The 92nd Street Y, New York

Few public intellectuals have anticipated the shape of the present moment with such prescience as Garry Kasparov. In a major live conversation, Kasparov joins Bret Stephens to discuss his bracing new book, The World of Fake Values: Ukraine Under Fire, A.I. Amok, and the Putinization of America Under Donald Trump. A former world chess champion who gave up the game at the height of his power to confront Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rise, Kasparov has spent decades thinking about how democracies fail – and how they might be saved. Drawing on fresh reporting, recent essays, and conversations with thinkers ranging from A.I. researchers to Ukrainian dissidents, he argues that today’s political chaos follows a grim internal logic: the hollowing out of democratic values, the weaponization of technology, and the normalization of authoritarian tactics in plain sight. In conversation with New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens, Kasparov examines why Ukraine matters to Americans, what artificial intelligence reveals about human judgment, and whether a democratic majority can still reclaim moral and political ground. Urgent, clear-eyed, and deeply informed, this is a conversation about power, values, and what comes next.

Apple turns 50 this year, which raises a deceptively simple question: how did a scrappy technology company become something closer to an operating system for modern life? To explore that question, join David Pogue, the award-winning science and technology journalist, longtime Apple watcher, and familiar voice from CBS Sunday Morning, for a live conversation about his new book, Apple: The First 50 Years. Drawing on more than 150 interviews and rare access to Apple’s archives, Pogue traces the company’s full, frequently misunderstood story: its early experiments and false starts, its brushes with collapse, its rebirth under Steve Jobs, and its transformation under Tim Cook into the most valuable company in the world. Separating fact from legend, he debunks familiar myths, revisits celebrated successes and costly failures, and examines the culture of engineering, design, and decision-making that has defined Apple across five decades. With decades of experience covering Apple and the people who have shaped it, Pogue brings uncommon perspective to a company that has profoundly changed how we work, live, and interact. The conversation looks beyond products to the deeper effects of Apple’s influence — how its technologies have rewired our habits, reshaped our attention, and altered the way we think, connect, and move through the world. It’s a clear-eyed look at a company whose impact extends far beyond the devices in our hands.

Award-winning composer and co-lyricist Marc Shaiman (Hairspray, Sister Act, Smash and many others) joins fellow Tony Award winner Nathan Lane for a look behind the curtain of life on Broadway, in Hollywood and on Television, with a conversation about Shaiman’s new memoir, Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner. Emerging from community theater in his teens, sparking a decades-long collaboration with Bette Midler in the ’70s, surviving the AIDS crisis of the ’80s and bursting into Hollywood and Broadway glory, Marc Shaiman has spent 50 years making some of the most beloved musicals and film scores of our era. Hilarious and deeply human, Shaiman’s story is a tribute to the power of music and the pull of the spotlight. Join him with his longtime pal Nathan Lane — a decades-long musical friendship — for a candid, uproariously fun evening of backstage stories from a shared life in show business, on and offstage.

Pulitzer Prize-winning The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman and Politico’s Alex Burns return with moderator Jeff Greenfield for an illuminating conversation about Donald Trump and what lies on the horizon of American politics ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. How far will Donald Trump go to crack down on immigration? Are fissures beginning to show in the MAGA coalition? Will Democrats find their footing to push back against Trump’s reshaping of the American order? The coming midterm elections stand to be supremely consequential — and for the eighth time on our stage, 92NY favorites Maggie Haberman and Alex Burns return with political analyst Jeff Greenfield to offer unparalleled insight into this new era. Covering the arc of Trump’s rise for over a decade, Haberman and Burns shed new light on our political history in real time. Don’t miss this dynamic duo in their sixth appearance with Jeff Greenfield at 92NY — a conversation about a crucial moment in America, what it means for the balance of power in Washington, and the political forces that will determine our future. They will also discuss the high stakes war with Iran, American divisions, and what’s next.

Join the stars of Outlander — Sam Heughan, Sophie Skelton, Richard Rankin, John Bell, David Berry, plus executive producers Maril Davis and Matthew B. Roberts — for a conversation about the eagerly-awaited eight and final season of Starz’s smash hit series, including clips from the show. Captivating fans for more than a decade with an iconic, time-travelling love story based on the internationally-bestselling books by Diana Gabaldon, Outlander is a perennial 92NY favorite — but all great things must come to end. In the final season, the Frasers must grapple with questions of time, fate, and prophecy — and whether they can finally alter history. A visit from the cast and creators of Outlander is a cause for celebration. Hear Heughan, Skelton, Rankin, Bell, Berry, Davis, and Roberts as they discuss the remarkable arc of their series, the making of the emotional final season, stories from behind the scenes, and much more.

