Past Events

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the international bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently New York 2140, Aurora, Shaman, Green Earth, and 2312, which was a New York Times bestseller nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awards—a first for any book. He was sent to the Antarctic by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and returned in their Antarctic media program in 2016. In 2008 he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. His work has been translated into 25 languages, and won a dozen awards in five countries, including the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 he was given the Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction, and asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.” In 2017, he was given the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society. A prolific writer and speaker, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Nature, and Wired, among many others, and he has lectured at more than one hundred institutions over the last 25 years. His novel, The Ministry for the Future, was selected as one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2020. His most recent book, The High Sierra: A Love Story (May 2022) is a non-fiction exploration of Robinson’s years spent hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains, one of the most compelling places on Earth. Cosponsored by the Boston College Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies Program, the Lynch School's Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics, and English Department ### Resources [INTERVIEW - The New York Times: Ezra Klein Interviews Kim Stanley Robinson (transcript and podcast) ](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-kim-stanley-robinson.html) [REVIEW: The Guardian: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson review – how to solve the climate crisis ](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/20/the-ministry-for-the-future-by-kim-stanley-robinson-review-how-to-solve-the-climate-crisis) [OP ED/ PUBLIC WRITTING: Bostonia: Kim Stanley Robinson on the Importance of Imagination ](https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/kim-stanley-robinson-the-importance-of-imagination/) [EXCERPT : EW: Sustainability is possible in this excerpt from climate change novel The Ministry for the Future]( https://ew.com/books/the-ministry-for-the-future-chapter-excerpt/)

Join for a presentation and a discussion with acclaimed Palestinian author and screenwriter, Sayed Kashua.

Prominent Palestinian author, screenwriter, and newspaper columnist, Sayed Kashua, once ‘The other” in his homeland of Israel now finds himself “the other”in his new home in the Midwest. Through humor and satire, Kashua shares the challenges and struggles of living in a foreign land and the difficulties of writing about home from a distance.

Join Cambridge Forum for a discussion with Tracy Kidder and Dr. Jim O’Connell. Tracy Kidder’s, “_ROUGH SLEEPERS_” centers around one dedicated doctor and his mission to provide medical care to the homeless. The book is a powerful account of the dedicated work of “Dr. Jim” O’Connell, a physician who founded Boston Health Care for the Homeless in 1985. When O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency, the Chief of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital asked him if he would defer a prestigious fellowship to spend a year helping create an organization to bring health care to the homeless. Dr. Jim took the job because he felt he couldn’t refuse, but that one year was to turn into a lifetime working with the homeless on the streets of Boston and in his Thursday Street Clinic at MGH. Now in his 70s, Dr Jim is still captain of the “_Street Team_” who provide care for the city’s unhoused population - the people who sleep rough. “_Rough Sleepers_” is the result of spending five years shadowing O’Connell’s work bringing medical care, socks, soup, humor and friendship to some of the city’s most endangered individuals. Much as he did in his profile of Paul Farmer, Kidder explores how a small but dedicated group of people have improved and gladdened thousands of lives by facing one of America’s most difficult problems, rather than looking away.

**A paradigm-shattering biography of the celebrated poet Phillis Wheatley, whose extraordinary work set African American literature at the heart of the American Revolution.** Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age. Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, she composed elegies for local elites and celebrated political events, adding her voice to a vibrant, multisided conversation about race, slavery, and discontent with British rule. In this new biography, the historian David Waldstreicher offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley’s life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the revolutionary era. **David Waldstreicher** teaches history at the City University of New York Graduate Center and is the author of _Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification and Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin_, _Slavery, and the American Revolution_. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, Boston Review, and The Atlantic, among other publications. **Moderator L’Merchie Frazier** is a visual activist, public historian and artist, innovator, and poet. She is Executive Director of Creative / Strategic PLANNING for SPOKE Arts and former Director of Education and Interpretation for the Museum of African American History, Boston/Nantucket, and was recently named an Art Commissioner for Massachusetts. Presented by the American Inspiration series from American Ancestors/NEHGS in partnership with Boston Public Library, Museum of African American History, and with GBH Forum Network.

The Boston University School of Theology is proud to present the bi-annual Lowell Lecture, which features a renowned speaker in a field related to theological studies. This year, topics explore the spiritual dimension of artistic expression. The Spring 2023 lecture, titled "... when artists go to work...", will feature Dr. Bill Banfield and the Imagine Orchestra.

