Feb 28, 2020
Like trigger warnings and gender-neutral bathrooms, pronouns are sparking a national debate. They’re prompting new policies in schools, workplaces, and even prisons. Pioneering linguist Dennis Baron joined us with insight into our pronoun patterns, drawing from his book What’s Your Pronoun: Beyond He and She....
Feb 26, 2020
Even as a teenager, Julie Blacklow displayed qualities that marked her as a natural for reporting—courage, tenacity, and a willingness to get in anyone’s face if it served her mission to help people. On the other side of her forty-year career, Blacklow arrived at Town Hall with a retrospective on her time spent as...
Feb 19, 2020
“Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” asked a cover story in The Atlantic, citing skyrocketing rates of anxiety and suicide among young smartphone users. But what does the research actually say about how tech use affects our happiness? Is the modern “techlash” too pessimistic? Gather for a Think & Drink...
Feb 13, 2020
In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, New Yorker writer Anna Wiener left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble—a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced...
Feb 4, 2020
How can poetry expand our understanding of civic life? Poet and former Town Hall Artist-In-Residence Shin Yu Pai invited us to the first of her Lyric World discussions, exploring the role of poetry as it stokes our curiosity and gives voice and attention to the human experience.
Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma is a...