Join Michael Lynton, former CEO of Sony Entertainment, and Joshua Steiner, former US Treasury Department Chief of Staff, for a conversation with Malcolm Gladwell about transforming failure into discovery — and Lynton and Steiner’s new book, From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You. We all make mistakes. Longtime friends Michael Lynton and Joshua Steiner made mistakes that shaped their careers and lives, but it wasn’t until the isolation of the pandemic that they began to open up to each other about them. When Lynton was the CEO of Sony Entertainment, he greenlit the film that led to the infamous North Korean hack; meanwhile, a private diary Steiner had kept as Chief of Staff at the Treasury Department became a focal point in the Clinton Whitewater scandal. As their conversations deepened and they searched for a book to guide their exploration, they decided to write one themselves. From Mistakes to Meaning themselves is an examination of their own stories and with candid interviews with influential figures such as Joanna Coles and Malcolm Gladwell — unveiling the hidden dimensions of mistakes and the universal struggle to move beyond them. In a candid conversation about how our personalities drive mistakes and how mistakes shape our lives, hear Gladwell, Lynton and Steiner discuss the difference between failures and mistakes, the stages of mistakes, and how it’s possible to break the patterns that lead to misunderstandings and shame — turning mistakes into portals for personal growth.

With Kevin Young, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Sasha Bonét, and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison helped Americans of all races see themselves with radical clarity in modern classics like Sula and Beloved. Her lectures on American literature and racial imagination, now available for the first time, have never been more necessary. Join The New Yorker’s poetry editor Kevin Young, novelist Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, writer Sasha Bonét, and poet Reginald Dwayne Betts for a conversation that breaks open the taboos about race in American literature — and a celebration of her new collection, Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon. Drawing a direct line from the Black bodies that built the nation to the Black characters that many of the country’s canonical white writers imagined in their work, Morrison’s lectures are an antidote to fear and intellectual repression at a time when discussion about race in American literature has become fraught and muted — revealing that liberation is possible through language. In a celebration of the book’s launch — and the reissue of her classic oeuvre — don’t miss this group of distinguished novelists, poets, and scholars as they step inside the classroom with Morrison to revel in her singular brilliance — cracking the code of America’s deepest fears, longings, and hopes for collective liberation.

Michael Douglas embodied the ruthless extremes of 1980s capitalism with his Oscar-winning portrayal of investor Gordon Gekko, the coldly calculating corporate raider who takes eager young stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) under his wing. “There’s no nobility in poverty anymore,” Bud tells his working-class dad (real-life father Martin Sheen), before embarking on a series of ethical compromises in the pursuit of quick wealth, adding an art-savvy interior designer (Daryl Hannah) to his portfolio along the way. Writer-director Oliver Stone was inspired by his own father, a longtime Wall St. broker, and several real-world financiers when he delivered this sharply critical cautionary tale, which photographs the rarified air of lower Manhattan in amber-tinted, smoke-stained hues. But the film’s enduring image is that of Douglas’s steely-eyed Gekko, who hungrily consumes businesses — as well as his friends and rivals — like platefuls of blood-red steak tartare.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro joins us for a conversation about the intersection of public service, personal faith, and Jewish values — and his new memoir, Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service. From an early age, Josh Shapiro learned and practiced the power of showing up, listening, and working to make peoples’ lives a little better. And as Governor of Pennsylvania, he’s delivered. Reflecting on what he’s learned by knocking on doors, serving his community, and tackling the tough issues we face, Where We Keep the Light is Shapiro’s testament to how the Jewish values instilled in him as a young man have shaped his life and career in public service. In a candid conversation celebrating the book’s launch, hear Shapiro discuss his political, spiritual, and personal journey — how he’s combatting political violence and hate in Pennsylvania, why we need leaders who are willing to bring people together and deliver results, why he believes there’s more that unites us than divides us as Americans, his take on the future of the Democratic Party, and much more.

A neuroscientist, a philosopher and a physicist convene to discuss one of the biggest and most significant questions of all time: human consciousness, what we know and don’t know about it, and whether science will ever be able to understand what makes you, you.

Join bestselling Trump biographer Michael Wolff (author of Fire and Fury and All or Nothing) and the Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles for a live recording of their hit podcast, Inside Trump’s Head. Combining expert reportage and in-depth character analysis, Coles and Wolff dissect the singular motivations of the most powerful man in the world. Diving deep into Trump’s secrets and psyche and drawing on over a decade of incisive coverage of Trump’s impact (including extensive interviews with Jeffrey Epstein), they ask to what lengths will the President go in his attempt to secure a third term? Is MAGA falling apart? And what is really behind the Trump and Epstein relationship?

