Video & Audio

If colonial writing robbed Africa of its “spirit”—as the Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’O suggested—what do we make of that other Western, technological intervention: the sound recorder? Around 1900, a series of German travelers undertook their own kind of “language” invasion consistent with Africa’s broader, colonial occupation. Armed with phonographs, they sought to capture what was commonly…

Sir David Chipperfield talks with Berlin architect Jason Danziger about sustainable building, planning, and social architecture.

Sir David Chipperfield discusses his nonprofit Fundación RIA, in Galicia, northwestern Spain.

The president of The Met, Daniel Weiss, talks about the public role of the museum.

Literary theorist Emily Apter unravels the untranslatability of norms and prohibitions across cultural lines.

Writer Anne Finger on the Nazi uses of disability.

Literary historian Martin Pucher is working on a history of Rotwelsch, an unwritten European language of thieves.

Artist Lucy Raven is working on "Remote Location," a film about the Enola Gay, filmed in Utah.

German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the dependence of democracy upon reason.

George Frampton considers what national US policymakers might learn from others’ efforts in addressing climate change.