It's been over a century since a new utility was created. Hear the story of how a small local nonprofit, HEET, has innovated a pathway for gas utilities to become a "thermal utilities," delivering you heating and cooling without combustion. Eversource and National Grid are already selecting sites for the first installations, and over 15 other utilities across the country are following along. Hear the story of innovation and how to create social change across boundaries.

Fears of global food shortages have followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which has disrupted grain shipments from the major grain producer. But what about countries and regions that were suffering before this impending shortage? How is famine defined, and how is it different from simple food shortages? What if any remedies are there? Join us to learn more about global famine and hunger when we host a virtual discussion with Kimberly Flowers, international development consultant and former Director of Global Food Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation.

According to philosopher Harry Frankfurt, to bullshit is to speak with indifference to the truth. Bullshitters speak carelessly: they ignore the demand that typical speech be both accurate and sincere. Bullshit is produced without concern for the truth at all, and is thus perhaps a “greater enemy of the truth than lies.” Finding a media ecosystem saturated with bullshit, many people seem to respond with a confusing mix of distrust and skepticism on the one hand, and gullibility and credulity on the other. Caught in the middle of this predicament are journalists, researchers, communication specialists, social media platform workers, and other practitioners whose daily activity involves the careful work of investigating, judging, communicating, and synthesizing information with the public in mind. What sorts of dilemmas does this work involve? What sorts of trade offs might there be? How does one speak the truth to a suspicious public? What impact does this have on the health of our democracy? Join us as our expert panel will help us understand more about the choices made in a media environment where trust and attention are both in short supply. This talk is presented in partnership with Ford Hall Forum, The Washington Center, and Suffolk Political Science and Legal Studies Department and Suffolk University Department of Philosophy and the Program in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. ### Resources [nfo about the book “ Calling Bullshit”](https://www.callingbullshit.org/) [The story Phillip is referring to ](https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2022/02/02/neo-nazis-target-anti-racist-doctors-at-brigham-and-womens-hospital-calling-them-anti-white) [About the Strategic communication unit at the European Commission](https://www.eeas.europa.eu/taxonomy/term/400164_en) [About online disinformation](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/online-disinformation) [Fighting Disinformation online](https://www.rand.org/research/projects/truth-decay/fighting-disinformation.html) [Climate Misinformation on Social Media Is Undermining Climate Action](https://www.nrdc.org/stories/climate-misinformation-social-media-undermining-climate-action) [Pew Research on misinformation](https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/news-habits-media/media-society/misinformation/) [Cognitive Biaises](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biases-make-people-vulnerable-to-misinformation-spread-by-social-media/)

First-ever White House National Climate Advisor, former EPA Administrator, Harvard professor, and environmental thought leader Gina McCarthy will converse with Boston Public Library President David Leonard as part of the Boston Public Library's 2023 Lowell Lecture Series, titled You are Here: Climate Change and What’s Next. McCarthy is a respected voice on climate change, the environment, and public health. As head of the Climate Policy Office under President Biden, McCarthy’s leadership led to the most aggressive action on climate in U.S. history, creating new jobs and unprecedented clean energy innovation and investments across the country. Her commitment to bold action across the Biden administration, supported by the climate and clean energy provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, restored U.S. climate leadership on a global stage and put a new U.S. national target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 within reach.

Daily we hear more dire news about the future of the planet and the grim survival prospects for animal populations. Wildlife numbers have declined 20 percent over the last century with hundreds of species now extinct and there is much evidence of insect “apocalypses”, all exacerbated by climate change. However, Professor Christopher Preston believes that all is not lost; there are some fragments of good news to note. Preston, who teaches environmental philosophy at the University of Montana, has just written Tenacious Beasts, which looks at wildlife that are both defying the odds but also teaching us important lessons about how to share the planet. He is not sugar-coating the truth, he says, but highlighting recovery to provide hope not to provide soothing reassurances. “Amid growing mountains of loss, some species have shown the tenacity to bounce back.” Animal populations are still endangered of course but the evidence shows that wildlife are remarkably creative and adaptable. Preston urges humans to reconsider animals in new ways that lets them live but acknowledges that we humans must change how we think, which is often harder than changing what wo do. But changes in attitude are essential if we are to enable true recovery; the cost of doing nothing, will be the end for many species. Preston hopes the book will provide a roadmap for a future in which humans and animals can once again coexist. Christopher Preston’s essays have appeared in the Atlantic, Smithsonian and on the BBC website. In addition to teaching at the University of Montana he is author of The Synthetic Age: Outdesigning Evolution; Resurrecting Species, and Reengineering Our World.