Sarah Kaminsky tells the extraordinary story of her father Adolfo and his activity during World War II -- using his ingenuity and talent for forgery to save lives.
At Camp Diva, Angela Patton works to help young girls and their fathers stay connected and become part of each others' lives. But what about girls whose fathers can't be there -- because they're in jail? Patton tells the story of a very special father-daughter dance.
Aristophanes, often referred to as the Father of Comedy, wrote the world's earliest surviving comic dramas. They're stuffed full of parodies, songs, sexual jokes and surreal fantasy -- and they've shaped how comedy's been written and performed ever since. Mark Robinson shares a brief history of Aristophanes. [TED-Ed Animation by Anton Bogaty].
In 2011 Ronnie Cahana suffered a severe stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome: completely paralyzed except for his eyes. While this might shatter a normal person’s mental state, Cahana found peace in “dimming down the external chatter,” and “fell in love with life and body anew.” In a somber, emotional talk, his daughter Kitra shares how ...
Nicole Paris was raised to be a beatboxer -- when she was young, her father, Ed Cage, used to beatbox her to sleep at night. Now the duo is known for their beatbox battles and jam sessions, which mix classic rap beats with electronic dance sounds. Prepare yourself for a bit of a hip-hop history lesson, and enjoy the show.
A long time ago in New York City, Steve Addis stood on a corner holding his 1-year-old daughter in his arms; his wife snapped a photo. The image has inspired an annual father-daughter ritual, where Addis and his daughter pose for the same picture, on the same corner, each year. Addis shares 15 treasured photographs from the series, and explores ...
As a father of four, Dwight Stitt believes that family connection is everything. In this heartfelt talk, Stitt shares his own hardships of fatherhood in the wake of divorce. Determined to maintain strong bonds with his children, he imparts a collection of lessons that he hopes will keep all dads -- divorced or not -- deeply connected to their kids.
Euclid, known as the "Father of Geometry," developed several of modern geometry's most enduring theorems--but what can we make of his mysterious fifth postulate, the parallel postulate? Jeff Dekofsky shows us how mathematical minds have put the postulate to the test and led to larger questions of how we understand mathematical principles. [Direc...
Join Rev. James Forbes at the dinner table of his Southern childhood, where his mother and father taught him what compassion really means day to day -- sharing with those who need love.
Nathaniel Kahn shares clips from his documentary "My Architect," about his quest to understand his father, the legendary architect Louis Kahn. It's a film with meaning to anyone who seeks to understand the relationship between art and love.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about what we can learn from American presidents, including Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson. Then she shares a moving memory of her own father, and of their shared love of baseball.
Lakshmi Pratury remembers the lost art of letter-writing and shares a series of notes her father wrote to her before he died. Her short but heartfelt talk may inspire you to set pen to paper, too.
If you’re raised on dogma and hate, can you choose a different path? Zak Ebrahim was just seven years old when his father helped plan the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His story is shocking, powerful and, ultimately, inspiring.
Colin Grant has spent a lifetime navigating the emotional landscape between his father’s world and his own. Born in England to Jamaican parents, Grant draws on stories of shared experience within his immigrant community -- and reflects on how he found forgiveness for a father who rejected him.
Why is it so hard to find female superhero merchandise? In this passionate, sparkling talk, media studies scholar (and father of a Star Wars-obsessed daughter) Christopher Bell addresses the alarming lack of female superheroes in the toys and products marketed to kids -- and what it means for how we teach them about the world.
Twenty years after the death of her father, famed Brazilian architect Roger Zmekhol, filmmaker Denise Zmekhol returned to her home country to learn more about how he brought mid-century modern design to Brazil and to see his celebrated "Pele de Vidro" (Skin of Glass) building. She tells the story of the building's complicated history and its fate.
With endearing honesty and vulnerability, Raghava KK tells the colorful tale of how art has taken his life to new places, and how life experiences in turn have driven his multiple reincarnations as an artist -- from cartoonist to painter, media darling to social outcast, and son to father.