Join award-winning comedian Rose Matafeo for a screening and conversation with John Oliver on her hilarious new Max Original comedy special, Rose Matafeo: On and On and On. Rose Matafeo’s stand-up special crackles with insightful, self-deprecating wit as she gets candid on life in her 30s — dating culture, supporting friends through breakups, the stark differences between herself and her parents at the same age, how aging has impacted her comedy, and more. In a candid conversation, hear about the making of the special — how she took a 16,000-word note on her phone and turned it into comic gold, how her act has changed since she broke out in her 20s, stories from her life in comedy, and more.

Moderator Annette Insdorf interviews Ethan Hawke after a screening of his new film, Blue Moon. The prolific actor, writer, director and musician offers a tour-de-force performance as the acerbic lyricist Lorenz Hart, whose songs include “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and “Blue Moon.” In addition to Hawke’s Oscar-nominated performance opposite Denzel Washington in Training Day (2001), he is perhaps best known for indie collaborations with Richard Linklater on Boyhood (2014), Waking Life (2001), and the BEFORE trilogy (1995, 2004, 2013) – which he scripted with the director and co-star Julie Delpy. Among his other memorable films are First Reformed (2017), Born to Be Blue (2015), Good Kill (2014), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), Hamlet (2000), Gattaca (1997), and Dead Poets Society (1989). He has also directed both fiction and documentary, such as Wildcat (2023), The Last Movie Stars (2022), Blaze (2018), and Seymour: An Introduction (2006). From a brilliant screenplay by Robert Kaplow, Linklater elicits Hawke’s greatest performance yet — incarnating the self-destructive Hart on the very night that his collaborator Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) has just opened Oklahoma! on Broadway with new partner Oscar Hammerstein II. Co-starring Bobby Cannavale and Margaret Qualley, Blue Moon is a revelation of Hawke’s maturation as an artist.

As Saturday Night Live marks its 50th anniversary, celebrate the genius behind one of television’s most enduring cultural institutions — Lorne Michaels. In her definitive biography, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Life, Susan Morrison — articles editor at The New Yorker — gains unprecedented access to Michaels himself, along with SNL’s iconic cast and writers, offering a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the man who reshaped American comedy. With razor-sharp insight and hundreds of interviews, Morrison reveals the warts-and-all portrait of Michaels: a visionary tastemaker, a shrewd businessman, a relentless perfectionist, and the enigmatic force behind SNL’s star-making machine. From Will Ferrell to Tina Fey, John Mulaney to Chris Rock, the legends who defined the show open up about the comedy god who made it all possible. Joining Morrison is comedian, writer, and SNL alum Bob Odenkirk, who once called Michaels “some kind of very distant, strange comedy god.” Together, they’ll dive into the obsessive brilliance of a man whose influence reaches far beyond late-night TV — and discuss the star-studded 50th-anniversary special that reminded the world why Saturday Night Live still matters. Expect stories, revelations, and plenty of laughs in this unmissable conversation about the genius who forever changed the face of comedy.

Kate Winslet never stops. From classic roles in films like Titanic to her indelible work on television in shows like Mare of Eastown, her acting is versatile as it is magnetic. Lee is the most recent chapter in an iconic career. Based on a true story, and following a pivotal decade in the life of American war correspondent and photographer Lee Miller (Winslet), Lee is a fascinating portrait the woman who captured some of the 20th century’s most indelible images of war — including an iconic photo of Miller herself, posing defiantly in Hitler’s private bathtub — in a full-throttle pursuit of truth for which she paid a huge personal price. Following the screening, in a live taping of Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, hear Winslet on her fascinating career and the making of the film — capturing Lee Miller’s haunting story, how she prepares for her roles, stories from the set, and more.

Join acclaimed novelist and poet Victoria Redel with Sarah Jessica Parker and editor Adam Moss for a conversation about Redel’s absorbing new novel, I Am You, published by Parker’s literary imprint, SJP Lit. In this gorgeously crafted historical fiction set in 17th-century Holland, Redel excavates the long-overlooked story of one of the few female Dutch Masters painters, Maria van Oosterwijck, and the complex relationship she developed with her maidservant-turned-apprentice, Gerta Pieters. Following these two women as they navigate the ranks of an elite, male-dominated art world, Redel weaves a story that Sarah Jessica Parker calls “spellbinding… and impossible to forget” — a queer romance for the ages, an ode to artistic creation, and an unforgettable love story set against the heady, sensuous backdrop of the Dutch Golden Age. Praised by novelist Michael Cunningham as “a stunning accomplishment . . . a story of ferocious insights into the human psyche and the drive to create art,” hailed by author Benjamin Moser as “an unforgettable picture of the erotic, entangled, tragic nature of art itself,” and lauded by novelist Melissa Febos as “a profound achievement,” I Am You proves how art reshapes conversations on sexual politics, class, women’s rights, and how we tell and retell our histories. In celebration of its launch, hear Redel, Parker, and Moss discuss the novel — how Redel wrote a new kind of queer love story and tale of art history, what made Parker know that she had to share it with the world, and more.

