The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau

A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.

Astra Taylor

The fight for democracy is a fight for the future. We can choose to retreat into fear—or build a shared world rooted in solidarity.

Award-Winning Author, End Times Fascism and The People's Platform | Director, Examined Life and What Is Democracy?

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Lavin Exclusive Speaker

Astra Taylor is an award-winning author and organizer whose work connects democracy, economic insecurity, technology, and social movements. She’s the director of What Is Democracy? and co-founder of the Debt Collective, which has brought the debate around debt cancellation into the mainstream. In her latest book, End Times Fascism (co-written with Naomi Klein), she examines how authoritarian movements have created a politics of fear and survival for the few—and how we can create a new politics rooted in protecting our shared world, our shared future, and one another. In powerful keynotes, Astra helps audiences connect the crises shaping our daily lives and see how solidarity can become the basis for democratic renewal and a shared future worth fighting for.

“This might be the most important book you read. Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor have managed to brilliantly organize this terrifying world into a clear, completely understandable vision of potential apocalypses while simultaneously showing us how to fight for the beauty and wonder of here, and for each other.”—V (formerly Eve Ensler)

Astra Taylor is a writer, filmmaker, and political organizer who was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and raised in Athens, Georgia. In the words of The New Yorker: “Astra Taylor has a résumé that defies the notion of résumé building.”

Astra is the director of numerous acclaimed philosophical documentaries, including Examined Life and What Is Democracy? Today, Astra is a frequent contributor to outlets including The New York Times, The New Republic, and The Guardian, where she comments on politics, philosophy, economics, technology, and social movements. She is on the editorial teams of Lux Magazine and Hammer & Hope.

Her numerous books include Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone (2019) and the American Book Award winner The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (2014). In 2023 she was the CBC Massey Lecturer, Canada’s most venerable annual lecture series. The talks resulted in the national bestseller The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, which was shortlisted for the 2024 Governor General’s Award for English-language non-fiction and a finalist for the 2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Her next book, Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea (2024), co-written with Leah Hunt-Hendrix, was a finalist for the 2025 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She is also the co-author of End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World, co-written with the acclaimed author and activist Naomi Klein.

In 2014, Astra co-founded the Debt Collective, an experimental union of debtors. The group has put debt cancelation on the American political agenda and secured billions of dollars in student loan relief for millions of borrowers.

In 2024, Astra was awarded the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award. She has also been a Shuttleworth Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow. She was also a touring member of the band Neutral Milk Hotel.

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Speech Topics

Politics & Current Events

End Times FascismAnd the Fight for the Living World

Christian nationalists, Silicon Valley reactionaries, and ethno-nationalist movements share a common worldview: rather than trying to prevent social and ecological collapse, many are preparing for a future of escalating disasters and chaos.

Drawing on her work on democracy, technology, and economics—as well as her latest book End Times Fascism (co-written with Naomi Klein)—Astra Taylor examines the far-right coalition that is determined to accelerate the disasters plaguing us, convinced they will be safe no matter what happens. She also puts this coalition into historical perspective, revealing how the contradictions within this alliance create an opening for a different politics: one rooted in protecting our shared world, our shared future, and one another.

Astra will help audiences connect the dots, revealing the way reactionary politics feed off the very real crises now roiling our world. A veteran organizer with deep experience in movements for social change, she will also illuminate the steps that can be taken to solve those underlying crises and create the equitable future we need and deserve. A new “pro life” movement rooted in an appreciation of the beauty of this singular fragile world is already beginning to take shape.

Politics & Current Events

From Insecurity to Solidarity

These days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn’t working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on?

In this urgent cultural diagnosis, author and activist Astra Taylor exposes how seemingly disparate crises—rising inequality and declining mental health, the ecological emergency, artificial intelligence and the threat of authoritarianism—originate from a social order built on insecurity. From home ownership and education to the wellness industry and policing, many of the institutions and systems that promise to make us more secure actually function to undermine our individual and collective well-being.

Mixing social critique, history, political analysis, philosophy, and personal anecdotes, this wide-ranging talk rethinks both insecurity and security from the ground up, while showing we have more in common than we are often led to believe. By facing our existential insecurity and embracing our vulnerability, Astra argues, we can transform our fears into solidarity and find new better ways to weather the challenges ahead. This talk will transform how listeners understand themselves and society—while illuminating a path toward meaningful change.