What is the effect of violence on a life's narrative? TED Fellow and photojournalist Jon Lowenstein has lived in the South Side of Chicago for about a decade -- first working as a teacher, photographer and community liaison at an elementary school and subsequently engaging with his African American neighbors to document life in this rapidly ch...

Rodrigo Canales begins today’s talk by bringing us to a very confusing peace march. After a battle between Mexican law enforcement and the drug cartel La Familia Michoacana turned the city of Apatzingán into a battlefield for two days in 2010, the mayor of the town decided to hold a march for peace. Thousands of citizens showed up. And while...

Often, discussions about equality center around leaning in, or whether or not the glass ceiling has got cracks in it. But for many women, the focus is on surviving everyday violence, assault and rape -- a daily struggle that plays a part in keeping a billion people locked into poverty. Gary Haugen (TED Talk: The hidden reason for poverty the wor...

Esta Soler helped pass the Violence Against Women Act, 20 years ago. Leslie Morgan Steiner had just left an abusive husband at the time, and now tells her story widely. They talk about the NFL, the hashtags #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft, and what we can all do to end domestic violence. Esta Soler and Leslie Morgan Steiner know exactly how to ...

Gary Slutkin spent a decade fighting tuberculosis, cholera and AIDS epidemics in Africa. When the physician returned to the United States, he thought he'd be able to get away from brutal epidemic deaths. Then he began to look more carefully at gun violence, noting that its spread followed the patterns of infectious diseases. In a talk at TEDMED ...

The work of artist Sanford Biggers walks a fine line between poetic and provocative, brilliantly sparking discussion about race, violence and fallen heroes. Sanford Biggers grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by works of the popular black artists his parents collected. His cousin is the famed African-American muralist John Biggers. But as a young...

In April 2018, I flew to Vancouver, Canada, for my first TED Conference. As a TED Fellow, I had the opportunity to give both a talk and a cello performance. As I packed my artifacts and artwork, which included three of my custom Ku Klux Klan robes made from various fabrics, the one that most stood out to me then -- and still stands out to me now...

Why is it that, when we talk about sexual violence and domestic abuse, we talk about the women involved and erase the men from the conversation?In his TED talk, violence-prevention educator Jackson Katz explains why sentences like “Mary is a battered woman” are far more common than ones like “John beat Mary." The takeaway of Katz’s talk: Tha...

One billion is certainly in the zeitgeist. V-day, the global campaign founded by four-time TED speaker Eve Ensler to end violence against women and girls, recently unveiled its One Billion Rising initiative. The name comes from the horrifying statistic that 1 in 3 women will be beaten or abused in their lifetime — on a global scale, 1 bill...

We can do so with careful planning, recovering the ideals of compassion, peace and equity, and standing together in the face of hate, says Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Life, down here on earth, is holy. It is also exceptionally fragile. It is hevel, a Hebrew word meaning a mere breath. Almost in his last words, Moses tells his people, “I call hea...

Jeffrey Brown is a Baptist minister. And yet, he says, “I learned some of my most important life lessons from drug dealers and gang members and prostitutes and had some of my most profound theological conversations on a street corner.” Brown was one of the co-founders of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, a faith-based group that was an inte...

A new way to practice for the SAT. The SAT, a standardized college admissions exam, is a mammoth test, and every minute of practice is invaluable. But SAT practice courses can be expensive -- which oftentimes means kids with less money, or from disadvantaged backgrounds, do worse. One year ago, Khan Academy, a free online platform for learni...

Gun violence is a singularly American problem. But there's a proven solution, pioneered in Chicago, that needs support. Robert Muggah explains. American cities are getting dangerous again. After a two-decade decline in murder rates, many large cities saw a sharp increase in murder in 2015, along with other crimes such as rape, robbery, assault ...

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. Zero Minutes of Fame. In the wake of a mass shooting, the killer’s name is usually plastered all over the news and Internet, a dark 15 minutes of fame with serious consequences: 30% of mass killings are inspired by a previous event. While efforts to r...

An inspiring, honest talk: In 2006, Tarana Burke was consumed by a desire to do something about the sexual violence she saw in her community. She took out a piece of paper, wrote "Me Too" across the top and laid out an action plan for a movement centered on the power of empathy between survivors. More than a decade later, she reflects on what...