Join renowned personal finance expert Jim Cramer for a crash course in how to make the most of their finances and invest smart — a conversation about his new book, How to Make Money in Any Market. Except for the one percent of the one percent, nobody learns how to make your money grow in the stock market. Jim Cramer has spent his career determined to change that, helping to demystify the stock market and help anyone — no matter what income — make the right choices for their financial future. Now a household name after twenty seasons of Mad Money with Jim Cramer, cohost of Squawk on the Street, and host of CNBC’s Investing Club, Cramer shows you how to get rich by understanding the market and investing in the right growth and income stocks — ones that he can help you identify. If you feel befuddled by the market, you’re not alone — Cramer is here to help. In this no-nonsense conversation, hear Cramer’s well-honed disciplines for learning how the stock market really works and identifying the investments that are right for you.

Join Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis for a riveting conversation about their explosive new book, Injustice. With unparalleled access to sources inside both the Trump and Biden administrations, they pull back the curtain on the Department of Justice — an institution meant to be above politics, yet shaken to its core by fear, dysfunction, and partisan warfare. Leonnig and Davis take us inside the DOJ during and after Trump’s presidency: how it was weaponized against political enemies, how long-serving employees were driven out, and how the department faltered in responding to the January 6 insurrection. They’ll also examine the cautious approach of Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose reluctance to act decisively allowed critical investigations to languish — missteps with lasting consequences for the rule of law. This is a rare chance to hear two of the country’s most respected investigative journalists discuss what they uncovered, what it means for American democracy today, and why the stakes in 2025 could not be higher.

Salman Rushdie, longtime friend of 92NY’s storied literary community, returns to our stage for a reading and conversation with Daniel Kehlmann about The Eleventh Hour — a supremely inventive new collection about survival, death, and what comes into focus at the proverbial eleventh hour of life. Awarded the Best of Booker for his seminal debut, Midnight’s Children — honoring it as the most accomplished novel to ever receive the prestigious literary prize — Salman Rushdie has been probing the depths of identity, history, and mortality to stunning effect for 45 years. In The Eleventh Hour, he turns his extraordinary imagination to life’s final act with a quintet of stories that span the three countries in which he has made his work — India, England, and America. Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? Do we spend our “eleventh hour” in serenity or in rage? Spanning private tragedy, national calamity, political parable, and simmering mystery, Rushdie’s new stories further cement him as one of the boldest writers of our time. Join the internationally renowned, award-winning author for an unforgettable evening of reading and conversation in celebration of survival, freedom of expression, his new collection, and his extraordinary contributions to world literature.

Friends of the great Anthony Bourdain gather for a celebratory reading and conversation spanning the worlds of literature, food, and travel, in honor of Bourdain’s restless creative spirit — and launching The Anthony Bourdain Reader: New, Classic, and Rediscovered Writing. Legendary chef, television host, and writer Anthony Bourdain was a trailblazer who changed the way we thought about food, culture, and ourselves. A larger-than-life thinker, maker, and traveler who was always greater than the sum of his parts, no aspect of his identity was more important to him than that of a writer. The Anthony Bourdain Reader is the definitive, career-spanning collection of that writing, assembled for the first time. In a celebration of his singular impact on American literature, food, and culture, join us for an intimate gathering of Bourdain’s friends: chef and memoirist Gabrielle Hamilton; Patrick Radden Keefe, fellow traveler and chronicler of culture; legendary food editor and collaborator Ruth Reichl; Kimberly Witherspoon, his agent and the book’s editor; and Laurie Woolever, his assistant, confidante, and biographer. From the kitchen to family life, from TV to travel through places like Vietnam, Buenos Aires, and Paris, from his teenage travel diaries to his unfinished novel, discover Anthony Bourdain behind the scenes, as you’ve never known him before, from the people who knew him best.

