wanted a river route to the ocean, he should leave the Fraser River and travel overland four or five days by horse to the river now known as the Thompson. From there, he could ride the gentler Thompson to an area near present-day Kamloops, British Columbia, then portage to Okanagan Lake, which feeds into the Columbia, the same river Lewis and Clark took to the Pacific. Against this advice, which he received at least twice according to his own journals, Fraser chose to travel the river that now bears his name. Though the Coyote People told him otherwise, Fraser believed the Fraser River was the Columbia. He survived the journey out of sheer luck and because, on many occasions, the Coyote People saved his ass.

The first and most helpful was the Secwépemc chief Cllecwúsem from Soda Creek, whose name means “to wear a mask” because the chief wore a face covering to protect himself from Fraser and his men. Whether this mask was a carved wooden face shield like the ones worn in ceremonial dances, a woven head covering like those donned by healers, or a precolonial KN95 has been lost to time. I suspect, however, the mask had something to do with Cllecwúsem’s spiritual power and political influence. The chief was well-loved. His brother gave Fraser a beautiful, well-dressed deer hide and beaver pelt, and asked the voyager to take care of his kin in return. While Fraser’s party canoed the Fraser Canyon rapids, losing a canoe on their first day south of Chimney Creek, Cllecwúsem rode ahead. The chief was known and respected up and down the river that fed and gave birth to the Coyote People. Through political and spiritual gravitas, Cllecwúsem negotiated safe passage for Fraser all the way through Secwépemc territory and into St’at’imc country.

The St’at’imc were far more suspicious of Fraser and his men than the Secwépemc. To this day, they still refer to Fraser’s party as “the Drifters.” One St’at’imc who met the Nor’Westers near present-day Lillooet said he had seen white men in “great canoes” on the coast before. He mimicked a naval officer, strutting with hands on hips. “This is the way they go,” Fraser quotes the St’at’imc in his journal. Others believed Fraser and his men weren’t white men at all. Since they seemed to prefer eating dogs over the plentiful Indigenous staple, salmon, they must be enemies or even cannibals in disguise. Fraser’s meeting with the St’at’imc turned heated, but the “Old Chief,” as Fraser called Cllecwúsem in his journal, held sway. This may have been because, according to oral history, Cllecwúsem’s pipe came from downriver. A pipe is a powerful spiritual and diplomatic tool. It connects the smoker’s breath to the Spirit World and was traditionally used to make agreements connecting people, villages, and nations to one another. I speculate that Cllecwúsem’s pipe signified his spiritual connection to and power within downriver St’at’imc country—commanding respect, granting him certain chiefly rights, and maybe even saving Fraser’s hide. Because despite palpable animosity, which nearly ended in violence according to Fraser’s journal, the Nor’Westers’ voyage continued.

Thus, the first treacherous leg of Fraser’s journey is actually a story of Cllecwúsem’s prowess—not Fraser’s. While it is unknown whether Cllecwúsem believed Fraser was Coyote or some other supernatural being, the chief had the forethought to talk to Fraser about building a fort at Alexandria in his territory, a long-term strategy to enrich and empower his people and himself. After Cllecwúsem departed upriver, Fraser and his men missed the “Old Chief.” “Here we are, in a strange country, surrounded with dangers, and difficulties, among numberless tribes of savages, who never saw the face of a white man,” Fraser wrote. “Our situation is critical and highly unpleasant; however we shall endeavor to make the best of it; what cannot be cured, must be endured.” Upon his return upriver, Fraser gave Cllecwúsem the finest gift he gave anyone on his voyage: a gun.

