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The cranes at the Oakland Seaport are far more than just industrial landmarks we see as we drive by on Highway 880. In his 2025 book, “The Pacific Circuit,” journalist Alexis Madrigal explored how they are testaments to the powers of globalization, with international shipping a key force that shifted our culture during the 20th century and left an imprint on a key port like Oakland.
Madrigal has lived in the Bay Area for the better part of 20 years. He has covered the region in reporting for a variety of media, gaining a broad perspective on the area and the many forces shaping it.
He will appear Nov. 12 in a discussion at Stanford University in conversation with humanities professor and journalist Adrian Daub.
In a very different way, Stanford has had its own transformative effect on the Peninsula, and Bay Area in general. While Stanford’s main “export” is students who make their careers all over the globe, as a center of learning and thought, there’s a wealth of ideas that sometimes need a helping hand out of the ivory tower to find wider audiences. Stanford Public Humanities aims to offer that help, said Natalie Jabbar, the program’s associate director.
The program works with academics at any stage in their careers, from a freshman to a professor emeritus.
The program’s central aim, she said, is “How do we help them learn how to translate their work and their ideas for the public sphere, for an audience beyond the academy, for somebody who’s not a colleague in their subfield who has the same set of jargon and the same interests, but for a broad and diverse audience that could really learn from or be inspired by their work — whether it’s medieval studies or environmental humanities or the sociology of immigration.”
Stanford Public Humanities got started around 2020 and has seen over 5,000 attendees to its various events, as well as offering seed grants to Stanford faculty. Over 50 grants have funded everything from exhibitions to digital tools to documentaries.
Madrigal will appear at Stanford Public Humanities’ flagship speaker series, called “What is a Public Intellectual Today?” As Jabbar notes, and the title implies, there isn’t a set rubric or definition for the idea. Previous talks in the series have featured, among others, poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib, writer and educator Tressie McMillan Cottom, writer Jia Tolentino and essayist and novelist Alexander Chee. Jabbar notes that Madrigal will be the series’ first speaker from the Bay Area.
Madrigal has a long background in journalism, including work at WIRED and as editor-in-chief of Fusion. He co-hosts KQED’s current affairs show Forum and is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, where he was a co-creator of the COVID Tracking Project. He is also the author of the book “Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology.”
Asked for his own thoughts on the term, “public intellectual,” and what guests can expect from the Nov. 12 talk, Madrigal said via email: “Well, I was raised by a Mexican intellectual, who saw cultural, political, and social life as deeply intertwined. When I think of my own role in this world, I see myself as a connector between different types of people and different networks of ideas. There are so many brilliant people and projects out in this world and so many people who are hungry for that kind of sustenance. Maybe I aid in that discovery process.
I think audiences can expect a wide-ranging conversation that connects topics and ideas that had previously been in distinct spheres. And they can expect brilliance from my conversation partner, Adrian Daub, who I have had the pleasure of interviewing about his work, too.”
Ahead of his appearance at Stanford, Madrigal answered some questions about his work and life in the Bay Area.
Embarcadero Media: What brought you to the Bay Area? How long have you lived here?
Alexis Madrigal: The first time, I came for work. I moved to San Francisco in 2004 for a job, which I hated, so I quit. That sent me out of the city for a few years. When I came back in 2007, it was for love. I met my now-wife in Seattle and she was moving to San Francisco, so I tagged along. Outside of a terrible 18 months in Washington, DC, I’ve been here ever since.
Embarcadero Media: You have covered the Bay Area in a variety of media, including in books, podcasts, your One Good Thing newsletter. How has that work shaped your perspective on the Bay Area? What have you learned about the region that surprises you?
Madrigal: I think I’m deeply aware of the eccentricity of the land and the water. This is not just any place on earth. We’re the opening of the largest estuary on the Pacific coast of the Americas. We’re a node in the tectonic system of the globe. And most of the capital G Great things that have come out of this place are a result of our position between the rest of the USA and Asia. From the great efflorescence of Bay Area culture in the 50s through the 1970s to the technology industry that defines us today, we are in the lucky position of straddling continents.
Embarcadero Media: You’re a co-owner of the Oakland community space Local Economy. How did that project come about? How has the space evolved?
Madrigal: I am! Local Economy was our response, I think, to the sense that the planet is in crisis. On that scale, we are helpless. But as every AI must have its data center, we all experience the world through one specific set of coordinates, one patch of land. So: we could start here and now to build local resilience by creating a community hub. And that’s what we’ve been doing. We moved into a vacant storefront a little over a year ago. We’ve done 200 events. Thousands of people have come through. And we are supported by an incredible crew of 700 members. It’s a dream project and a model that I think has real potential across the region and country.
Embarcadero Media: What projects do you have in the works?
Madrigal: For a while, I was working on a short book about trail running and phenomenology, based around a run I did between Mt. Diablo in the East Bay and Mt Tam (about 58 miles, the way I did it). But most recently, I’ve been working on a new piece of fiction — my first writing love — that I plan to publish with a still-under-wraps project by novelist (and good friend) Robin Sloan.
Embarcadero Media: Anything else you would like to mention?
Madrigal: Any time you get the chance, it’s important to shine the light on other people’s creative work. And I just read a jaw-droopingly brilliant novel, “Female Life on Planet Earth,” by Laleh Khadivi, who teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco. It is (nominally) a book about mothers and daughters, but it reminds me most of David Foster Wallace’s book, “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.” We get to listen in on a series of fascinating, hilarious, and shocking conversations, mostly between women. Khadivi’s book is deep, real, and if it was about a different topic, reviewers would be falling all over themselves to call it “a novel of ideas.” So let me say: that’s precisely what it is, as well as the most inventive, unusual, and powerful book I’ve read in a long, long time.
Stanford Public Humanities presents Alexis Madrigal in conversation with Adrian Daub, Nov. 12, 6:30-8 p.m., free; at Tresidder Union, 459 Lagunita Drive, Stanford; events.stanford.edu