Go behind the scenes of two iconic roles — and the wild ride in between — as Michael J. Fox joins longtime collaborator and co-author Nelle Fortenberry to discuss their new book, Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum. In the early months of 1985, Michael J. Fox did the impossible: starring in Family Ties by day, and filming Back to the Future by night. These two leading roles established him as a towering talent — Family Ties’ Reagan-loving, tie-wearing teenager Alex P. Keaton defined a generation of TV viewers with his quick wit and conservative swagger, while Back to the Future’s Marty McFly became a cinematic archetype: instantly recognizable, charismatic, and endlessly enduring in popular culture. The result was a time-bending stretch of work that would define Fox’s career. Told with all of Michael J. Fox’s warmth, wit and self-awareness, Future Boy is the untold story of that unprecedented time — and of the creative energy, ambition, and joy that fueled both projects. Don’t miss this special conversation with Fox and Fortenberry as they revisit those extraordinary months and share insights and reflections on an unforgettable moment in entertainment history.

Legendary filmmaker and writer John Waters joins us for a reading and conversation spanning the arc of his remarkable career, in celebration of the new reissue of his classic early screenplays, with The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman. From the shocking Pink Flamingos, which established him as a household name and set a new bar for cinematic filth, to Hairspray, the sweetly triumphant story of a dance-crazy teen in 1960s Baltimore — later adapted into a smash hit Tony Award-winning musical — John Waters’ films redefined the art of trash in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and in the process blew open the doors of modern independent film. And as his early screenplays attest, Waters has long been more than filmmaker — he is a towering literary filth artist, a writer of radical and subversive wit; in other words, an intellectual in reverse. In this reading and conversation covering Waters’ earliest days as a filmmaker in Baltimore to his status as the auteur king of exploitation films made for art theaters, we celebrate the entire arc of Waters’ singular career, to honor the reissue of six of Waters’ early screenplays — Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living, Flamingos Forever, and Hairspray.

Join former US attorneys Joyce Vance and Preet Bharara for a conversation and special live podcast taping of Stay Tuned with Preet, about history, the law, and what it will take to save our democracy — and Vance’s first book, Giving Up Is Unforgivable. “We’re in this together.” For the past two years, Joyce Vance has signed off posts on her the chart-topping Substack Civil Discourse with these four words as she’s guided readers through a continued erosion of democratic norms. Now, in Giving Up Is Unforgivable, she reaffirms that we’re in this together with a clarion call to action — putting our current crisis in historical context and sketching out a vision for where we go next. Hopeful, even as she acknowledges the daunting challenges that lie ahead, Vance is the constitutional law professor you never knew you needed, explaining the legal context, political history, and the practical reasons that the rule of law still matters. In a conversation between two brilliant legal thinkers and major figures in US law, hear Vance’s political manifesto for our moment — an empowering conversation about taking action in your community, rallying for a new era of civic engagement, and finding hope when we need it most. “The most frequent question I get, from frustrated citizens worried about our democracy, is this: What can I do? In Giving Up Is Unforgivable, Joyce answers that question with actual action items. She inspires as she informs and offers pragmatic advice even as she waxes poetic about all that America is and can be. This is a shining tutorial and a reminder that we the people still have the power.” — Preet Bharara

Join #1 New York Times-bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell discuss his latest book, Revenge of the Tipping Point; a fresh look at his breakthrough book, The Tipping Point. In 1996, Malcolm Gladwell published a piece in The New Yorker that became the seed of The Tipping Point. Twenty-five years after the book’s publication, it remains a global phenomenon — blending social science, history, pop culture, and business to look at how a single event can spark a movement, a social phenomenon, or an epidemic. In Revenge of the Tipping Point, Gladwell draws on fresh case studies to rethink and expand on his original ideas about how trends are born, catch on, and spread. Why in the late 1980s and early ’90s did Los Angeles become the bank robbery capital of the world? What is the Magic Third and what does it have to do with racial equity? How did COVID and the opioid crisis become so devastating? Hear Gladwell discuss these questions and more — The New Yorker’s crucial early support of Gladwell’s writing, the enormous impact of The Tipping Point, what Gladwell has learned since its publication, and what social epidemics can teach us about the future.

The Booker prize-winning author of Atonement and Saturday joins us for the launch of his audacious new novel — a genre-bending, time-traveling tour de force. For decades, Ian McEwan's novels have probed the depths of the human heart, creating unforgettable and utterly relatable characters of extraordinary moral complexity, caught in the crosscurrents of memory, history, and desire. His new novel, What We Can Know, begins at a dinner party in 2014 with the recitation of a love poem among friends and follows to 2119, in the wake of a catastrophic nuclear accident, as a lonely scholar and researcher chases the ghost of that poem. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem’s discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about the world he thought he knew. It is at once a love story and a literary detective story, reclaiming the present from our sense of looming catastrophe, imagining a future world where all is not quite lost. In a special reading and conversation with The New Yorker's editor David Remnick, hear McEwan discuss the genesis of the new novel, his creation of a new kind of speculative literary fiction, why we will never stop longing for the literature of the past even as we reach inexorably toward the future, and much more. The conversation will air on The New Yorker Radio Hour.

