Converging Dialogues

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Marc Dunkelman about progressives and policy ideas for growth. They discuss shared interests of collective and individual interests, progressives on big ideas, Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian progressive styles, pragmatic institutionalism, new ideas in the 21st century, elites, visionary leadership, and many more topics.
Marc J. Dunkelman is a resident scholar at the Searchlight Institute and a fellow at Brown University’s Watson School for International and Public Affairs. During more than a decade working in politics, he worked for Democratic members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The author of The Vanishing Neighbor, Dunkelman’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, and Politico. He is the author of the latest book, Why Nothing Works: Who killed progress and how to bring it back.


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In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Tamim Ansary about a global history of humans through time. They discuss the main theme of interconnectedness, language, symbols, and culture, origins and nomadic peoples, early trading, rise of city states, religion and belief systems, the Crusades, Mongol Empire, Ottoman Empire, colonialism, empires and nation states, and many more topics.
Tamim Ansary is the author of many books, including Destiny Disrupted and The Invention of Yesterday. He has published essays and commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and more. Born in Afghanistan in 1948, he moved to the US in 1964. He lives in San Francisco.


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In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Davis Samson on the evolution of sleep. They discuss various sleep misconceptions, why we need sleep, stages of sleep, and the physiological and social aspects of sleep. They also talk about the evolution of circadian rhythms, napping, evolutionary differences, dreams, paleo sleep, and many more topics.
David R. Samson is associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Toronto and the author of Our Tribal Future: How to Channel Our Foundational Human Instincts into a Force for Good. His pioneering research has been featured in National Geographic, Time, and The New York Times and on NPR and the BBC. He is the author of the latest book, The Sleepless Ape: The story of sleep in human evolution.


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In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Katja Hoyer about the Weimar Republic. They give an overview of the Weimar Republic, voting and role of economics, major figures, how Hitler won his election, Nazi rule under Weimar Republic, negative views against Jews, Weimar after World War II, and many more topics.
Katja Hoyer is a historian and journalist who is visiting research fellow at King’s College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She is also Global Opinions contributing columnist for The Washington Post. Her main research area is the history of modern Germany. She is the author of Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1871-1918 , Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany , and the most recent book, Weimar: Life on the edge of catastrophe.


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In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Donna Jackson Nakazawa about rumination. They define rumination, talk about belonging, the Default Mode Network, MIST framework, therapy, various techniques, and many more topics.
Donna Jackson Nakazawa is the author and writer of many books that explore the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, and emotion, including The Angel and the Assassin, named one of the best books of 2020 by Wired magazine, and Childhood Disrupted, which was a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award. Her work has appeared in Wired, Stat, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Health Affairs, Parenting, AARP Magazine, and Glamour, and has been featured on the cover of Parade and in Time; she has appeared on Today, NPR, NBC News, and ABC News. Jackson Nakazawa is also the creator and founder of the narrative writing-to-heal program Your Healing Narrative: Write-to-Heal with Neural Re-Narrating.™ She is a regular speaker at universities, including the Harvard Division of Science Library Series, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Arizona. Her recent book, Mind Drama: The science of rumination and how to outwit your inner defeatist.


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