At ƛ’q’əmcín (Kumsheen), a town now known as Lytton at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, some 1,200 people gathered to greet Fraser, who some believed was Coyote, and his party, who they saw as his helpers: Sun, Moon, Morning Star, Diver, Arrow-Armed Person, and Kokwe’la (a supernatural transformer who takes the guise of a root vegetable). Lytton is the place where the Nlaka’pamux say Coyote’s son crashed to earth after returning from the Sky World. It’s just downriver from the place where the Secwépemc say the witches’ weir stood and where geologists say there was once a great ice dam at the end of the last ice age. Because of Lytton’s centrality at the junction of two great rivers, the Nlaka’pamux consider it to be the center of the world. (I also have a great-great-great-grandmother from there.)

At the center of the world, Fraser shook hands with all 1,200 of the Coyote People gathered around. The chief from Lytton gave a long speech. He pointed to the sun, the four directions, and back at Fraser, according to the Nor’Wester’s journal. Then he brought forward his father, a blind elder, so Fraser could touch the man. The Nlaka’pamux offered the travelers a feast of salmon, berries, and roots. Fraser requested dogs for his men. After dinner, the Coyote People danced through the night, as their neighbors along the Columbia River had when they met the North West Company explorer David Thompson in 1807.

In our accounts, supernatural beings—especially tricksters like Coyote—were often out for themselves and up to no good even while their actions were of incredible consequence. And in all these ways, Fraser fit the bill.

Fraser and his party departed the next day and ran into trouble a few miles downriver when a canoe capsized and broke apart. A North West Company employee named D’Alaire, who the Nlaka’pamux remember as Moon, was carried three miles by the current before dragging himself onto the banks and up a cliff. There, after searching for hours, Fraser, or Coyote as the Nlaka’pamux say, finally found him.

After Fraser passed through the remaining territories of the Coyote People in the Fraser River Canyon and entered the delta lands of the Coast Salish, his luck turned. By then, he’d wrecked about a half-dozen canoes and probably as many pairs of shoes. Running low on supplies and trade goods, he turned to piracy.

At a village not far from where Pé7e Zeke was sent to St. Mary’s Indian Residential School in present-day Mission, British Columbia, Fraser robbed a chief of his best canoe. And for good measure, he seems also to have taken the chief captive as a human shield and prisoner diplomat for the remainder of his dash to the sea. Though the Coast Salish were wealthy and lived in enormous Big Houses— some even 1,500 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 18 feet high, hewn from cedar trees as much as 30 feet in circumference, they lived under near-constant threat from northern raiding nations like the Kwakwaka’wakw, Tlingit, and Haida. Northern raiders routinely sent fearsome war parties down the coast in huge canoes to pillage and take slaves. Some Coast Salish believed Fraser and his men were transformers. Others saw the Scotsman and his party as yet more maritime invaders. Paddling a pilfered canoe, Fraser barely made it past the village of Musqueam in present-day Vancouver before the Coast Salish turned the Nor’Westers around and pursued them back upriver until they returned the stolen vessel to its rightful owner.

By then, Fraser had other problems. Speaking on behalf of the crew, two of his men petitioned to abandon the river in favor of an overland route back home, like the one the Coyote People originally advised. According to Fraser’s own account, some even suggested they stay with the Coyote People rather than go home. “This journey did not meet the needs of the Company and will never be of any advantage to them,” wrote Jules Quesnel, Fraser’s clerk, in a letter to a friend in Montreal.

Fraser reached the coast, though he never paddled into the Strait of Georgia or the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He glimpsed the tops of the mountains on Vancouver Island but could not see the open ocean. And he never made it past the spot where the silty Fraser River water meets the blue sea. In the eyes of the North West Company, the journey was an utter failure. The Fraser River was unnavigable, just as the Coyote People had said. A latitudinal measurement taken near Musqueam confirmed another fact the Coyote People told Fraser: this river was not the Columbia.

Fraser was no triumphal explorer. He was a foolish river pirate whose obstinance almost killed him and many others. The name “Fraser River” thus commemorates the epic misadventure of a lost wanderer not so different from Coyote. Because the trickster was not just a mythological being. He was also a worldview, philosophy, storytelling style, and tradition.

