Books & Writers · The Creative Process: Novelists, Screenwriters, Playwrights, Poets, Non-fiction Writers & Journalists Talk Writing, Life & Creativity

What is the importance of philosophy in the 21st century as we enter a post-truth world? How can we reintroduce meaning and uphold moral principles in our world shaken by crises? And what does philosophy teach us about living in harmony with the natural world? Robert Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago where he teaches in the College, Committee on Social Thought, and Department of Philosophy. Pippin is widely acclaimed for his scholarship in German idealism as well as later German philosophy, including publications such as Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, and Hegel’s Idealism. In keeping with his interdisciplinary interests, Pippin’s book Henry James and Modern Moral Life explores the intersections between philosophy and literature. Pippin’s most recent published book is The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy. “The Greek Enlightenment introduced the idea of centrality and the priority of rationality in understanding ourselves and our relation to the world. Heidegger wants to move us away from what he thinks has culminated in a kind of dead end. We appear in this world without any instruction manual, we have these finite, corporeal lives that begin in ways- we have no control over and end in ways we often have no control over. The classical conception was that the cosmos was good, because it was open to human interrogation. It allowed itself to be interrogated, so the thing that mattered most of all was knowing, because knowing was the way in which we became at home in the world. Heidegger thought we had prioritized the question of knowledge to such a degree as the primordial relationship to all of reality. He connected this to the kind of predatory stance of contemporary technology, which is essentially destroying the world because it considers the world as just material stuff, which we can understand and manipulate for our own ends. He thinks there's a huge influence in the original understanding of being as intelligibility that eventually has cut us off from all sources of meaning in a possible life other than this successful control of the environment for our own satisfaction.” https://socialsciences.uchicago.edu/directory/Robert-Pippin https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo208042246.html www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing.” Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids. www.joseph-ledoux.com www.cns.nyu.edu/ebi https://amygdaloids.net www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674261259 www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How does the brain process emotions? How are emotional memories formed and stored in the brain, and how do they influence behavior, perception, and decision-making? How does music help us understand our emotions, memories, and the nature of consciousness? Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids. “We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing.” www.joseph-ledoux.com www.cns.nyu.edu/ebi https://amygdaloids.net www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674261259 www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast Music courtesy of Joseph LeDoux

It is said that people never die until the last person says their name. In memory of the writer and director Paul Auster, who passed away this week, we're sharing this conversation we had back in 2017 after the publication of his novel 4 3 2 1. Auster reflects on his body of work, life, and creative process. Paul Auster was the bestselling author of Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Invisible, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, the Prix Médicis étranger, an Independent Spirit Award, and the Premio Napoli. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has also penned several screenplays for films such as Smoke (1995), as well as Lulu on the Bridge (1998) and The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007), which he also directed. “But what happens is a space is created. And maybe it’s the only space of its kind in the world in which two absolute strangers can meet each other on terms of absolute intimacy. I think this is what is at the heart of the experience and why once you become a reader that you want to repeat that experience, that very deep total communication with that invisible stranger who has written the book that you’re holding in your hands. And that’s why I think, in spite of everything, novels are not going to stop being written, no matter what the circumstances. We need stories. We’re all human beings, and it’s stories from the moment we’re able to talk.” We apologize for the quality of the recording since it was not originally meant to be aired as a podcast. Portrait of Paul Auster by Mia Funk, inspired by his novel 4 3 2 1. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/1045/paul-auster www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“We started our book Optimal reviewing research done at Harvard Business School, where hundreds of men and women kept journals of what their day was like at work, how they felt, what happened. From that emerged a composite of an optimal state; a state when people are fully engaged in what they're doing, they're very focused, they feel good. They're highly productive, because they're at their best, and they feel very connected to people around them. It's a very positive state, and we feel that it's a state people can enter voluntarily—unlike flow, for example, which is that one time you outdid yourself. You were spectacular, but you can't make it happen. It's like grace, it falls from the sky. But optimal is, we think, attainable—by people who just focus on what they need to do, on what's important right now. That's one way to get into the optimal state.” Daniel Goleman is an American psychologist, author, and science journalist. Before becoming an author, Goleman was a science reporter for the New York Times for 12 years, covering psychology and the human brain. In 1995, Goleman published Emotional Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller. In his newly published book Optimal, Daniel Goleman discusses how people can enter an optimal state of high performance without facing symptoms of burnout in the workplace. www.danielgoleman.info www.harpercollins.com/products/optimal-daniel-golemancary-cherniss?variant=41046795288610 www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/69105/emotional-intelligence-by-daniel-goleman/ www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can we enhance our emotional intelligence and avoid burnout in a changing world? How can we regain focus and perform in an optimal state? What do we mean by ecological intelligence? Daniel Goleman is an American psychologist, author, and science journalist. Before becoming an author, Goleman was a science reporter for the New York Times for 12 years, covering psychology and the human brain. In 1995, Goleman published Emotional Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller. In his newly published book Optimal, Daniel Goleman discusses how people can enter an optimal state of high performance without facing symptoms of burnout in the workplace. “We started our book Optimal reviewing research done at Harvard Business School, where hundreds of men and women kept journals of what their day was like at work, how they felt, what happened. From that emerged a composite of an optimal state; a state when people are fully engaged in what they're doing, they're very focused, they feel good. They're highly productive, because they're at their best, and they feel very connected to people around them. It's a very positive state, and we feel that it's a state people can enter voluntarily—unlike flow, for example, which is that one time you outdid yourself. You were spectacular, but you can't make it happen. It's like grace, it falls from the sky. But optimal is, we think, attainable—by people who just focus on what they need to do, on what's important right now. That's one way to get into the optimal state.” www.danielgoleman.info www.harpercollins.com/products/optimal-daniel-golemancary-cherniss?variant=41046795288610 www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/69105/emotional-intelligence-by-daniel-goleman/ www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27 and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class, but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state. This is a metaphor for people who travel. I came up with the idea for this novel in 2009 when I was an Indonesian international student studying for my PHD in New York. When I went back to Jakarta, I felt like I was not at home, but New York wasn't my home either, so there's a feeling of being neither here nor there. I wanted to capture the sense of being everywhere, which is liberating, but also the sense of displacement.” Intan Paramaditha is a writer and an academic. Her novel The Wandering (Harvill Secker/ Penguin Random House UK), translated from the Indonesian language by Stephen J. Epstein, was nominated for the Stella Prize in Australia and awarded the Tempo Best Literary Fiction in Indonesia, English PEN Translates Award, and PEN/ Heim Translation Fund Grant from PEN America. She is the author of the short story collection Apple and Knife, the editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets, part of the Translating Feminisms series of Tilted Axis Press and the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas (forthcoming 2024). Her essay, “On the Complicated Questions Around Writing About Travel,” was selected for The Best American Travel Writing 2021. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches media and film studies at Macquarie University, Sydney. https://intanparamaditha.com www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/626055/the-wandering-by-intan-paramaditha/9781787301184 www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How are writing and travel vehicles for understanding? How can we expand the literary canon to include other voices, other cultures, other experiences of the world? Intan Paramaditha is a writer and an academic. Her novel The Wandering (Harvill Secker/ Penguin Random House UK), translated from the Indonesian language by Stephen J. Epstein, was nominated for the Stella Prize in Australia and awarded the Tempo Best Literary Fiction in Indonesia, English PEN Translates Award, and PEN/ Heim Translation Fund Grant from PEN America. She is the author of the short story collection Apple and Knife, the editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets, part of the Translating Feminisms series of Tilted Axis Press and the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas (forthcoming 2024). Her essay, “On the Complicated Questions Around Writing About Travel,” was selected for The Best American Travel Writing 2021. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches media and film studies at Macquarie University, Sydney. “The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27 and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class, but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state. This is a metaphor for people who travel. I came up with the idea for this novel in 2009 when I was an Indonesian international student studying for my PHD in New York. When I went back to Jakarta, I felt like I was not at home, but New York wasn't my home either, so there's a feeling of being neither here nor there. I wanted to capture the sense of being everywhere, which is liberating, but also the sense of displacement.” https://intanparamaditha.com www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/626055/the-wandering-by-intan-paramaditha/9781787301184 www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change. 00:00 "The Conditional" by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón 01:27 The Secret Language of Animals: Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA 03:03 A Love Letter to the Living World: Carl Safina, Ecologist & Author 04:11 Exploring the Mysteries of Soil and Coral Reefs: Merlin Sheldrake, Biologist, Author of Entangled Life 04:47 Exploring Coral Reefs: Richard Vevers, Founder of The Ocean Agency 05:56 The Importance of Climate Education: Kathleen Rogers, President of EarthDay.org 07:02 The Timeless Wisdom of Turtles: Sy Montomery, Naturalist & Author 07:38 Optimism in the Face of Environmental Challenges: Richard Vevers 08:32 Urban Solutions for a Sustainable Future: Paula Pinho, Director, Just Transition, Consumers, Energy Efficiency & Innovation, European Commission 08:57 The Circular Economy: Walter Stahel, Founder & Director of the Product-Life Institute 09:39 The Power of Speaking Out for Sustainability: Paula Pinho 10:16 Empowering the Next Generation Through Education: Jeffrey Sachs, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast www.maxrichtermusic.com https://studiorichtermahr.com Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep. Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.

