Past Events

The 2018 Winter Olympics begins February 9th in Pyeongchang, South Korea. In preparation for the winter games, hear from past Olympian Alice Cook on skating in 1976, Lou Jones on his decade long, photographic coverage of the athletes, and Paul Aronofsky on a curler club started in Boston, MA. Curiosity Desk's Edgar B Herwick III hosts the discussion. (Image: Pexels)

In The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History and Civilizations, literary critic Martin Puchner leads us on a journey through time and around the globe to reveal the role stories and literature have played in creating the world we have today. Puchner introduces us to numerous visionaries as he explores sixteen foundational texts selected from more than four thousand years of world literature and reveals how writing has inspired the rise and fall of empires and nations, the spark of philosophical and political ideas, and the birth of religious beliefs. Indeed, literature has touched the lives of generations and changed the course of history.

At the heart of this book are works, some long-lost and rediscovered, that have shaped civilization: the first written masterpiece, the Epic of Gilgamesh; Ezra’s Hebrew Bible, created as scripture; the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus; and the first great novel in world literature, The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese woman known as Murasaki. Visiting Baghdad, Puchner tells of Scheherazade and the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, and in the Americas we watch the astonishing survival of the Maya epic Popol Vuh.

Cervantes, who invented the modern novel, battles pirates both real (when he is taken prisoner) and literary (when a fake sequel to Don Quixote is published). We learn of Benjamin Franklin’s pioneering work as a media entrepreneur, watch Goethe discover world literature in Sicily, and follow the rise in influence of The Communist Manifesto. We visit Troy, Pergamum, and China, and we speak with Nobel laureates Derek Walcott in the Caribbean and Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul, as well as the wordsmiths of the oral epic Sunjata in West Africa.

Photo: Leonid Pasternak Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Exposure to childhood stress is one of the biggest risk factors for depression that onsets in adolescence or adulthood. But how do we identify which individuals might be more susceptible to developing depression following exposure to stress? And are there sensitive periods, or stages during a lifespan when stress is particularly harmful in increasing the risk for depression? Dr. Erin Dunn shares examples of how her research lab is studying the role of genetic variation in shaping risk for depression, the potential ways in which stress changes our biology to make us more at risk of developing depression, and the time periods in development when stress may be more likely to “get under our skin” to increase the risk of depression.

Dr. Andrew Kemp, Assistant Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Tufts University, explains the cycles of ocean rise and fall over the past 2000 years. For most of that time, these changes were due to natural forces; but the present sea level rise is due to human-produced climate change. Thumbnail: By AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard, Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Niemi - Published here, here, and here, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3899195

Tina Brown, the former editor-in-chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Daily Beast visited the Brattle Theater in Cambridge to talk about her book, "The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983–1992." She is joined in conversation by Meredith Goldstein, columnist and reporter for The Boston Globe.

In a turbulent 1968, Celebrity Series of Boston took a chance with a one-night engagement of a dynamic African-American dance company. Choreographer **Alvin Ailey**’s mission to reflect and promote African-American traditions and art-making took hold in Boston that night. Across town that year, Boston arts educator and social activist **Elma Lewis** founded the [National Center of Afro-American Artists](http://ncaaa.org/ "") to enhance appreciation for black art forms and their practitioners. It remains the largest independent Black cultural arts institution in New England.

Boston's **[LivableStreets Alliance](http://www.livablestreets.info/ "")** envisions a world where streets are safe, vibrant public spaces that connect people to the places where they live, work and play. Here is their annual "StreetTalk 10-in-1", where 10 innovative transportation and community thinkers take the stage and share their big ideas for transit improvement in lightning rounds.

JCC Greater Boston convened a panel composed of a former prosecutor, criminal justice professor, civil rights attorney, sentencing reform activist, and a wrongfully convicted individual to explore racial inequities throughout the legal system. They discuss the criminal justice system's issues of racial bias, which have lead to a miscarriage of justice ranging from police violence and brutality to presumption of guilt and wrongful convictions. In the post-Ferguson era, it is critical for many people with many voices to examine the role that race plays in the criminal justice system from policing to prosecuting. (Image: Deval Kulshrestha/Lady Justice/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Race Matters contains West's most powerful essays on issues relevant to black Americans: despair, black conservatism, black-Jewish relations, myths about black sexuality, the crisis in leadership in the black community, and the legacy of Malcolm X. For the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Race Matters, Cornel West reminds us why race still matters and considers the way these issues are crucial to building a genuine multiracial democracy. (Image: Book Cover)

The United States leads the world in the rate of incarceration - the number of people in prisons in the US has more than quadrupled over the last forty years. Racial disparities are a hallmark of incarceration today, families are torn apart, and communities disrupted by the school to prison pipeline. The opportunities for education and true rehabilitation for those returning to their communities are few and far between. The Massachusetts legislature is creating reform for our state right at this moment. Hear from four Lenny Zakim Fund grantees who are working for that reform.