“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.” -William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act III, Scene i

What would a world without conscience look like? Would we all be bold in our endeavors, take whatever we want, do to others as we please, free of the burden of guilt holding us back? Does our conscience truly, as Hamlet asserts, make us hesitant to do the things we believe in the very depths of our souls are the right ones, though they may come at a heavy cost? Without it would we live in a world even more filled with vengeance and unrest?

Kader Attia just arrived home from a trip to the U.S. where he co-organized a seminar on the relation between the secular and the spiritual as related to trauma at U.C. Berkeley. Some of Attia’s work draws from Abel Gance’s critique of the Nazis and links this to the rise of darkness and fascism we see today. One question he tries to answer is, “what is the responsibility of being an artist in a society?” To hear his discussion of this, and much more, listen to the complete interview.

Maya M Workman is working on two projects at the moment. One is a play titled Ophelia Continues that she has been working on for many years and that will be read for the first time on November 3 before a premier in 2020. Workman also teaches creativity and critical thinking to young people. Next year she will teach in a completely new space in a cooperative school which Workman hopes will encourage families to encourage their children to learn creativity and develop critical thinking. To hear more about the play and the school where Workman will be teaching, as well as a discussion of her nonprofit, listen to the complete interview.