The Atlantic’s Thomas Chatterton Williams joins #1 New York Times-bestselling social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation) for a searching conversation about the evolution, paradoxes, and taboos of American social justice movements in the years since 2020 — and Williams’ bracing new book, Summer of Our Discontent. In this sharp and unsettling work, Thomas Chatterton Williams — among the most incisive social critics of his generation — examines a culture transformed by the upheavals of the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the rise of punitive social media. He traces how well-intentioned movements reshaped journalism, education, the arts, policing, and even the language we use to make sense of the world — often in ways that have unintentionally frayed the shared civic fabric that once held us together. In this reading and conversation, Williams and Haidt — two of today’s most fearless and provocative thinkers — wrestle with the aftershocks of the summer of 2020, the threats to liberalism from both left and right, and what renewal might require. “Mass insanity broke out among America’s elites in the summer of 2020, with devastating consequences for America’s knowledge-creating institutions. Thomas Chatterton Williams is one of the few intellectuals who stood firm and made the case with great courage for liberal values and the free exchange of ideas.” — Jonathan Haidt “Thomas Chatterton Williams uses a fiercely probing intelligence, instinctively dissatisfied with absolutist explanations, to explore without ideological blindfolds what happened in one momentous summer.” — Adam Gopnik

Join Pulitzer Prize winning writers Trymaine Lee and Nikole Hannah-Jones for a conversation about mortality, the weight of journalistic witness, and the enduring power of family in the face of violence — and Lee’s new book, A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America. A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her father why, he had to confront what almost killed him — the weight of being a Black man in America; of bearing witness, as a journalist and in his own family, to relentless racist violence. A Thousand Ways to Die confronts the long and bloody history of African Americans and guns; his work as a chronicler of gun violence; and his own life story— from almost being caught up in gun violence as a young man, to exploring the legacy of the Middle Passage in Ghana through his ancestors’ footsteps. In a deeply personal conversation, join Lee with fellow journalist and historian Nikole Hannah-Jones as they unpack and examine the burden of witnessing violence and oppression on both a personal and systemic scale — a powerful evening of conversation about the true stakes of survival.

In a moment when campus culture wars dominate headlines and government is putting enormous pressure on universities to change, two titans of American academia meet for a rare public conversation at 92NY. Lawrence H. Summers, President Emeritus of Harvard University and former US Treasury Secretary, and Lee C. Bollinger, President Emeritus of Columbia University and one of the nation’s leading First Amendment scholars, take on a question that cuts to the heart of American intellectual life: When the conservative media and federal authorities say that elite universities have been captured by a progressive ideology that is destroying higher education, are they right, or are universities still essential engines of free inquiry and democratic renewal in which a wide-range of perspectives and viewpoints can be expressed, explored and critically examined? The stakes could not be higher: Billions of dollars in federal funding; the future of some of America’s oldest and most important institutions; and the character of our country’s leadership for generations to come. Is American higher education at risk? Summers raises concerns that universities may have become too one-sided in their thinking and are risking public trust, while Bollinger believes such claims have been overstated and that universities continue to reflect a broad range of ideas. Moderated by Robert Costa of CBS News and CBS Sunday Morning, this event launches the new season of 92NY’s Dialogue Project, a series dedicated to modeling civil, incisive public debate at a time when it is urgently needed. Don’t miss this chance to witness two of the sharpest minds in higher education wrestle with a question that will shape the future of intellectual life in this country.

Join the stars and producers of Hulu’s new limited series, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox — Knox herself, who is an executive producer; star Grace Van Patten; creator and executive producer KJ Steinberg; and executive producers Monica Lewinsky and Warren Littlefield — for a special conversation.

Bobby Cannavale, James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris and Scott Ellis with Tracy Smith: Art by The 92nd Street Y, New York

Join New York Times columnist David Brooks with renowned economist Tyler Cowen for a conversation about technology, morality, and finding humility in today’s fractious political culture — in a live taping of Cowen’s hit podcast Conversations with Tyler. David Brooks’ explorations of morality in contemporary politics and culture — the cultivation of spiritual and intellectual rigor through compromise and humility — have made him an uncommonly steady voice in an unsteady time. Critiquing the excesses of the right and the left in his bestselling books and New York Times columns, Brooks examines how class, education, and consumer culture have shaped our identities. He is exactly the kind of thinker who Tyler Cowen loves to talk with on Conversations with Tyler — Cowen’s hit podcast offering wide-ranging examinations of work, the world, and everything in between: a platform for genuine intellectual curiosity. Returning to 92NY’s stage after his sold-out conversation kicking off The Dialogue Project, hear Cowen talk to Brooks about what has shaped their intellectual lives. Take an unscripted tour of Brooks’s early Chicago crime-reporting days, how he would redesign his famed Yale “Humility” syllabus for a TikTok-native generation, the evolution of his religious worldview, his latest ideas on “moral capital,” and much more.

