Past Events

Research has shown that the question is not “if,” but “when” the next pandemic will occur. Although the previous pandemic seems to have waned, there are many lessons to learn about what’s needed for a new, global biosecurity infrastructure, so that we can mitigate the risks from the next pandemic. We need technology that can support rapid identification and understanding of emerging threats, such as collecting samples, analyzing data, and generating meaningful insights for public health officials and policymakers.

Join WorldBoston for a timely discussion of this topic with Ashish Jha, former White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator, and Matthew McKnight, General Manager for Biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks. The program features expert remarks from Mr. McKnight and Dr. Jha, and live audience Q&A.

The sixth mass extinction currently underway is due to a combination of climate change and destruction of natural habitats. Both crises are the result of our energy, industrial, and food production systems that have upended Nature. Biologist Michael Reed explains how the vitality of our planet depends on the health of ecosystems. Using migratory birds as an example, he describes the interdependence of different forms of life --- birds, animals, fish, insects, plants --and terrain. Dr. Reed also suggests why some species are better able to adapt to the climate and extinction crises than others. Worldwide action is urgently needed.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is pleased to present a film preview and discussion of our upcoming film, The Cancer Detectives. The event will feature an extended clip from the film and a panel discussion with filmmakers and participants.

Click this link to join: https://wgbh.zoom.us/j/99001979557

Featured guests include:

Gene Tempest is the writer and director of The Cancer Detectives. She is an award-winning filmmaker and historian whose work has appeared in The Boston Globe and The New York Times. From 2016-2017, she served as the first-ever Historian in Residence for American Experience, where she helped fund and develop new history programming for public television.

Deirdre Cooper Owens is an award-winning historian and popular public speaker. She is an associate professor of history at the University of Connecticut and the author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and The Origins of American Gynecology.

Rachel Gross is an award-winning science journalist and the author of Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, WIRED, New Scientist, Slate, Undark, and NPR, among others.

The discussion will be moderated by Cameo George, executive producer of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

About the film: The story of how the life-saving cervical cancer test became an ordinary part of women’s lives is as unusual and remarkable as the coalition of people who ultimately made it possible: a Greek immigrant, Dr. George Papanicolau; his intrepid wife, Mary; Japanese-born artist Hashime Murayama; Dr. Helen Dickens, an African American OBGYN in Philadelphia; and an entirely new class of female scientists known as cyto-screeners. But the test was just the beginning. Once the test proved effective, the campaign to make pap smears available to millions of women required nothing short of a total national mobilization. The Cancer Detectives tells the untold story of the first-ever war on cancer and the people who fought tirelessly to save women from what was once the number one cancer killer of women.

The Cancer Detectives premieres Tuesday, March 26th at 9/8c on PBS.



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Major funding for American Experience provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance, Carlisle Companies and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Funding for The Cancer Detectives provided by GBH Voices and Equity Fund and members of The Better Angels Society including The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund. Additional funding for American Experience provided by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, The American Experience Trust, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers. American Experience is produced for PBS by GBH Boston.


Photo credit: GBH Creative

GBH News’ daily arts and culture show is coming to the library! Beginning March 15, The Culture Show will be broadcasting LIVE from the GBH BPL Studio every Friday. Join us to celebrate this exciting launch!

About The Culture Show
GBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen and a rotating panel of co-hosts and cultural correspondents provide an expansive look at society through art, culture and entertainment, driving conversations about how listeners experience culture across music, movies, fashion, TV, art, books, theater, dance, food and more. Listen weekdays at 2pm on GBH 89.7.

Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Limited seating is available on a first come, first serve basis. If you require a seat, we encourage you to arrive before the start time of this event.

Location: The GBH Studio at the Boston Public Library is located at 700 Boylston St. at the corner of Exeter Street inside the Newsfeed Café.

Parking: Limited metered parking is available in the area. We recommend taking public transportation when possible. MBTA’s Copley stop on the Green Line and Back Bay stop on the Orange Line are located nearby. Visit http://mbta.com/ to plan your trip on public transportation.

Concessions: Food and drink is available for purchase at the Newsfeed Café. Outside food is not permitted.

Covid Safety: Please review the BPL’s Event COVID-19 Safety information here.

By RSVPing for this event, you agree to receive timely news and updates on events, films, and special offers from GBH.

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Do you need any additional accommodations that we should be made aware of to participate in this event? If so, please contact us a minimum of one week in advanced of the event. We will do our best to accommodate your request. Reach us during regular business hours M-F, 9am-5pm at 617-300-3300 or via email: info@wgbh.org.



If you have questions or can no longer attend, please contact Audience and Member Services Department. Audience and Member Services can be reached during regular business hours M-F, 9am-5pm at phone: 617-300-3300 or via email: info@wgbh.org

Transform your yard into a lush paradise. Whether you live in a rural or urban area, learn the secrets of how to cultivate a vibrant oasis right outside your door. Join GBH and public gardening expert Karen Daubmann from Massachusetts Horticultural Society and immerse in the lavish wonders of your own backyard haven.

Karen Daubmann is committed to creating effective and longstanding change to public gardens throughout her 25-year career. She joined Massachusetts Horticultural Society (MHS) in March 2022, where she brings her experience in advancing the operational and planning scale of public gardens. In the development and execution of exhibitions that have welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors, Daubmann focuses her work on encouraging guests to connect and interact with gardens through art, nature and culture. Prior to joining MHS, she worked for 14 years at the New York Botanical Garden, culminating in her position as vice president for exhibitions and audience engagement. She has been featured in Jennifer Jewell’s The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants and has contributed essays for Kusama: Cosmic Nature, 2021 and Frida Kahlo's Garden, 2015.

Daubmann lives and gardens with her husband Matt and dog Klaus in coastal Rhode Island.

