Past Events

The news cycle moves quicker than ever these days, and there are plenty of podcasts to help you keep up with it. What sometimes gets lost, though, is the deeper understanding of how our political system works, and how you can become more involved in it. Watch this panel of political podcasters for a discussion on how they produce shows aimed at breaking down barriers, fostering civic engagement, and helping listeners learn more about how politics and government really work. **Please excuse the audio quality; we had to rely on back up audio equipment** Photo: [Oppose Betsy DeVos Protest, Washington, DC USA Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA [CC]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2017.01.29_Oppose_Betsy_DeVos_Protest,_Washington,_DC_USA_00225_(31748277304).jpg)

Naomi Klein is an award-winning, internationally bestselling author and journalist. For two decades she has chronicled the economic war waged on people and the planet. Harvard Book Store describes Klein as, "an unapologetic champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with justice at its center. In lucid, elegant dispatches from the frontlines of contemporary natural disaster, she pens surging, indispensable essays for a wide public." Her latest book, _On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal_ gathers more than a decade of her writing and pairs it with new material on the high stakes of our immediate political and economic choices. Klein is joined by Juliet B. Schor, Boston College professor and former Guggenheim fellow. This event was co-sponsored by [350 Mass](https://350mass.betterfutureproject.org/), [Cambridge Forum](https://www.cambridgeforum.org/), [The Intercept](https://theintercept.com/), [The Leap](https://theleap.org/), and [Sunrise Movement](https://www.sunrisemovement.org/). Image: Book Cover

Peddocks Island, a series of drowned drumlins, is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park. It's currently the largest of the 34 Boston Harbor Islands that is open to the public. Home to historic Fort Andrews, walking tours, geological features, and archaeological sites, the island is in the midst of an exciting redevelopment planning process led by Boston Harbor Now with the National Park Service and the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Cheri Ruane of Weston & Sampson Design Studio, lead consultant for the island’s development plan, and Alice Brown of Boston Harbor Now, discuss fascinating highlights of the island’s past, present, and future. This lecture is part of the series The Boston Harbor Islands - Resilience and Change, co-presented by Friends of the Boston Harbor Islands and Old South Meeting House and co-sponsored by Boston Harbor Now. Image: [Pubic Domain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peddocks_Island#/media/File:Ft_Andrews_Aerial_1932.jpg)

The annual revenue of Koch Industries is bigger than that of Goldman Sachs, Facebook, and U.S. Steel combined. Koch is everywhere: from the fertilizers that make our food, to the chemicals that make our pipes, to the synthetics that make our carpets and diapers, to the Wall Street trading in all these commodities. But few people know much about Koch Industries and that’s because the billionaire Koch brothers want it that way. Christopher Leonard, author of _Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America_, discusses the hidden role of Koch Industries in American life. Image: Book Cover

Presidential campaigns are some of the fastest growing startup cultures in existence - doing more with less and scaling faster than ever both with talent, technology, and digital efforts. Deepfakes, foreign election meddling, and other incidents have highlighted how cutting-edge technology might be harming our democratic process...but it’s also helping. Political campaigns on both sides are extraordinarily digitally savvy, using all means of technology available to learn about and reach voters, but also scaling to grow to an ever-changing daily campaign grind. Four talented Democrat and Republican operatives who are deeply involved in the 2020 election cycle at the highest level will discuss how a startup mentality influences a campaign, the current state of data-driven campaigning, and new tools they are using in 2020 for the first time. Image by [Gerd Altmann](https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=426559) on pixabay.com

Setsuko Thurlow, a native of Hiroshima, describes her journey from atomic bomb survivor to nuclear disarmament advocate. In 2017, she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which had spearheaded efforts to achieve a treaty banning nuclear weapons. This event accompanies the photo exhibition “From the Atomic Bomb to the Nobel Peace Prize”, which illustrates the impact of nuclear weapons and recent progress toward their elimination from a humanitarian point of view. **On WGBH News** » [**'It's Not Just Abstraction. It Happened.' An Atomic Bomb Survivor Shares Her Story**](https://www.wgbh.org/news/international-news/2019/11/07/its-not-just-abstraction-it-happened-an-atomic-bomb-survivor-shares-her-story) Bonnie Docherty provides introductory remarks on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the International Human Rights Clinic’s role in negotiating obligations to assist victims of nuclear weapons use and testing and to remediate contaminated environments. Docherty directs the Clinic’s Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative. Organized by the Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative. Co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program, HLS Advocates for Human Rights, and Hibakusha Stories/Youth Arts New York. Image: Courtesy of Photographer [Ari Beser](http://www.instagram.com/aribeser/)

Regardless of any cell’s size, its components (organelles) are always proportional. Scientists do not know how size of cells and their organelles are determined. Cells just self-assemble effortlessly. Biophysicist Jané Kondev discusses this mystery –one of the most challenging in Nature– and how scientists try to unravel the cell’s self-assembly code. Image: [Belmont Media Center](http://www.scienceforthepublic.org/life/cell-architecture-self-organization-and-scaling)

The title of Dr. Gary Dorrien's talk is The Social Gospel in Black and White, Then and Now: Imagining Economic Democracy, Breaking White Supremacy. Dorrien's most recent book is Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism, published in April 2019 by Yale University Press. His next book, In a Post-Hegelian Spirit: Philosophical Theology as Idealistic Discontent, will be published in 2020 by Yale University Press, and he is currently completing a book on the history of American democratic socialism. Image: Speaker Image

Each year since 2014, the Human Rights Campaign has awarded Worcester a perfect score for being an LGBTQ+ inclusive city. This assessment is based largely on legal and employment protections. A community conversation moderated by Professor Stephanie Yuhl explores what additional concrete initiatives Worcester civic leaders and community members might pursue to enhance the lives of LGBTQ+ residents. How might the needs, hopes, and aspirations of the city’s LGBTQ+ community enhance Worcester’s recently released 10-year Cultural Plan? Panelists include LGBTQ+ leaders from neighboring cities Providence and Boston, as well as Worcester City leadership. Image: Event Photo via [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/lgbtqinthewoo/photos/gm.970977596593174/1198616457010356/?type=3&theater)

Mass migration, and the problems associated with it, have directly abetted the rise of populist parties in Europe. Opposition to immigration was the prime driver of support for Brexit, it brought a far-right party to the German Bundestag for the first time since the 1950s, and propelled Marine Le Pen to win a third of the vote in the French presidential election. In addition to calling for stronger borders, however, these parties are invariably illiberal, anti-American, anti-NATO and pro-Kremlin, making their rise a matter of serious concern for the national security interests of the United States. Vivien A. Schmidt is a professor of Political Science at Boston University, as well as Founding Director of BU’s Center for the Study of Europe. She will speak on the rise of Populism in Europe and the impacts across the world. Image: [Pexels](http://www.pexels.com/photo/blue-and-yellow-round-star-print-textile-113885/)