Join award-winning actor John Turturro for a conversation with Happy Sad Confused’s Josh Horowitz about his Emmy-nominated performance in Apple TV+’s hit series Severance, including clips from the show. Following a team of office workers at a mysterious company whose employees have undergone a procedure that surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives, Severance is one of the biggest hits of the season — a brilliant dystopian vision of work and corporate power. The gripping new season is being hailed as one of the most thought-provoking shows of the year, and as the ultra-devoted severed employee Irving Bailiff — for which he has been nominated for a 2025 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama — John Turturro delivers a knockout performance. Alongside clips from the series, hear Turturro tell Horowitz the story of Bailiff’s invention, his moving romance with Burt (Christopher Walken), what’s next for Severance, stories from the set, and more in this live taping of the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

Join award-winning actor John Turturro for a conversation with Happy Sad Confused’s Josh Horowitz about his Emmy-nominated performance in Apple TV+’s hit series Severance, including clips from the show. Following a team of office workers at a mysterious company whose employees have undergone a procedure that surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives, Severance is one of the biggest hits of the season — a brilliant dystopian vision of work and corporate power. The gripping new season is being hailed as one of the most thought-provoking shows of the year, and as the ultra-devoted severed employee Irving Bailiff — for which he has been nominated for a 2025 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama — John Turturro delivers a knockout performance. Alongside clips from the series, hear Turturro tell Horowitz the story of Bailiff’s invention, his moving romance with Burt (Christopher Walken), what’s next for Severance, stories from the set, and more in this live taping of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. Recorded Aug 13, 2025 at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

The breakout star of HBO Max’s Hacks, comedian Megan Stalter, is joined for conversation with Sarah Sherman about Too Much, the new series created by Lena Dunham. When Megan Stalter burst onto the scene as the hilariously brash (and slightly deluded) assistant/talent agent Kayla in Hacks, critics and audiences immediately recognized her as a major new voice in comedy. Now, as the lead of Lena Dunham’s Too Much, she is poised to make an even bigger splash. Following a thirty-something workaholic who moves to London from New York to mend her broken heart after the dissolution of a long relationship, Too Much is an ex-pat romantic comedy par excellence, anchored by a star performance from Stalter. Hear Stalter discuss her journey from internet comedy to Netflix, the new series, working with Lena Dunham, stories from the set, and more. Recorded Jul 14, 2025 at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

In this episode of 92NY Talks, join legendary comedian and podcaster Marc Maron with fellow comedian Jim Gaffigan following a special screening of his new HBO comedy special, Panicked. Hear Maron and Gaffigan discuss how the new material evolved, making comedy in dark times, why he’s decided to wrap up WTF, and much more. The conversation was recorded July 31, 2025 at The 92nd Street Y, New York as part of the Newmark Civic Life Series.

Join Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey, The New York Times’ Tyler Pager and The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf with Pulitzer Prize winner Maggie Haberman for a conversation about Donald Trump’s stunning political comeback, what it means for America, and Dawsey, Pager, and Arnsdorf’s new account of the election, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America. “The whole world was against me, and I won,” said Donald Trump in an exclusive interview, ten days before his second inauguration. Nearly four years after Trump’s first turbulent presidency concluded in a violent attempt to overturn the election, he made a political comeback on a scale that stunned the nation. In 2024 — drawing on extraordinary access to the Trump, Biden, and Harris teams —Dawsey, Pager, and Arnsdorf bring us the definitive account of how he did it. In a special conversation, hear these award-winning reporters talk to Maggie Haberman about how the 2024 election is influencing Trump’s policy — vindicating and emboldening him — and what it means for US democracy. This talk was recorded on July 17th, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Join acclaimed comedian and New York Times-bestselling author Zarna Garg for a special conversation with Ira Glass (This American Life) about her new Hulu stand-up special, Practical People Win. The conversation was recorded on July 18th, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Ready to optimize your travel? Brian Kelly, founder of The Points Guy and “The Man Who Turned Credit-Card Points into an Empire” (The New York Times) relates secrets and tips from his bestselling book How to Win at Travel – and all you need to know to help you save money while upgrading your getaways. Recorded July 10, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Join Bridgewater founder and #1 New York Times-bestselling author and investor Ray Dalio for an urgent conversation about America’s role in the global economy and debt — and his new book, How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle. Ray Dalio, one of the preeminent investors of our time, anticipated the 2008 global financial crisis — and he has deep concerns about US government debt. Does government debt threaten our wellbeing? Could the US really go broke? Where do we stand? In his new book, How Countries Go Broke, Dalio answers these questions with a clear-eyed perspective on US financial policy and global investment, laying out a remarkably simple proposal for what the US can do to prevent a debt crisis. In a special conversation, hear Dalio discuss the risks of big government debt, why the US is struggling to catch up with China, what it means for our collective economic future, and more. This was recorded Jun 26, 2025 at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Barry Diller in Conversation with Anderson Cooper: Who Knew by The 92nd Street Y, New York

