We’ve reinvented the art of the French salon for the 21st century.
Welcome! We’re a new platform for cozy, interactive online discussions on your favorite topics. We believe in non-hierarchal, respectful, thought-provoking conversations — if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the right place!
We take inspiration from the European salons that defined culture through intimate discussion with contemporaries.
Come connect with thoughtful people from all over the world… it might just change your life.
Attend a salon, become a salon host, and if you’d like to stay around between events, join our global community!
Events
About Us
Interintellect has hosted nearly 2,000 incredible events on topics like science, art, literature, philosophy, and more. Our event hosts and attendees range from well-known public figures to up-and-coming artists, thinkers, leaders, and makers — people just like you.
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Interintellect Event Highlights
SuperSalon
A New Year: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
with James Clear
Author of Atomic Habits
Hosted by: Anne-Laure Le Cunff
*FREE SuperSalon*
Status as a Service: Revisited
with Eugene Wei
Writer of Remains of the Day
Hosted by: Nathan Baschez
Redefine Your Ambition
OnlineAre you striving to live someone else's definition of a good life? When you've got an atypical brain, you got to have atypical ambitions. Too often we unintentionally inherit an idea of a good life from our parents, cultural background, peers, and institutions. But it is always possible to reconnect with what would be most…
The Science of Hidden Motives – With Robin Hanson
OnlineAbout Robin Hanson's book Elephant In the Brain (co-written by Kevin Simler): "Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains are therefore designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to get ahead socially, often by devious means. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The…
When Life Becomes Art: Fireside Chat with Kiubon Kokko (OSV Film-making Fellow)
OnlineIn 2023, Kiubon Kokko was awarded a $100,000 fellowship grant by O'Shaughnessy Ventures to create a feature documentary about his father's 10-12 hour swim from communist China to Hong Kong in 1973. In this salon, Kiubon will talk about what led to him undertake this project: the challenges he and his family faced in the…
DC IRL: October Meetup in Beautiful Old Town Alexandria
Alexandria, VAJoin us for an in-person Interintellect gathering where curiosity leads the way! As fall settles in and the seasons change, it’s the perfect time to come together in beautiful Old Town Alexandria. We’ll kick things off by exploring the themes of seasonality, friendships, and community, but as always, the conversation can go anywhere—from philosophy and…
Western Canon Book Club: Fathers & Sons: Turgenev and the death of liberalism
OnlineWriter Henry Oliver continues the Western Canon Book Club series with a salon about the birth of Romanticism. Turgenev's greatest novel is one of the greatest Russian novels of the nineteenth century. A response to the new generation of nihilists, who saw the world very differently from their liberal fathers, this is a very resonant…
A Return to Self-Compassion – Members’ Fireside with Gina Hafez
OnlineJoin Gina for a return of the Self-Compassion series this October! We will continue discussing Self-Compassion tips, insights, theories and more, diving more deeply into the relationships between Self-Compassion and Performance (physical, career and social!) For our first session, I encourage you to bring a piece of poetry or writing you adore or have written…
Why Foucault Matters – Reading Group with COMPACT’s Sohrab Ahmari and Geoff Shullenberger in NYC!
New York NYThis year marked the 40th anniversary of the death of Michel Foucault, by some measures the most widely cited academic of the past hundred years. Often vilified on the right and celebrated—though arguably poorly understood—on the left, Foucault has cast a shadow over recent debates ranging from gender and sexuality and pandemic policy to policing…
Artificial General Intelligence: A Discussion with Julian Togelius
OnlineJoin host Thomas Arnold with your questions, scenarios, hopes, and fears about AI, as we explore with Julian Togelius author of "Artificial General Intelligence", what the horizon of AI looks like today and what his book might help us notice. Amid so much hype about Artificial General Intelligence (whose arrival is now cast in thousands…
What Happened to Great Stories? – What TV and Literature Should Learn from Each Other
OnlineHollywood screenwriter Michael Sonnenschein, The Common Reader essayist, literary critic, and Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life writer Henry Oliver, and former screenwriter-playwright and now Interintellect founder-CEO Anna Gát lead a discussion on whether humans have lost their storytelling ability thanks to bitesize phone videos and binge-watching streaming services, or instead we're…
Solidarity – Author Talk with Leah Hunt-Hendrix & Astra Taylor | New Labor Book Series #19
OnlineSolidarity is often invoked, but it is rarely analyzed and poorly understood. Leah and Astra together developed the first in-depth examination and intellectual history of solidarity. We will discuss the past, present, and future of the concept across borders of nation, identity, and class to ask: how can we build solidarity in an era of…
Judaism is Psychedelic
OnlineIn this introductory salon, we’ll define key terms like “psychedelic” and “set and setting” in order to show how Jewish wisdom, practices, and narrative can serve as both the container to have an altered experience and the framework through which to prepare for, navigate, and integrate it. Through the Jewish calendar, sacred containers of time,…
Austin IRL: November Meetup in North Austin
Austin, Texas TXJoin hosts Alaka Halder and Benjamin Woosley for a casual meetup at Easy Tiger in North Austin! This Interintellect offline gathering is a casual meetups devoted to open group discussions of the topics that interest participants the most. From philosophy to science and art, there is nothing that escapes our inquiries! Come, forge new friendships,…
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Members Only / Intro Events:
IRL Highlight: Arts and Minds: Conversations in New York – Interintellect x Museum Mile
On-going IRL salons at the Guidepost Museum Mile in New York City on January 8, January 14, and more!
RSVP Today!
Ongoing Series:
Kinderintellect
Krupali Rai and Maria Górska-Piszek
Next event: TBD
Runs every first Monday of the month
Sci-Fi Odyssey: A Tour Through the Great Works of Speculative Fiction
Next event: January 15th
Runs every third Sunday of the month
Media Highlights:
