Time Sensitive

On Ep. 159, the British philosopher and professor Simon Critchley discusses his latest book, “Heidegger Thinking: ‘Being and Time’ Explained,” about what he calls “the most important philosophical book of the last century”; poetry’s power to make the familiar strange; and why philosophy, at its best, helps us see the world anew.

On Ep. 157—our Season 14 opener and first-ever fully filmed conversation, now available to watch on YouTube—the Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen discusses “Sculpting the Senses,” a sweeping exhibition of her boundary-defying haute couture looks on view at the Brooklyn Museum (through Dec. 6); the importance of carving out meditative time for creativity; and why going slower allows her to do more, with greater depth.

The Paris-born, New York–based artist Camille Henrot previews her upcoming first-ever performance-art piece, slated to premiere in 2026 and a collaboration with the nonprofit Performa; explores her fraught fascination with animals, childhood, and the climate crisis—the intersection of which she examines in-depth in her her soon-to-debut film “In the Veins”; and reflects on why, for her, a work is technically never finished.

The British writer and cultural critic Olivia Laing, author of the “The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise” and the forthcoming novel “The Silver Book,” discusses the symbiotic relationship between gardening and writing; the act of rebelling against a reactive, adrenaline-fueled culture by prioritizing and embracing slowness, in-person conversation, and what they call the “temporal self”; and the importance of imagining, in vivid detail, the kinds of utopias we could one day very well live in.

On Ep. 136 of Time Sensitive—produced in partnership with with the Aspen Art Museum and recorded in Aspen, Colorado, during the inaugural AIR festival—the physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker, author of the mind-expanding book “Life as No One Knows It,” discusses time’s essential role in the “assembly theory” physics framework she’s spearheading alongside chemist Lee Cronin, how her childhood growing up in an antiques-filled Connecticut home shaped her fascination with the material world, and why understanding life’s origins on Earth—and exploring alien life beyond our planet—is crucial to understanding ourselves.