Amherst College Events Multimedia Podcast

Higher education in America is now a $420 billion-per-year business and the education of young adults no longer seems to be its primary goal. Listen to Andrew Hacker ’51 and fellow Amherst alum and Columbia University professor David Helfand ’72 discuss the realities and failures of today’s colleges and universities.

Listen to author Ted Conover and fellow alum Cullen Murphy discuss how, from ancient Rome to the present, roads have played a crucial role in human life, advancing civilization even as they set it back.

Not all cells are created equal. Most live their lives as components of organs and tissues, locked into a given role, unable to change identity. But stem cells are different. Truly exceptional, these chameleon-like agents, programmed to transition from one cell type to others, are progenitors of all the body’s tissues and organs.

"This is one of the great game-changers of the era in which we live." According to David Kirkpatrick '75, Facebook is "a global phenomenon of a type we've almost never seen before," with over 500 million users worldwide and more signing up every day. David, with classmate and journalist Jim Kennedy, discuss where it came from, where it's going and how it's changing the way we live. Kirkpatrick is joined by Jim Kennedy '75, vice president and director of strategic planning for The Associated Press.

"Amateurs wait for the Muse to arrive; the rest of us just get to work." Best-selling Amherst novelists Scott Turow and Harlan Coben compare notes on book titles, the best times of day to write and the motivational power of artificial deadlines.

Ted Lee talks with '93 classmate and fellow foodie Jenny Rosenstrach about the culture of southern cooking and how his time at Amherst inspired a love for writing and a distaste for balsamic vinaigrette.

Stanley Rabinowitz and his former student, poet and translator Matthew Zapruder '89, discuss their mutual past unfamiliarity with the world of classical dance — a world brought to life through the intellect and passion of Russian scholar and dance critic Akim Volynsky.

Class of 1968 alums Dan Goleman and Nils Bruzelius talk about the need to get the word out about the ecological impact of the products we buy and consume, which is greatly facilitated by the Internet. (See links below.) Their hope is that better informed consumers will make more enlightened choices.

Adrian Althoff '04 credits the College with encouraging him to take risks and pursue bold projects, including traveling to Bolivia to research his senior thesis, where he discovered the author whose work he now translates.

Addressing a gathering of alumni in Washington DC, Joseph Stiglitz talks about his latest book, Freefall: the World Economy and the Great Recession, which explains the current financial crisis and the coming global economic world order. Drawing on his academic expertise, his years spent shaping policy in the Clinton administration and at the World Bank, and his more recent role as head of a UN commission charged with reforming the global financial system, Stiglitz outlines a way forward building on ideas that he has championed his entire career: restoring the balance between markets and government, addressing the inequalities of the global financial system, and demanding more good ideas (and less ideology) from economists.

As the world’s best-known playwright, Shakespeare has found his way into the lives of people far removed from his homeland and his native tongue. The dramatist who wrote for a theatre called the Globe now belongs in cultures as different as those of Germany, India and Japan—not to mention the United States, thanks in no small part to Amherst’s own Henry Clay Folger. But what qualities of Shakespeare’s works can account for such global mobility? And what light does their translation and adaptation shed on the opposing forces of cultural persistence and change? My examples will include current productions such as Young Jean Lee’s Lear and As You Like It directed by Sam Mendes, but participants are encouraged to discuss their own experiences of Shakespeare worldwide on page, stage and screen.

As military recruiters visit Amherst Professor Martha Umphrey leads a duscission on current controversies surrounding the military’s "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy, which prohibits openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the armed forces.

The latest installation of the Amherst College Telephone Lecture Series

In this interview, Margie Stohl and her former professor Barry O'Connell blur the lines between literary sub-genres and discuss the magical and mutually destructive process of co-authorship.

As part of the Amherst Connects: The Telephone Lecture Series, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science and Five College Fortieth Anniversary Professor Austin Sarat discusses "Is the Death Penalty Dying?"