• January 19
• |
• Seattle

IN PERSON: Will the 2020s Roar like the 1920s?

A pandemic, protests, and economic jolts ushered in the so-called “Roaring Twenties.” Americans adjusted in ways both innovative and counterproductive. What lessons from the 1920s can we apply to our own looming 20s? Historian William Woodward charts the eerily familiar developments of a century ago: shattered idealism, social clashes, domestic terrorism, culture wars, disorienting technologies, […]

• January 20

ONLINE: Telling Your Story: A Personal Essay Workshop

Our life stories are a means for connection—a tender offering in a troubled era. Part reportage and part reflection, personal essays can reveal hidden truths about ourselves, our families, and our societies. In this interactive and generative writing workshop, Kristen Millares Young will help participants tell their own stories. Available in English and Spanish, each […]

• January 19

ONLINE: Whiskey and Wiretaps: The Northwest’s Rumrunning King

On Thanksgiving Day, 1925, Roy Olmstead was trapped by federal prohibition agents and their Tommy guns on a lonely Puget Sound dock. His reign as the Northwest’s most prolific bootlegger had ended. But big questions—political, cultural, and legal—remained. Why did Olmstead, the youngest lieutenant in Seattle Police Department history, form a secret gang to take […]

• January 18

ONLINE / IN-PERSON: One Second of Hate: A Story of Forgiveness

“Where are you from?”, his attacker asked before shooting Rais Bhuiyan during a killing spree in Texas shortly after 9/11. The attacker, a white supremacist, had been hunting for “Arabs” and perceived Muslims, though not one of his victims turned out to be from the Middle East. Despite being shot in the face, Bhuiyan survived, […]

• January 13

ONLINE: This is the End: How Movies Prepared Us for the Apocalypse

Great city streets emptied of people; a population panicked; misinformation in the air. If some of our experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic seemed familiar, it might be because the movies already imagined them. Whether the cause is environmental factors (The Day After Tomorrow, Snowpiercer, Contagion), nuclear disaster (On the Beach), or unexplained doomsday (Midnight Sky, […]

• January 12

ONLINE: The Samurai Code: How Bushido Changes Lives

Bushido—the way of the warrior—is the code of ethics practiced by the samurai warriors of ancient Japan, a code which includes courage, integrity, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, and loyalty. Through her own story of using Bushido to overcome a traumatic brain injury, Lori Tsugawa Whaley shows how the code can help people find hope, resilience, […]

• January 12

ONLINE: The Samurai Code: How Bushido Changes Lives

Bushido—the way of the warrior—is the code of ethics practiced by the samurai warriors of ancient Japan, a code which includes courage, integrity, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor, and loyalty. Through her own story of using Bushido to overcome a traumatic brain injury, Lori Tsugawa Whaley shows how the code can help people find hope, resilience, […]

• January 12

ONLINE: Will the 2020s Roar like the 1920s?

A pandemic, protests, and economic jolts ushered in the so-called “Roaring Twenties.” Americans adjusted in ways both innovative and counterproductive. What lessons from the 1920s can we apply to our own looming 20s? Historian William Woodward charts the eerily familiar developments of a century ago: shattered idealism, social clashes, domestic terrorism, culture wars, disorienting technologies, […]

• January 8

ONLINE: Why Deny Science?

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who denies a scientific finding? Perhaps that conversation was about something as big as climate change or something as small as the health effects of eating chocolate. But in most cases, there is a pattern to how people argue against scientific findings, no matter the scope of […]

• December 9

ONLINE: Hidden Histories: The South Vietnamese Side of the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War is seen by much of the Western world as being fought between the Americans and North Vietnamese Communists, with the South Vietnamese largely absent. Yet many Vietnamese refugees who came to America after the war served in the South Vietnamese military, and there is little recognition and understanding of their contributions and […]