Past Events

Hear from Flour and Myers+Chang pastry chef/co-owner Joanne Chang and Brato Brewhouse and Kitchen chef/co-owner Jonathan Gilman as they discuss the latest innovations in the restaurant industry. GBH Curiosity Desk’s Edgar B. Herwick III hosts and digs deeper into how these chefs are overcoming challenges and creating exciting new options for food and drink.

Deepening toxic polarization in the United States is a profound threat to the American people and the very core of American Democracy. After 30 years of working around the globe to bring peace and reconciliation to deeply divided societies, Beyond Conflict launched an unprecedented research project in 2018, the Beyond Conflict Polarization Index™, with leading brain and behavioral scientists to assess the psychological factors that fuel polarization. The study found a consistent pattern across measures: Americans incorrectly believe that members of the other party dehumanize, dislike, and disagree with them about twice as much as they actually do. These false perceptions about the other side are correlated with outcomes that are consequential for democracy and represent a new degree of toxic polarization in America. Watch a conversation with Tim Phillips, founder and CEO, Beyond Conflict and Scott Warren, visiting scholar, SNF Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University, moderated by Michal Ben-Joseph Hirsch, assistant professor, Political Science & Legal Studies Department, Suffolk University. Phillips presents the key findings of Beyond Conflict's latest [study](http://beyondconflictint.org/americas-divided-mind/ ) on toxic polarization and discuss potential solutions to depolarize the public space. Image: Beyond Conflict Graphic

Policymakers in many countries are developing plans and funding research in artificial intelligence (AI). Global growth is slowing, and not surprisingly, many policymakers hope that AI will provide a magic solution. The EU, Brazil, and other Western countries have adopted regulations that grant users greater control over their data and require that firms using AI be transparent about how they use it. Will the U.S. follow suit? General John Allen and Dr. Darrell West speak on this complex topic as covered in their recently published book "Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence," looking at the opportunities and risks posed by artificial intelligence.

For parents, few things are as important as their children’s well-being, physically and mentally. The mental health of children has always been an important topic for scientists and policy makers as well. And over the last several months, the COVID pandemic has magnified issues around mental health, bringing them to the forefront of the public’s thinking. The Museum of Science and GBH have convened a panel of experts to discuss the relationship between scientists, doctors, and policy makers as they work together to help create policy that will improve the mental health of children while also dispelling any stigma associated with these issues. Featuring Marjorie Decker, Massachusetts Representative (D-Cambridge); Mathieu Bermingham, MD, Metro West Center for Well Being, and Medical Director of Children Services of Roxbury; and Dr. Philip Wang, MD, D.Ph., Chief of Psychiatry, Cambridge Health Alliance.

Tim LaSalle, a depth psychologist and former CEO of the Rodale Institute, has long followed the innovative work in the regenerative agriculture movement, a farming practice based on greatly improving the soil's biome to achieve a healthy biodiversity and greater food nutrient density while eliminating the need for soil augmentation, artificial or otherwise. As writer and environmental activist Wendell Berry once said, "Eating is an agricultural act." In this talk, Tim will address the barriers to a paradigm change that creates a radical shift in culture, education, policies and consumer patterns created from the way we have farmed for nearly 10,000 years. Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

This talk explores race and voucher discrimination in the Metro Boston housing market. Members of the Suffolk University Law School Housing Discrimination Testing Program—William Berman, Jamie Langowski, Catherine LaRaia, James Matthews, and Ana Vaquerano—will discuss their recent groundbreaking study that uncovered high levels of race and voucher-based housing discrimination in the Boston area and how that research relates to the struggle for racial equity and fair housing. Soni Gupta, Director of Neighborhoods and Housing with The Boston Foundation is the moderator. Image: Pexels.com

Marathon runner and author Kathrine Switzer joins Boston Public Library President David Leonard for this Arc of History: Contested Perspectives conversation. In 1967, Switzer became the first woman to register and run the Boston Marathon. In her book, "Marathon Woman," she describes how she registered to compete, saying, “there was nothing about gender in the marathon. I filled in my AAU number, plunked down $3 cash as entry fee, signed as I always sign my name, 'K.V. Switzer,' and went to the university infirmary to get a fitness certificate.” During the marathon she was accosted by race officials who tried to take away her bib number. As a result of Switzer’s act, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) banned women from competing in races against men until 1972, when the Boston Marathon established an official women's race. Note: The COVID-19 outbreak resulted in the cancellation of the Boston Marathon in April 2020. In its stead, the Boston Athletic Association is hosting a series of virtual events in the second week of September. Learn more: https://www.baa.org/124th-boston-marathon-be-held-virtually _This conversation is part of the esteemed Lowell Lecture Series at the Boston Public library._

The Constitution enshrines, explicitly or implicitly, the right to welcome immigrants -- a political and legal journey that continues to be challenging and complex. Though the American Republic is certainly more democratic than it once was, issues such as discrimination against immigrants (regardless of legal status), as well as the extent to which the President has the power to enact immigration policy such as DACA, continue to raise concerns. Recent Supreme Court decisions, like Trump v. Hawaii (2018) and DHS v. University of California (2020) are indeed thought-provoking. To what extent can the Executive Branch constitutionally enact or terminate immigration programs?

Acclaimed broadcast journalist Pam Fessler writes about the largely forgotten history of leprosy in the United States – its impact on patients and their families, doctors, and, particularly, the swampy bayou town of Carville, Louisiana, where a “leprosarium” was established in 1894. Carville evolved into a nexus for research and “treatment” that came at a huge personal cost to liberty as patients were stripped of their names, their rights, and their dignity. Understood today to be one of the least infectious diseases in the world, leprosy, now called Hansen’s disease, instilled a pandemic-sized level of fear and reaction from public health authorities well into the 20th century. Fessler discusses her chronicle of how America treated, contained, and demonized its sufferers before wiser heads prevailed. This event is presented by American Ancestors/NEHGS together with the Boston Public Library and the State Library of Massachusetts as part of the American Stories, Inspiration Today author series.

Donald Trump frequently cited what he called China's "rape" of the U.S. economy during his 2016 campaign rallies, and as president put half of what China sells to the U.S. under tariffs during his second year in office. But the economic battle between the two largest economies in the world didn’t start with Trump and won’t end with him. How and why have U.S.-China relations sunk so low? And where are they headed? In Superpower Showdown, _Wall Street Journal_ reporters Bob Davis and Lingling Wei trace the route of the trade war from the early 1990s to the January 2020 signing of the phase one deal that signaled a temporary halt to economic hostilities.