For the Coyote People, the reappearance of Coyote in the guise of Fraser was ominous and profound. It meant the world was ending—because for us, it was. But it also meant that our departed ancestors and everything they carried—their names, their ways, their lands, and their worlds—were coming back. And they are. ♦

Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, champion powwow dancer, and student of Salish art and history. 

, from which the excerpt below is drawn, is out this month from Alfred A. Knopf.  

The Cooler Jesus

Julian Brave NoiseCat explores his past and identity while bringing the traditional “Coyote Story”—the trickster tale of Indigenous creation—to life for contemporary readers. To celebrate his latest book, NoiseCat was joined in conversation by filmmaker, video artist, and photographer Sky Hopinka. 

Sky Hopinka and Julian Brave NoiseCat at Pioneer Works, 2025.

We welcome novelists, scientists, and leading writers across disciplines to discuss new books shaping the cultural conversation at large.

What makes a good spy? To celebrate the paperback launch of 

, Rachel Kushner joined PW Director of Publishing Joshua Jelly-Schapiro for a conversation on power, seduction, and her dazzling new noir. The novel follows “Sadie Smith”—an American agent of ruthless tactics and clean beauty—dispatched to France for dirty work. Kushner is one of today’s most influential writers, known for her singular works spanning art, motorcycles, politics, and prisons. Her cherished books have traveled from Cuba to California, from Italy's  Red Guards to ancient caves and anarchist collectives. ♦

What makes a good spy? To celebrate the paperback launch of Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner joined PW Director of Publishing Joshua Jelly-Schapiro for a conversation on power, seduction, and her dazzling new noir.

Rachel Kushner on What Makes a Good Spy

Why do we die, and what happens to our biologies when we do? PW’s Founding Director of Sciences Janna Levin hosted Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan to find out. He’s the author of 

Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality

, and won the Nobel with his co-laureates for determining the atomic structure of the ribosome, a molecular machine that synthesizes proteins in all living cells. Together, Ramakrishnan and Levin discuss the biological mechanisms that initiate the process of dying and the ethical questions of immortality. ♦

Why do we die, and what happens to our biologies when we do? PW’s Founding Director of Sciences Janna Levin hosted Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan to find out. He’s the author of Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality, and won the Nobel with his co-laureates for determining the atomic structure of the ribosome, a molecular machine that synthesizes proteins in all living cells. 

Why We Die with Venki Ramakrishnan

How can we find meaning in an apparently meaningless cosmos? This fall, we were thrilled to host the launch of Simon Critchley’s latest book,

, with a special dialogue between the author and Dr. Cornel West. The longtime friends discussed nihilism, the boundaries of divinity and reason, and the "funky" stuff of mystical experience.

As the barbarism of our times reaches a fever pitch, Dr. West reminds us: "This is nothing new. We are a wretched species, no matter our color, gender, sexual orientation, or nation. And yet, we're also wonderful." ♦

, we welcome novelists, scientists, and leading writers across disciplines to discuss new books shaping the cultural conversation at large.

We were thrilled to host the launch of Simon Critchley’s latest book, On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy, with a special dialogue between the author and Dr. Cornel West.

Simon Critchley and Cornel West on Mysticism

Julian Brave NoiseCat on Indigenous History and Myth

In 1999, Brian Greene introduced legions to modern physics and the quest for ultimate understanding of the cosmos with his iconic bestseller, 

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

. In the fall of 2024, we were thrilled to launch his new edition, marking the tome’s 25th anniversary with a captivating conversation between Greene and PW's Director of Sciences, Janna Levin. The renowned physicists came together to celebrate and discuss the latest theoretical developments of the past quarter-century—exploring black holes, God, dark energy, string theory, and the limits of mathematics. ♦

In 1999, Brian Greene introduced legions to modern physics and the quest for ultimate understanding of the cosmos with his iconic bestseller. In the fall of 2024, we were thrilled to launch his new edition, marking the tome’s 25th anniversary with a captivating conversation between Greene and PW's Director of Sciences, Janna Levin. 

