Past Events

Will the United States and other powerful countries approach current and future climate initiatives with an increased commitment to nationalism? Or could a growing spirit of international accord develop to confront the “common enemy” of climate change?

Join WorldBoston for a timely discussion of this topic with Dr. Emily Reichert, CEO of MassCEC and former CEO of Greentown Labs.

Kate Quinn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of historical fiction. A native of Southern California, she attended Boston University, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in classical voice. She’s written a number of novels, including four in the Empress of Rome Saga and two set in the Italian Renaissance before turning to the 20th century with books like The Alice Network, The Huntress, The Rose Code, The Diamond Eye, and most recently, The Briar Club.

She and her husband now live in Maryland with three black rescue dogs. Check out more about Kate Quinn here.

GBH's Craig LeMoult moderates the conversation.

Join the Paul Revere House for the final event in their 2024 Lowell Lecture Series. This three-part series focuses on the lesser-known express assignments Paul Revere completed. Speakers will share the importance of his courier work as part of a communications system that involved complex overlapping networks of leaders of all stations. The series will also explore the very practical aspects of long-distance horse journeys and the local colonial politics in key communities Revere interacted with.

Paul Revere made multiple rides to New Hampshire to pass messages between Patriot groups. The conventional narrative of the American Revolution emphasizes the role of extra-legal events in Massachusetts such as the Boston Tea Party and Stamp Act riots.  Yet, extra-legal actions were not exclusive to Massachusetts—New Hampshire had a long tradition of protest, especially when connected to timber. Laws passed by Parliament in 1708 and 1722 that claimed pine trees for the masts needed for the Royal Navy, among other items contributed to growing discontent with colonial rule, reflected in a series of demonstrations and riots through the 1700s. By late 1774, New Hampshire colonists were seizing Royal munitions.

Peter Flood, author of the 2014 Revere House Gazette article, "A Week in December – Paul Revere’s Secret Mission to New Hampshire, will join the discussion.

Presented in partnership with GBH, the Suffolk University History Department, Milton Historical Society/Suffolk Resolves House (Milton, MA), Carpenters’ Hall (Philadelphia, PA), Fraunces Tavern Museum (New York, NY), and the Portsmouth Athenaeum (Portsmouth, NH), with funding from the Lowell Institute. For more information, please contact staff@paulreverehouse.org or visit paulreverehouse.org.

The GBH BPL studio will host Outspoken Saturdays, a spoken word poetry event for emerging artists. Every first Saturday of the month, the series will be created in collaboration with spoken word artist Amanda Shea. Join us!

Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Representatives from Native communities and tribal serving organizations make the case for revamping school mascots, the state seal and flag, and addressing other important issues necessary to strengthen the fabric of Massachusetts and its Indigenous communities.

With Nichol Brewer-Lowry, MSc, Boston Site Director, Native American Lifelines, Melissa Ferretti, Chairwoman, Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, J. Cedric Woods, PhD, Director, Institute for New England Native American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Tara Mayes, GBH Associate Communications Director, will facilitate the discussion.

This virtual program is supported by: Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, Institute for New England Native American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Native American Lifelines, Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band, City of Boston Equity and Inclusion Cabinet, Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition, the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness, and MassHumanities.

Livable Streets is holding their 14th annual StreetTalk 10-in-1. As the tradition goes, ten speakers will take the stage to talk about topics like Boston transit history, public art, new approaches to housing, and more.

Light refreshments will be availble, along with a cash bar.

This year's speakers:
-Maha Aslam
Program Manager: Streets + Transit, LivableStreets
A Day in the Life of a Transit Advocate

-Julia Campbell
Deputy Chief of Streets for Infrastructure and Design, City of Boston
Fixing Boston's sidewalks, one intersection at a time

-Lorraine Fryer
Senior Content + Culture Manager, LivableStreets
How to Create a Cohousing Community in 10 Easy Steps

-Reynaliz Herrera
Founder & Director/Composer/Scriptwriter/Lead Performer of "Ideas, Not Theories"
Reynaliz Herrera’s Bicycle Music & her company “Ideas, Not Theories”

-Emily Isenberg
Founder & Creative Director, Isenberg Projects
Power to the People: Tactical Urbanism for a More Connected City

-Jarred Johnson
Executive Director, TransitMatters
Commuter Rail Is Doing Well, But Here's Why I Want It To Disappear

-Liz Luc Clowes
Director of Engagement and Food Forest Construction, Boston Food Forest Coalition
A network of 30 Food Forests in Boston builds a future of environmentally and socially resilient communities that thrive in many ways.