National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates joins Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, for a reading and conversation between two masters of psychological suspense about Oates’ extraordinary career — and her gripping new novel, Fox. A shapeshifting master of genre and form — working in historical fiction, short stories, critical essays, poetry, and more — Joyce Carol Oates has perhaps above all spent her career amassing a body of work rooted in thrilling, gothic suspense. For decades, she has been a towering influence on younger writers like Gillian Flynn, providing a roadmap for the haunting lapses of memory and personal history that define the contemporary mystery novel. Following a detective investigating a suspicious death at an elite boarding school, Oates’ new novel is a hypnotic tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim and predator — illuminating the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands. It is a novel as profound as it is propulsive, as moving as it is full of mystery. In a special reading and conversation in celebration of Fox’s launch between two virtuosic storytellers, hear Oates and Flynn discuss the art of the page-turner, how Oates has opened new terrain in the literature of suspense, how Flynn has reinvented the genre for a new generation, and much more. “Reading Fox is like being spellbound by a hypnotist who may not wish you well, who leads you, with a deceptively gentle hand, toward that dark forest you fear.” — #1 New York Times bestselling author Gillian Flynn “I just finished an extraordinary novel and am still in its spell. It’s Fox by Joyce Carol Oates, her first ‘whodunit’ or mystery thriller, and it’s unlike any other mystery I’ve read. It’s Remarkable.” — New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder Recorded Jun 17, 2025 at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Rahm Emanuel and Jason Greenblatt with Bret Stephens

In this episode of 92NY Talks, join the hosts of the runaway hit podcast I’ve Had It, Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan, for a conversation with Don Lemon about their debut book, Life is a Lazy Susan of Sh*t Sandwiches. The conversation was recorded on May 27th, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

In this episode of 92NY Talks, join legendary futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil for a mind-expanding conversation with tech visionary David S. Rose, exploring the astonishing implications of his new book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI. The conversation was recorded on May 18th, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

Bob Costas with Howard Bryant by The 92nd Street Y, New York

Ever hear a story so ridiculous you think, there’s no way that actually happened — only to Google it and realize, Oh wow, we’re all lucky to be alive? That’s basically the premise of SNAFU, the new book from actor, comedian, and history enthusiast Ed Helms. In this episode of 92NY Talks, join Ed Helms and Samantha Bee for an evening of laugh-out-loud storytelling, history you won’t believe actually happened, and the kind of cautionary tales that remind us why reading the instructions is always a good idea. The conversation was recorded on Apr 28, 2025 at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

In this episode of 92NY Talks, join legendary cartoonist Robert Crumb, award-winning comics scholar and biographer Dan Nadel, and New Yorker staff writer Naomi Fry for an unforgettable conversation on the making of Crumb’s iconic works, transforming the pressures of 1950s suburban America into a distinctive style, and more. The conversation was recorded on April 15th, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

In this episode of 92NY Talks, join Tom Hanks and writer E.A. Hanks for an evening of riveting storytelling, as father and daughter sit down to discuss The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road —E.A. Hanks’ deeply personal and beautifully crafted new book. The conversation was recorded on Apr 8, 2025 at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

In this episode of 92NY Talks, join Joy Behar, Susan Lucci, Sherri Shepherd, and Judy Gold for an exclusive — and jaw-dropping — look inside the new off-Broadway comedy, My First Ex-Husband. They’ll share their favorite stories — about women married to the mob, their jobs, their faith, money and, inevitably, the wrong man. The conversation was recorded on March 19th, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.

In this episode of 92NY Talks, join Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd as she discusses a captivating assortment of her most compelling style features and profiles from new book Notorious, a sly and chatty collection of some of her most notorious celebrity profile. The conversation was recorded on March 10th, 2025, at The 92nd Street Y, New York.