cambridgeforum

Are creepy crawlers and unwanted plants deserving of empathy as partners dwelling with us on earth? John Hainze, an entomologist, ethicist and former pesticide-developer calls for greater respect and moral consideration for humans and their natural world.

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández takes a hard look at the immigration prison system’s origins, how it currently operates, and why. It tackles the outsized presence of private prisons and how those on the political right continue, disingenuously, to link immigration imprisonment with national security risks and threats to the rule of law.

This forum features performances by Revels musicians Jake Blount and Libby Weitnauer exploring the history and roots of traditional music of Appalachia.

Can Americans survive without their hamburgers? This juicy question raises many fundamental issues - nutritional, moral and environmental.

Are we living in a post-truth world where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? Lee McIntrye from the Center for Philosophy and History of Science, at Boston University discusses our modern dilemma: FAKE NEWS vs FACTS: Living in a Post-Truth World. Recorded June 12, … Continue reading Fake news vs facts: living in a post-truth world →

Happiness is a choice you make. So writes author John Leland who reflects on the timeless subject in his new book Happiness Is a Choice You  Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old, (based on his New York Times  series.  The question to ponder is: Can we really just  choose to be happy?  

Rebecca Traister, author and NY magazine journalist, examines the history of feminism and the #Metoo movement in the light of recent political events in Washington and beyond. Recorded October 1, 2018 POSTER Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger is an exploration into the transformative power of female anger and its ability to transcend into a political … Continue reading Good and Mad: How Women’s Anger is Reshaping America →

Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee and Paul Tucker, curator of the Monet exhibitions at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts discuss the ways that looking at a work of art can open it up to reveal a rich web of information about the work itself, its maker and the society in which it was created. How does a work of art become meaningful for the beholder? Where can that appreciation lead the ordinary person?

Psychiatrists Steven Southwick of Yale and Dennis Charney of Mount Sinai tell the stories of POWs, 9/11 survivors, and ordinary people with debilitating diseases or grievous personal losses. Weaving together the results of modern neurobiological research and the insights of two decades of clinical work with trauma survivors, Southwick and Charney identify ways to help individuals become more resilient.

The late essayist-physician Oliver Sacks memorably reflected at Cambridge Forum on music and its mysterious relationship to the brain In his book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain,  Sacks argued that music is essential to being human in ways that have only begun to be understood.

The provocative and controversial ex-Greek finance minister of Greece and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, Yanis Varoufakis, considers the need for a radically new way of thinking about the economy, and capitalism.

Biographer Laurence  Bergreen retraces the voyages of Christopher Columbus, placing the 15th century explorer into the context of the Age of Discovery. What were the political, moral, and economic costs of his four voyages? How significant was his achievement in his own time?  What accounts for his lasting fame? Recorded November 2, 2011 [audio:http://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/CF-COLUMBUS-FOUR-VOYAGES.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum COLUMBUS: THE … Continue reading Columbus: The Four Voyages →

Danielle Allen, Director of the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard,  discusses her new memoir “CUZ”. The book documents the events which conspired to cause the untimely death of her young cousin, Michael, on the streets of Los Angeles in 2009. A “deadly double helix” of narcotics and street gangs ultimately entrapped her cousin, as … Continue reading Deadly Double Helix →

Swanee Hunt speaks about her experiences in Rwanda from her new book Rwandan Women Rising which follows the story of the women who worked for peace after the genocide in 1994.  Today 64% of the seats in the Rwandan parliament are held by elected women, a number unrivaled by any other nation. Swanee Hunt chairs the … Continue reading Rwandan Women Rising →

Music and memories from the early days of the Harvard Square folk scene to the current state of the Americana genre. Betsy Siggins, raconteur extraordinaire, recalls her early days at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge, with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Folklorist Millie Rahn joins the conversation, which will be interspersed with live music from  multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Jake Armerding.