Brian Greene's Elegant Universe, 25 Years Later

 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

 helped revolutionize how we understand sexuality, gender, and the performative dimensions of identity. In the decades since, Butler has become one of our most trenchant and iconic public intellectuals—a thinker who has made countless timely and urgent interventions on questions of violence and peace, language and war, and precarity and cohabitation. Now, in 

 (2024), Butler returns to the topic that made their name, to illuminate how “anti-gender ideology movements” have become central to reactionary politics and rising authoritarianism worldwide.

In a special launch event, co-presented by Pioneer Works and Dia Art Foundation, Jack Halberstam joined Judith Butler on stage at Dia Chelsea to discuss their new book, what it’s like to be burned in effigy, and so much more. ♦

Jack Halberstam joins Judith Butler at Dia Chelsea to discuss their new book, what it’s like to be burned in effigy, and so much more.

Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam in Conversation

“Looking into Prince’s eyes,” writes Hilton Als in 

, “must be like looking at the world. Or more specifically, the world of one Black man loving another.” In this new, brilliant paean to the late, great, purple genius of music, Als takes an oblique inventory of himself—and of the culture that made them both, in all its racial, sexual, and emotive contours and contradictions.

The writer talks to Broadcast's very own Joshua Jelly-Schapiro about Prince’s outsize oeuvre and legacy, criticism as art, and how Als' own evolving practice, as a writer and curator alike, has shaped his singular creative voice.♦



The writer talks to Broadcast's very own Joshua Jelly-Schapiro about Prince’s outsize oeuvre and legacy, criticism as art, and how Als' own evolving practice, as a writer and curator alike, has shaped his singular creative voice.

Hilton Als: My Pinup

“The most interesting ideas are heresies.” So said Susan Sontag, a writer who refused party lines always, and whose work changed how we think about photography and identity, gender and metaphor, performance and play. 

—a new collection of Sontag’s seminal essays—emphasizes her ferocious intellect and ideological incongruities in equal measure.

To celebrate the book’s release by Picador, Pioneer Works hosted a conversation between three writers—Merve Emre, Sigrid Nunez, and Doreen St. Félix—to examine Sontag’s complex relationship towards womanhood. The three probe the writer’s refractive legacies, revealing her keen resonance in our new era of women watching women. 

To celebrate the release of "On Women" from Picador, Pioneer Works hosted a conversation between three writers—Merve Emre, Sigrid Nunez, and Doreen St. Félix—to examine Sontag’s complex relationship towards womanhood. The three probe the writer’s refractive legacies, revealing her keen resonance in our new era of women watching women. 

Merve Emre, Sigrid Nunez, and Doreen St. Félix on Susan Sontag Now

Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal argues that the study of our closest genetic relatives (an absolutely crucial way we make sense of our own biology) has been misguided by patriarchal assumptions. Primatologists, he says, have historically focused on masculine and feminine archetypes, and have systematically overlooked all who don’t fit this mold. In his experience, these outliers—gender non-conforming apes—comprise between 5-10% of chimpanzee populations. Unlike in human society, the chimpanzees are fully accepting of this diversity. 

He is joined by cinema icon Isabella Rossellini—creator of the natural sciences video series 

, with a master’s degree in animal behavior and conservation—to discuss his most recent book, 

. Together, they explore the matriarchal hierarchies of the ape kingdom, articulating all that we may learn about sex, gender, and nature from our simian cousins. This is inspiring without being maudlin: instead of looking to chimpanzees to justify who we are, we may look to bonobos to think about who we could be. ♦

Primatologist Frans de Waal is joined by cinema icon Isabella Rossellini to discuss his most recent book, "Different." Together, they explore the matriarchal hierarchies of the ape kingdom, articulating all that we may learn about sex, gender, and nature from our simian cousins.