This event will be hosted and moderated by GBH News, David Epstein who provides daily weather updates on Morning Edition and founder of Growing Wisdom that provide video tips for home gardeners.

This event is presented is in partnership with Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

At Ask the Expert, get access to experts specializing in a wide variety of topics, learn something new about a subject you are passionate about or discover a new interest. GBH invites you to drive the conversation by asking questions during the live event directly with our expert. It’s always interesting, and it’s always free!

This event is presented in partnership with

Joseph Borsellino III is a Boston-born producer, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. On his principal instrument-- saxophone-- he has entertained audiences along the eastern coast with popular jazz repertoire laced with gospel-oriented improvisations and original music. His compositions have been selected by both Jazz Education Network and the International Society of Jazz Composers and Arrangers for their dynamic expression and cross-cultural sensibilities, drawing from distant corners of the African diaspora.

For this occasion, he is joined by:

Miguel Landestoy is a jazz pianist, educator and arts administrator based out of Boston. As a “multi-hyphenate,” he is constantly looking towards the next step on his artistic journey and how he can better serve the artistic community.

Dan Raney is a bassist and songwriter hailing from Mansfield, MA. A multi-instrumentalist, Dan enjoys teaching a variety of instruments. In addition to teaching, he writes his own music and gigs/records with a number of bands in Boston, playing pop and rock among other genres.

Photo credit: Joseph Borsellino

Join GBH Music in welcoming the Ulysses Quartet as its first-ever quartet in residence with a free performance at the GBH Studio at the Boston Public Library.

The Ulysses Quartet's season-long partnership as quartet in residence furthers GBH Music's ongoing effort to connect with listeners of all backgrounds and ages. The partnership will span over fifty performances and events throughout the year, including with the Boston Public and Massachusetts schools.

Please note that this event was originally scheduled for March 13 at 12pm.

Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Photo credit: Lara St. John

This event is presented with support from CRB and the Ulysses Quartet.

The Ulysses Quartet’s residency at GBH is made possible by a generous contribution from the Mattina R. Proctor Foundation.

Ada Ferrer is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuba: An American History. The book chronicles more than five hundred years of Cuban history and its relations with the United States. She is also the author of Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868–1898, which won the Berkshire Book Prize for the best first book by a woman in any field of history, and Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, which won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize from the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University as well as the Frederick Katz, Wesley Logan, and James A. Rawley prizes from the American Historical Association. Her essay “My Brother’s Keeper,” published by The New Yorker, tells the story of her and her family’s relationship with the Cuban Revolution. In her lectures and keynote talks, Ferrer discusses Cuba’s past and its complex ties with the United States, giving audiences unexpected insights into the history of both countries and helping them to imagine a new relationship with Cuba.

Cosponsored by the Boston College History Department, Romance Languages and Literatures Department, the Heinz Bluhm Memorial Lecture Series, and the McMullen Museum of Art.

Russia will always matter, said Fiona Hill, former White House Russian expert, at the Harvard Kennedy School, only last month. This is due to its strategic location, it enormous land mass and its environmental impact, all of which make Russia impossible to ignore. The sudden death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s opposition leader, coupled with Ukraine’s recent setbacks, America’s political turmoil and the coming presidential elections in Russia, have all conspired to boost Putin’s reckless confidence. Is he anticipating a new phase of global aggression, perhaps? And does his current political posturing signal the death knell for democracy?

Cambridge Forum considers what future prospects exist for Russia, post-Navalny, pre-election and what the global response should be in light of America’s ambivalence about the future of NATO. Can anything substantial be done to strengthen the democratic values of the Western alliance and counter the creeping worldwide shift toward autocratic regimes?

This week saw several thousand Russians brave the extreme cold and the real risk of arrest, to attend Navalny’s funeral in Moscow, giving mixed messages to the Kremlin. Was this gesture indicative of a deep political rift with Putin’s presidency or merely a last-ditch attempt to register dissent against all odds.

To aid our discussion we have two Russian experts, Neil MacFarlane , Professor Emeritus at Oxford University and Peter Pomerantsev is a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and co-director of the Arena Initiative.

American Experience presents a virtual PAST FORWARD conversation exploring the relationship between women's demeanor, appearance, and fashion choices and their opportunities for advancement in workplaces built by and for men. This conversation is inspired in part by our new film Fly With Me.

Panelists will discuss the ways in which women are made to toe the line between authority and “femininity” in the ways they present themselves at work. They will also explore the historical origins of these pressures, and the different forms they take depending on the race and class of the women involved. The panel will look at the enduring impact social biases have on the opportunities available to working women, and will reflect on how female-led workplaces have challenged these norms, exploring the work that remains to be done going forward.



Panelists:

Allison Elias is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Professor Elias teaches courses about communication and negotiation, and her research investigates historical and contemporary issues of gender and diversity in occupations and organizations. She has provided commentary regarding gender issues at work to media outlets such as NPR’s Marketplace, and her research on women in business schools has been featured in Quartz.com and Poets & Quants.

Ann Hood is the author of over a dozen novels, including the bestsellers The Knitting Circle, The Obituary Writer, and Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine. She has also written several memoirs, including the bestsellers Fly Girl, about her experiences as a TWA flight attendant in the 1970s and 80s, and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, which was named one of the top ten books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly. Her latest novel, The Stolen Child, will be released on May 7th.

The conversation will be moderated by Monica Muñoz Martinez. Professor Martinez is an award-winning author, educator, public historian, and active participant in developing solutions that address racial injustice. A national authority on the history of race, Martinez is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research specializes in histories of racial violence, policing on the US-Mexico border, Latinx history, women and gender studies, public humanities, digital humanities, and restorative justice.

This event will be livestreamed on our Facebook and YouTube pages.

Photo credit for event art: United Airlines