Kakenya Ntaiya made a deal with her father: She would undergo a traditional Maasai rite of passage, female circumcision, if he would let her go to high school. Ntaiya tells the fearless story of continuing on to college, and of working with her village elders to build a school for girls in her community, changing the destiny of 125 young women.
Each father and mother pass down traits to their children, who inherit combinations of their dominant or recessive alleles. But how do we know so much about genetics today? Hortensia Jiménez Díaz explains how studying pea plants revealed why you may have blue eyes. [Directed by Johan Sonestedt and Veronica Wallenberg, narrated by Rose Eveleth].
Nicole Wilson was 5 years old when she first realized that her father, a former professional football player and grade school teacher, gave bad advice. While she steered clear of his words of "wisdom" as a kid, as an adult she began to see an upside. In this fun, personal talk, she explains how a lifetime of bad advice taught her how to trust he...
After witnessing the "violent rage" shown by babies whenever deprived of an item they considered their own, Jean Piaget – a founding father of child psychology – observed something profound about human nature: Our sense of ownership emerges incredibly early. But why do we become so attached to things? Christian Jarrett details the psychology of ...
When Ma Shwe Sin Win (Cynthia) received a LinkedIn request from her father, she ignored it – because she didn't realize it was from him. Forced into the Western first and last name format, her father's Burmese name transformed into something she didn't even recognize. In this playful talk, Ma Shwe Sin Win reflects on naming practices, and thinks...
Paula Stone Williams knew from a young age that she was transgender. But as she became a parent and prominent evangelical pastor, she feared that coming out would mean losing everything. In this moving, deeply personal talk, Paula and her son Jonathan Williams share what Paula's transition meant for their family -- and reflect on their path to r...
Most of us know Bruce Lee as the famous martial artist and action film star -- but he was also a philosopher who taught "self-actualization": the practice of how to be yourself in the best way possible. In this inspiring talk, Bruce's daughter Shannon Lee takes us inside the mind of her father, exploring how to use his philosophy in your daily l...
As the child of an Afghan mother and Pakistani father raised in Norway, Deeyah Khan knows what it's like to be a young person stuck between your community and your country. In this powerful, emotional talk, the filmmaker unearths the rejection and isolation felt by many Muslim kids growing up in the West -- and the deadly consequences of not emb...
Imagine a country where girls must sneak out to go to school, with deadly consequences if they get caught learning. This was Afghanistan under the Taliban, and traces of that danger remain today. 22-year-old Shabana Basij-Rasikh runs a school for girls in Afghanistan. She celebrates the power of a family's decision to believe in their daughters ...
Desperate to escape his tyrannical father and the family curse he feels doomed to repeat, Haruki Murakami's teenage protagonist renames himself "Kafka" after his favorite author and runs away from home. So begins "Kafka on the Shore"— an epic literary puzzle filled with time travel, hidden histories and magical underworlds. Iseult Gillespie dive...
Albert Camus grew up surrounded by violence. His homeland of Algeria was mired in conflict. He lost his father in World War I. Seeing World War II's devastation, Camus grew despondent. What was the meaning behind all this endless bloodshed and suffering? And if the world was meaningless, could our individual lives still hold value? Nina Medvinsk...
When journalist Mariana Atencio was seven, her father sent her from her home in Venezuela to a summer camp in Brainerd, Minnesota. Unsurprisingly, she was treated like an outsider. Over the course of many more such camps and a senior year in an American high school, she discovered that the best way to belong was to embrace the qualities that mad...
A husband and wife were in despair. The woman had just given birth to their 13th child, and the growing family was quickly running out of food and money. Wandering into the woods, the father encountered a skeletal figure with sunken eyes and a gaunt face: this was Death himself, come to offer his services as Godfather. Iseult Gillespie tells the...