"When I write about the climate crises in the book, I don't profess any kind of moral clarity. We are in uncharted territory and I think it's our curiosity that's going to get us out of it." Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies, which explores the neurobiological impacts of rapid environmental change. https://claytonaldern.com www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717097/the-weight-of-nature-by-clayton-page-aldern https://csde.washington.edu www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How does a changing climate affect our minds, brains and bodies? Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies, which explores the neurobiological impacts of rapid environmental change. "When I write about the climate crises in the book, I don't profess any kind of moral clarity. We are in uncharted territory and I think it's our curiosity that's going to get us out of it." https://claytonaldern.com www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717097/the-weight-of-nature-by-clayton-page-aldern https://csde.washington.edu www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What are the stories we tell ourselves to justify our actions in times of war? How can the arts convey complexity and foster understanding? Don McKellar is a highly accomplished writer, director, and actor. He has written films including Roadkill, Highway 61, Dance Me Outside, The Red Violin, and Blindness. He won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for his directorial debut, Last Night, which he also wrote and starred in. He is an eight-time Genie Award nominee and a two-time winner. He wrote the book for the acclaimed musical The Drowsy Chaperone, for which he received a Tony Award. Most recently, Don served as writer, executive producer, and co-showrunner on The Sympathizer, a television adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The series was co-created with Park Chan-wook."I think the reason for success of the novel The Sympathizer was the very unique voice in the book. It's told in first person with this kind of raconteur who's very intelligent. It's satiric. It tackles big issues, and it's very lively and fun at the same time. It's quite and it's also complicated where it's coming from. It's a confession. It's written in theory under duress. It's very hard to replicate because it's sort of very freewheeling, and we didn't want to weigh the show down with just a lot of voiceover, you know, that feeling of a literary adaptation you get where you just have a voiceover quoting the book all the time. So, the first thing we tried to do, well, the first thing we did was get Park Chan-wook involved because he has a very similar visual language. We tried to replicate that voice visually, and we've tried to come up with parallel visual narrative devices that would give that feeling that the book had." www.imdb.com/name/nm0001528/mediaviewer/rm2411273728/?ref_=nm_ov_ph www.imdb.com/title/tt14404618/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_the%20sympa www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast Photos courtesy of HBO Susan Downey, Robert Downey Jr., Don McKellar Robert Downey Jr. in The Sympathizer, photo by Beth Dubber/HBO Hoa Xuande in The Sympathizer, photo by Hopper Stone/HBO

"I think the reason for success of the novel The Sympathizer was the very unique voice in the book. It's told in first person with this kind of raconteur who's very intelligent. It's satiric. It tackles big issues, and it's very lively and fun at the same time. It's quite and it's also complicated where it's coming from. It's a confession. It's written in theory under duress. It's very hard to replicate because it's sort of very freewheeling, and we didn't want to weigh the show down with just a lot of voiceover, you know, that feeling of a literary adaptation you get where you just have a voiceover quoting the book all the time. So, the first thing we tried to do, well, the first thing we did was get Park Chan-wook involved because he has a very similar visual language. We tried to replicate that voice visually, and we've tried to come up with parallel visual narrative devices that would give that feeling that the book had." Don McKellar is a highly accomplished writer, director, and actor. He has written films including Roadkill, Highway 61, Dance Me Outside, The Red Violin, and Blindness. He won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for his directorial debut, Last Night, which he also wrote and starred in. He is an eight-time Genie Award nominee and a two-time winner. He wrote the book for the acclaimed musical The Drowsy Chaperone, for which he received a Tony Award. Most recently, Don served as writer, executive producer, and co-showrunner on The Sympathizer, a television adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The series was co-created with Park Chan-wook. www.imdb.com/name/nm0001528/mediaviewer/rm2411273728/?ref_=nm_ov_ph www.imdb.com/title/tt14404618/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_the%20sympa www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast Photo courtesy of HBO

"You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance." "Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beautiful book and it was the reason that made me want to do it. Jeff Daniels gave me the book. He'd been having trouble getting it made, getting a script that he liked. And he said to me, "Will you read this and just remind me what I love about it? And if you feel that way?" And I read it very quickly and felt that it was terrific. And there were a lot of possibilities in making it. So just kudos to Philipp Meyer. He wrote a beautiful novel. And if anybody's listening is looking for a great novel to read, there's that and there's Adam Rapp's novel Wolf at the Table." Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee. Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders. www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246 www.imdb.com/name/nm1452688/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 www.imdb.com/title/tt1532495/ https://outsidersmusical.com/ www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-rapp/wolf-at-the-table/9780316434164/?lens=little-brown www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness? Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee. Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders. "You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance." "Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beautiful book and it was the reason that made me want to do it. Jeff Daniels gave me the book. He'd been having trouble getting it made, getting a script that he liked. And he said to me, "Will you read this and just remind me what I love about it? And if you feel that way?" And I read it very quickly and felt that it was terrific. And there were a lot of possibilities in making it. So just kudos to Philipp Meyer. He wrote a beautiful novel. And if anybody's listening is looking for a great novel to read, there's that and there's Adam Rapp's novel Wolf at the Table." www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246 www.imdb.com/name/nm1452688/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 www.imdb.com/title/tt1532495/ https://outsidersmusical.com/ www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-rapp/wolf-at-the-table/9780316434164/?lens=little-brown www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“The idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative.” Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. He is the current holder of the Chair of French (est. 1776) at TCD. He is the author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene, Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene, and other books. www.tcd.ie/French/people/michaelcronin.php www.cambridge.org/core/books/ecotravel/24263DF8E2E021915FEF4F937F146D25 www.routledge.com/Eco-Translation-Translation-and-Ecology-in-the-Age-of-the-Anthropocene/Cronin/p/book/9781138916845 www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How has tourism and writing about travel contributed to the ecological degradation of the planet?How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more-than-human world? Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. He is the current holder of the Chair of French (est. 1776) at TCD. He is the author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene, Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene, and other books. “The idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative.” www.tcd.ie/French/people/michaelcronin.php www.cambridge.org/core/books/ecotravel/24263DF8E2E021915FEF4F937F146D25 www.routledge.com/Eco-Translation-Translation-and-Ecology-in-the-Age-of-the-Anthropocene/Cronin/p/book/9781138916845 www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment. I was moved to organize the book according to 12 virtues by noting the incredible synchronicity that both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made lists of 12 or 13 virtues for achieving happiness. And then, of course, I wanted to tell the stories through people because that's the best way to relate to and attempt to practice self-mastery and see how people achieved it in their own lives." Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America. https://constitutioncenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/jeffrey-rosen www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476 https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcasts www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good? Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America. "That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment. I was moved to organize the book according to 12 virtues by noting the incredible synchronicity that both Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made lists of 12 or 13 virtues for achieving happiness. And then, of course, I wanted to tell the stories through people because that's the best way to relate to and attempt to practice self-mastery and see how people achieved it in their own lives." https://constitutioncenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/jeffrey-rosen www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476 https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcasts www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"The other big hard problem in philosophy is time. And I felt, you know, who better to lead me in this exploration than turtles, who live in some cases for centuries, who've been around...they arose with dinosaurs, yet they survived the asteroid impact. They are the embodiment of patience and wisdom. It's wonderful having an animal recognize you and be interested in you really acknowledges the animal in me. And that's the oldest, most sacred part of me, as far as I'm concerned." Author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson are naturalists, adventurers, and creative collaborators. Montgomery has published over thirty acclaimed nonfiction books for adults and children and received numerous honors, including lifetime achievement awards from the Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association. Patterson’s illustrations have been featured in several books and magazines, such as Yankee Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur. He is the recipient of Roger Tory Peterson Wild American Art Award, National Outdoor Book Award for Nature and the Environment, and other honors. Most recently, Patterson provided illustrations for Freshwater Fish of the Northeast. Their joint books are Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell and The Book of the Turtle. Montgomery’s other books include The Soul of an Octopus, The Hawk’s Way and The Secrets of the Octopus (published in conjunction with a National Geographic TV series). www.mpattersonart.com https://symontgomery.com www.harpercollins.com/products/of-time-and-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=41003864817698 www.harpercollins.com/products/the-book-of-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=40695888609314 https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo215806915.html www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast