Hear author Peter B. Kaufman discuss why video has become the dominant medium of human communication in his new book, The Moving Image: A User’s Manual. Kaufman explains how the moving image—not social media, not A.I., but TV networks and online video—has played such an outsized role in bringing personalities like Trump, Putin, Modi, and Netanyahu to the front of the world stage. These observations should raise public concerns about power across all communication industries. “If freedom involves participation in power, we are losing our grip on both. And that grip will disappear entirely if we let go of our control over the moving image,” says Kaufman.

Join the democratic fray at this special mid-day program, where Gen Z voters will take the stage at Boston’s longtime bastion of free speech and civic action, the Old South Meeting House. Teamed up with visiting lawmakers, we will hear pro and con sides to the question of whether the legal voting age in the U.S. should be lowered—locally, statewide, and/or nationally.

As is the tradition for Revolutionary Spaces events, the audience will be encouraged to clap, thump, stomp, and “Huzzah!” their approval for the arguments presented—with respectful “Fies!” in opposition—followed by a lively Q & A.

Serving as debate moderator is Alexi Cohan, Digital Producer for GBH News and lead on Politics IRL , an ongoing series looking at politics from the Gen Z perspective.

This event is a collaboration between the GBH News Politics team, Suffolk University and its Congress to Classroom program, and Revolutionary Spaces.

This event is free and open to the public thanks in part to the generous support of the Lowell Institute. This program will be recorded by GBH Forum Network for later viewing. Doors will open at 12:00 pm and the program will begin at 12:30 pm.

In 1816, Francis Cabot Lowell was in Washington DC lobbying Congress to pass the first protectionist tariff in American history. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, the burgeoning cotton textile industry he had fought so hard to build was imperiled by the cheap dumping of British imports. By building a coalition between Northern industrialists and Southern plantation owners, Lowell was successful in arguing that tariffs would ensure that American domestic manufacturing should be protected, and that the federal government’s trade policy had a duty to so.

Now, tariffs are back in the political conversation, and the efforts around the Tariff of 1816 and its consequences are as relevant as ever. Join us as we engage in a dynamic conversation connecting the past, present, and future of tariffs and trade policy and their effects. Economist Bryan Snyder and historian Larry Peskin will draw lessons from American history to inform our understanding of economic policy today.

Lawrence Peskin is a professor of History at Morgan State University in Baltimore. He specializes in antebellum political economy and has written extensively on pro-manufacturing protectionism, most recently on American business and diplomacy in the Mediterranean. His books include Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of American Industry (Johns Hopkins University Press; Matthew Carey, The New Olive Branch (Anthem Press, editor); Three Consuls: Capitalism, Empire and the Rise and Fall of America's Mediterranean Community, 1776-1840."

Professor Snyder is a Distinguished Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Bentley University. His teaching interests cover a wide scope of economics, economic history and political economy. His current writing and research activities focus on the editing and production of the classroom readers Real World Micro (31st edition), Real World Macro (41st edition) and Economic of the Environment (4th edition) for Dollars & Sense magazine.

Join Our Bodies Ourselves Today and Ford Hall Forum for a book talk with author Alice Rothchild. Hear about the journey of a 1950s good girl to an irreverent, feisty, feminist physician.

'Inspired and Outraged' is the intimate memoir of Alice Rothchild from her adolescence to her mid-40s and the experiences that contributed to her passion and power as a doctor, an activist, and a woman. Compiling stories of her life in verse, Rothchild explores the events of her childhood, her training as an obstetrician-gynecologist, and her discovery of feminism as a guiding force in her life.

Rothchild’s voice encapsulates her perseverance in the face of the male-dominated medical world and the shifting sexual politics of the late twentieth century. This memoir is both a record of the past and an urgent call to action.

She'll be in conversation with Amy Agigian, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Suffolk University (Boston), where she is the founding director of the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights. She also serves as executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves at Suffolk University. 

Amy Agigian, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Suffolk University (Boston), where she is the founding director of the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights. She also serves as executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves at Suffolk University.

Are we on the brink of a new and irreversible epoch; one that signals the end of democratic civilization as we have known it? Hard right political groups like Germany’s AfD party, which has roots in Nazi ideology, have celebrated Trump’s second term along with other extreme European politicians like Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban who announced that he had “downed vodka” in celebration of Trump’s win.

Cambridge Forum has invited three experts to consider the current political situation, from a US and global perspective. Richard Seymour, a writer and broadcaster from Northern Ireland, has been watching the disturbing political developments in Europe and elsewhere; his latest book, Disaster Nationalism, analyzes the roots, influencers and threats that this global shift poses.
Sasha Abramsky, political journalist and writing lecturer at UC Davis, is a correspondent for The Nation magazine. Last week, he summarized the chaotic situation in Washington for The Nation “Trump’s win is a boon to the far right in Europe and beyond. There are certain basic things that an administration is supposed to do in a constitutional democracy, first and foremost is abiding by the law, not physically endangering political opponents and funding government services.”
Michelle Lynn Kahn is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Richmond where she examines post-1945 Germany and Europe in a global and transnational frame focusing on racism, far-right extremism, gender and migration.
This week, Elon Musk and his “unelected, unvetted and without federal government clearance” team wreaked havoc in government offices in the Capitol, to obtain access to sensitive personal data of all U.S. citizens. Is this assault on our democratic system the beginning of the end?

Michelle Lynn Kahn is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Richmond where she examines post-1945 Germany and Europe in a global and transnational frame focusing on racism, far-right extremism, gender and migration.

Sasha Abramsky is a widely published freelance journalist. The author of ten books, he is the Western States correspondent for the Nation magazine, and his work has appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Salon, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, the New Statesman and many other publications. His most recent book is Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America. He currently writes a weekly column on the Trump regime, Hiding in Plain Sight, for the Nation.