The ERA is more relevant and important than ever. By making women fully equal under the law, the US could better address sexual assaults and gender violence, says attorney Laura L. Dunn. Laura L. Dunn’s legal career arose from a personal struggle for justice. When Dunn was a freshman in college, two crew teammates raped her. She responded by...

Photographer Jon Lowenstein loves Chicago. He's originally from Boston, but his affair with the city started with a real-life relationship: Years ago, he dated a woman from the city’s South Side and spent a lot of time exploring the community. Now Lowenstein, a TED Fellow and member of the NOOR photography collective, lives in the neighborhood h...

As a physician and epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin didn't think he had much to contribute to the conversation about gun violence in America. But then he began to realize something -- that outbreaks of violence follow the same patterns as outbreaks of tuberculosis, cholera and AIDS, all of which he'd worked on reversing during a decade in Somali...

This session was all about cities. From speakers parsing the cycles of violence in them, to those thinking far outside the box on what they could look like, read up on these ideas for cities. Robert Muggah is troubled by our cities. Not urban success stories like Shanghai and Seoul, but those that he calls “fragile cities,” quickly urbani...

Leslie Morgan Steiner thought that she’d found true love in her early 20s. Instead, she found herself married to a man who repeatedly pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her. In today’s brave talk, given at TEDxRainier, Steiner tells the story of how she -- a Harvard-educated magazine editor turned businesswoman -- fell into ...

Award-winning photojournalist Boniface Mwangi captured the 2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya unflinchingly through the lens of his camera. But the horrors he witnessed propelled him into a new career as an activist and artist. Here, Mwangi talks to the TED Blog about the events that led him to stand up against injustice, literally, r...

On Tuesday night, PBS and TED joined forces to air TED Talks Education, a one-hour televised special, featuring passionate teachers, students and researchers from the field who shared their ideas about transforming the US education system. We were so inspired by these spirited speakers that we asked them to curate playlists of their favorite...

The weekend before last, we joined hundreds of New Yorkers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first-ever TEDx event at a museum: TEDxMet. The speakers included Nobel-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel, artist Maira Kalman, legendary choreographer Bill T. Jones, and writer Andrew Solomon. The day was peppered with stunning music and danc...

In 2006, Tarana Burke was consumed by a desire to do something about the rampant sexual violence she saw in her community. She took out a piece of paper, wrote "Me Too" across the top and laid out an action plan for a movement centered on the power of empathy between survivors -- a movement that could open up the possibility of healing. W...

He is a part of you. Whether you are close or not, whether he was a constant part of your life or not, he impacted who you are today. You love him – except maybe when you can’t stand him. For better or worse, he is your dad. Celebrate this Father’s Day with these nine TED Talks about the importance of dads. From what Steve Addis did to maintai...

In October 2016, a group gathered in San Francisco for the TEDWomen 2016 conference, this year themed around the idea of time. One talk was given by Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger, who took the stage to share a story that took place in 1996, when Stranger raped Elva, then his girlfriend. The talk had a powerful effect on the audience in the room,...

When we started TEDWomen in 2010, we felt strongly that we wanted to include a series of talks we called “Duets” in which we would forego the traditional TED Talk model and present pairs of speakers instead of solo ones. There is no question that the Duets sessions are often among the most popular and provocative. One such talk, given ...

Like so many people in the United States, we were shocked by George Zimmerman’s acquittal this weekend in the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin, above. And, like so many others, we can’t stop reading about it, to try to understand the complexities of this verdict -- wrapped around issues of race, gender, gun ownership and violence. Below, furt...

Are people born violent, or is violence something learned? And what can be done to keep human beings from harming one another? These are questions on our minds as Congress debates gun control measures. Today’s episode of TED Radio dives into this dark end of human nature. In this episode – the fifth in season two --  psychologist Philip Zimba...

Yana Buhrer Tavanier, speaking at the TEDGlobal 2011 TED Fellows Talks, Monday, July 11, 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo: James Duncan Davidson / TED Somi, singer + cultural activist: Raised in Zambia, living in New York, vocalist and songwriter Somi and her ensemble wake the TED Fellows Talks session into the rhythm of the day with ...