-Monica Tibbits-Nutt
Secretary of Transportation & CEO, Massachusetts Department of Transportation
The Intersectionality of Safety and Empathy

-Pete Wilson
Senior Policy Director, T4MA
Transportation finance and what it means to your community

-Giovanny Zuniga Piamba
Transit Justice Organizer, GreenRoots
Inclusive transportation begins when communities are part of the conversation

Gain insight into the life of Ira Gershwin, the man behind some of the most memorable lyrics of the Great American Songbook. Biographer Michael Owen reveals the life of this remarkable American, the son of first-generation immigrants, who has often been in the shadow of his brother George Gershwin.

The first lyricist to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) has been hailed as one of the masters of the Great American Songbook, a period which covers songs written largely for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Now, in the first full-length biography devoted to his life, Michael Owen draws on extensive archival sources to craft a rich portrait of the modest man who penned the words to such well-loved songs as “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” Owen’s book celebrates George and Ira Gershwin’s collaboration and Ira’s extensive work with other songwriters. Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words brings the publicity-shy lyricist into the spotlight he deserves.

What is graffiti – is it vandalism, ornament or art? Anthropologist, Rafael Schacter proposes that we think of it as a monument – and it is indeed an ancient phenomenon. Originally thought to have come from the Italian archaeological term Graffito, meaning a deliberate mark made by scratching or engraving on a large surface such as a wall - nobody really knows. While the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians may have first coined the term, the definition and origins of modern-day graffiti continue to be debated, and Cambridge Forum is delighted to continue the discussion.

Schacter’s newest tome, Monumental Graffiti is a hefty and heavily researched read. In it, he shows why graffiti demands our urgent attention as a form of expression that challenges power structures by questioning whose voices are included in, or excluded from, the public space.

Schacter is joined by Cambridge graffiti artist, Caleb Neelon, co-author of The History of American Graffiti.

“We are over-protecting children in the real world while under-protecting them online” says Jonathan Haidt, author of THE ANXIOUS GENERATION who maintains that the environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development. Haidt traces the current mental health crisis to the mid-2010s when smartphones and social media began to reshape the social landscape for adolescents. Cambridge Forum explores these troubling developments in The Anxious i-Generation.

Furthermore, Haidt argues that smartphone technologies have led to over-parenting e.g. constant notifications and GPS tracking of children’s whereabouts. This in turn, has robbed an entire generation of the resilience, coping skills and independence needed to navigate everyday situations and in turn, created unprecedented levels of societal anxiety. The dramatic decline in mental health in teens has been accompanied by decreases in academic scores for math, reading and science. CF asks what happens when we take phones out of schools and replace screen time with normal extracurricular activities that encourage independence and healthy risk-taking? Well, some forward-thinking teachers and psychologists have been doing exactly that with very promising results.

Our panel consists of Catherine Price, science journalist, founder of Screen/Life Balance and author of How to break up with your phone; Camilo Otiz, Associate Professor of Psychology at Long Island University and licensed psychologist in private practice; Lenore Skenazy, president of the nonprofit, Let Grow and author of Free Range Kids plus Shane Voss, Head of Mountain Middle School in Durango, CO. where he has created a phone-free school environment since 2013.

A rapidly changing Arctic is reshaping everything. Polar bears navigate shrinking expanses of sea ice, thawing permafrost threatens coastal villages, destabilizes infrastructure, and exhales methane, and warming temperatures push more species northward into a greener arctic. These transformations are profound, and their impacts can extend far beyond the region’s ecologies that depend on them.

What do these changes mean for wildlife, humans, and the climate? How is all of this going to play out in different regions and ecosystems around the world? Does understanding these changes and seeing them with your own eyes change the way you see everything else?

Join Biodiversity for a Livable Climate for a conversation that convenes story and science, writer and researcher to help shape our understanding of what this means for the Arctic, our climate and the webs of life that depend on both. Jon Waterman, writer for both Patagonia and NatGeo, and author of Into the Thaw, is by Dr. Flavio Lehner, Chief Climate Scientist at Polar Bears International—one a storyteller of the Arctic’s systems, the other a researcher of them.