Frans de Waal

Primatologist Frans de Waal in Conversation with Isabella Rossellini

Gazing at the stars, falling in love, or listening to music, we sometimes feel a transcendent connection with a cosmic unity and things larger than ourselves. But these experiences are not easily understood by science, which holds that all things can be explained in terms of atoms and molecules. Is there space in our scientific worldview for these spiritual experiences? According to acclaimed physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, there may be. In his latest book, 

The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science

, and his new public television mini-series, 

SEARCHING: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science

, Lightman draws on intellectual history and conversations with contemporary scientists, philosophers, and psychologists and asks a series of thought-provoking questions that illuminate our strange place between the world of particles and forces and the world of complex human experience. 

Follow Alan Lightman on this enlightening journey that reveals spirituality may not only be compatible with science, it also ought to remain at the core of what it means to be human. Lightman is joined in conversation with Tim McHenry, Deputy Executive Director of the Rubin Museum of Art. ♦

In conversation with Tim McHenry, Alan Lightman illuminates our strange place between the world of particles and forces and the world of complex human experience.

Alan Lightman

Physicist Alan Lightman on Spirituality in the Age of Science

On the occasion of the publication of his evocative new book, 

The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion

, Sean Carroll takes us on a deep dive into the physics that pulls back the veil of mystery from the most complex ideas in the field. 

Sean Carroll is a Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, and the creator of the wildly popular YouTube series "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe," after which the book is named. Attracting fans eager to expand their minds, Carroll has a special knack for explaining the most expansive concepts in an entertaining, witty, and uniquely lucid way. In this author's view, the foundational concepts of classical physics from Newton to Einstein are as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa, and he is committed to making these ideas accessible to all. ♦

On the occasion of the publication of his evocative new book, "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion," Sean Carroll takes us on a deep dive into the physics that pulls back the veil of mystery from the most complex ideas in the field.

Sean Carroll

Physicist Sean Carroll on "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe" | Author Talks

Sean Carroll on the Biggest Ideas in the Universe

Elif Batuman joins Joshua Jelly-Schapiro to discuss Batuman’s new book 

, a novel that has given us new ways to think—and laugh—about how books shape our lives. 

, Batuman introduced us to Selin, a reluctant protagonist and unforgettable narrator searching her way through freshman year at Harvard, grappling with the confusions of first love and the growing realization that she is doomed to become a writer. In 

, it’s sophomore year and Selin’s quest for self-knowledge finds her trying to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. But then she sets out, with a prod from Kierkegaard, to seek the kinds of experiences she’ll need in order to ponder a lasting question: how does one live a life as interesting as a novel—a life worthy of becoming a novel—without going crazy? ♦

Elif Batuman joins Joshua Jelly-Schapiro to discuss Batuman’s new book Either/Or, a novel that has given us new ways to think—and laugh—about how books shape our lives. 

Elif Batuman on Life as Literature

In the eyes of eighteen-year old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.

On September 28, 2022, Pioneer Works hosted the launch of 

 staff writer Hua Hsu's acclaimed memoir of friendship, music, art, and grief, 

. The event featured a special conversation between Hsu and one of his literary heroes, Lucy Sante. ♦

In the eyes of eighteen-year old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.

On September 28, 2022, Pioneer Works hosted the launch of New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu's acclaimed memoir of friendship, music, art, and grief, Stay True. The event featured a special conversation between Hsu and one of his literary heroes, Lucy Sante.

Hua Hsu and Lucy Sante

Stay True: A Conversation with Hua Hsu and Lucy Sante

Journalist and author Zoe Mendelson joins in conversation with Radiolab’s Molly Webster to discuss Mendelson’s new book 

. Written by the creators of the popular website and illustrated by Maria Conejo, this book on the pussy is based on “extensive reviews of peer-reviewed science that address old myths, confusing inconsistencies, and the influence of gender narratives on scientific research—always in simple, joyful language.” In the conversation, Mendelson and Webster discuss the book’s genesis (an inquiry into squirting), the importance of democratizing science, and how to create an inclusive feminist discourse spanning US-Mexico borders. ♦

Journalist and author Zoe Mendelson joins in conversation with Radiolab’s Molly Webster to discuss Mendelson’s new book Pussypedia. Written by the creators of the popular website and illustrated by Maria Conejo, this book on the pussy is based on “extensive reviews of peer-reviewed science that address old myths, confusing inconsistencies, and the influence of gender narratives on scientific research—always in simple, joyful language.” In the conversation, Mendelson and Webster discuss the book’s genesis (an inquiry into squirting), the importance of democratizing science, and how to create an inclusive feminist discourse spanning US-Mexico borders.

Pussypedia Author Zoe Mendelson in Conversation with Molly Webster

Neuroscientist, psychologist, and author, Dr. Carl Hart urges us to change the way we think about drug use. In his new book Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, published January 2021, he argues that the demonization (and profiteering) of drug use causes more harm than the drugs themselves—that as responsible American adults, we have an inalienable right to pursue happiness, and if that pursuit includes responsible drug use, we should be able to do that. He joins Janna Levin to discuss his recent book.

Dr. Hart is the Chair of the Department of Psychology at Colombia University. He is also Ziff Professor of Psychology in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University.  In 2014, Dr. Hart was awarded the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for his book High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery.

Janna Levin is Chair and Director of Science at Pioneer Works and Professor of Astronomy and Physics at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Dr. Carl Hart in Conversation with Janna Levin 

Dr. Carl Hart on Drug Use for Grown-Ups

Richard Dawkins was fifteen when he stopped believing in God. Deeply impressed by the beauty and complexity of living things, he felt certain that they must have had a designer. Learning about the theory of evolution changed his mind. In his 2019 book, Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide to Atheism, Dawkins provides an accessible primer to atheism for readers looking to rethink some of the big questions that shaped his own path towards seeing the magnificence of a world without God.

In twelve fiercely funny, mind-expanding chapters, Dawkins explains how the natural world arose without a designer—the improbability and beauty of the “bottom-up programming” that engineers an embryo or a flock of starlings—and challenges head-on some of the most basic assumptions made by the world’s religions: Do you believe in God? Which one? Is the Bible a “Good Book”? Is adhering to a religion necessary, or even likely, to make people good to one another? Dissecting everything from Abraham’s abuse of Isaac to the construction of a snowflake, Outgrowing God is a concise, provocative guide to thinking for yourself.

Richard Dawkins on Outgrowing God

Brian Greene, the world-renowned physicist and best-selling author of The Elegant Universe, launches his captivating new book Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe at Pioneer Works. Join Janna Levin, our Director of Sciences, in conversation with Brian Greene to grasp and gain a refined appreciation for our fleeting, but utterly exquisite, moment in the cosmos.

Until the End of Time: Brian Greene in Conversation with Janna Levin

Gloria Steinem and Ronan Farrow in conversation activist to activist, author to author, on feminism and journalism as they launch their latest books at Pioneer Works. As Gloria says, “The Truth Will Set You Free but First It Will Piss You Off.”

Read the article: https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/gloria-steinem-ronan-farrow-vibe-theater/

Gloria Steinem and Ronan Farrow in Conversation

In her profound and breathtaking new book, The First Cell: And the Human Cost of Pursuing Cancer to the Last, Azra Raza offers a searing account of how both medicine and our society (mis)treat cancer, how we can do better, and why we must. Told through the moving, true stories of patients she has treated in the past thirty-five years, this book explores cancer from every angle: medical, scientific, cultural, and personal. Tune in for a conversation between two authors, colleagues, and best friends, Prof. Azra Raza and Prof. Siddhartha Mukherjee, who have devoted their lives to improving medical approaches to suffering and death and to making the unbearable easier to bear.