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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Cambridge Forum

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Cambridge Forum hosts free, public discussions that inform and engage, so that people can better explore the varied issues and ideas that shape our changing world. CF broadcasts its live events via podcasts, weekly NPR shows and online presentations via GBH Forum Network on YouTube.

http://www.cambridgeforum.org

Witness To History: Remembering Freedom Summer

Wed, Nov 19, 2014

Afro-Puerto Rican folksinger, songwriter, actor, and story-teller Jack Landron, remembers his journey from Boston to Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Landron worked in the Freedom Schools once served as personal assistant to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr . With family roots in Puerto Rico and years growing up in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, Landron studied theater at Emerson College. Hear his unique perspective on the Civil Rights Movement in a discussion with folklorist Millie Rahn, hosted by the Cambridge Forum. Learn what moved him to travel south that summer and how did his journey affect him then, and over the course of his career.

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Christ Actually: Jesus in the 21st Century

Wed, Dec 10, 2014

**Hosted at the First Parish in Cambridge, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue** Award-winning author **James Carroll** discusses his new book, _Christ Actually: The Son of God for The Secular Age_ with Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School. Carroll asks what can we believe-and how can we believe in—Jesus in the post-20th century world of wars and Holocaust and the drift from religion that followed. Carroll revisits Christ’s crucial identity as a Jew. What can the ordinary humanness of the Christ figure mean to the 21st century? How can Christ, who is no Christian himself, transcend Christianity to speak to people in today’s world?

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Masha Gessen: Putin's War - Against the West

Wed, Nov 12, 2014

Russian-American journalist and LGBT activist Masha Gessen visited First Parish in Cambridge in in 2014 to discuss Vladimir Putin’s rise to power and the worldwide impact.

A noted opponent to Putin’s regime, Gessen cites the President’s militaristic allocation of funds and general pursuit of power as reasons for the fall of the country’s nascent democratic government. When asked about the nature of freedom of expression in Russia, Gessen opines, “the subjective experience of having space contract around you is probably more traumatic and more limiting than the experience of never having had the space in the first place.”

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Globalization of Labor: Is a Race to the Bottom Inevitable?

Mon, Apr 16, 2012

Out-sourcing. Off-shoring. Even before the Great Recession of 2008 pushed unemployment rates into double digits, Americans worried that traditional jobs were disappearing. Economist** Robert Pollin** addresses questions for American workers raised by the globalization of labor. How has globalization of the labor market affected American employment patterns? Is globalization responsible for the loss of domestic jobs that pay middle class wages? How can the United States respond to the challenges created by the 'globalization of labor?' What can individual workers do to ensure their own employment security? Is a race to the bottom inevitable?

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Globalization of Capital: The Rise of the Multinationals

Mon, Apr 16, 2012

Economist Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute discusses the challenges that globalized trade poses for the economic well-being of the United States. Globalization of capital has lessened or eliminated many barriers to trade and put new pressures on traditional monetary and financial systems. If the new ease of moving capital around the world seems to threaten American workers, who see their jobs and way of life sailing off to China, what does it mean for workers in other countries? Are the current international financial agreements, many of which date to the mid-twentieth century, adequate to regulate globalized capital movement? How does the globalization of capital affect the power of the nation-state?

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Wealth Inequality: The Gilded Road to Ruin?

Wed, Apr 25, 2012

**Chuck Collins**, director of the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality and the Common Good, and journalist **Linda McQuaig** explore the impact of the growing wealth gap, and suggest ways to reverse the increase in economic inequality. The richest one percent of Americans now owns more than 36 percent of all the wealth in the United States, more than the net worth of the bottom 95 percent combined. In 2010, the one percent earned 21 percent of all income, up from only 8 percent in mid-1970s. How has this concentration of wealth come about? What does it mean for the health of American democracy? And for the well-being of Americans? How could the trend of increasing economic inequality be reversed? Where is the political will to make the necessary policy changes? How can an individual nation create economic conditions that overcome what some call a global race to the bottom?

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Dani Rodrik - The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy

Mon, Apr 16, 2012

Harvard economist Dani Rodrik argues that we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. While the world economy is becoming an international system, the political systems of the world remain based in the construct of the nation-state. And while nations have organized some international political and economic governing authorities, such as the WTO, IMF, and World Bank, a comprehensive and widely accepted international system to regulate the global economy does not exist. When the social arrangements of democracies inevitably clash with the international demands of globalization, national priorities should take precedence. What are the most effective responses to today's globalized economy? Is Rodrik's vision of 'balanced prosperity' based on globalization supported by a light frame of international rules feasible? How can national governments reclaim a role in managing globalization under his proposals?

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Creativity and Stress

Sun, Apr 22, 2012

In Terezin, the concentration camp in which Jewish artists, writers, and musicians were imprisoned, the opportunity to practice art'to draw, to write, to perform'provided a kind of spiritual or emotional sustenance for the prisoners. This panel discussion examines the relationship between creativity and stress. How can human creativity survive and assert itself under inhuman conditions? What can modern neuroscience show us about the ways in which extreme stress stimulates or impedes creativity? What can we learn from the experience of the artists of the Holocaust about using the arts to assist victims of torture, rape, and other human rights abuses to cope and to heal? What can we learn about the role of creativity in our own lives? Panelists include Debra Wise, Artistic Director of Underground Railway Theater; Dr. Michael Grodin, Professor of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights at Boston University School of Public Health; and Guila Clara Kessous, Carr Center's Initiative in Theater and Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

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Joseph Nye: The Rise of China and American Power

Tue, Apr 10, 2012

Joseph Nye of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government draws upon the insights of his recent meetings with China's future leaders to examine the future of American relations with China. As China has become a more powerful player in the Pacific, how has it projected its strength? How have strategic alliances among its neighbors changed in response to China's growing economic and military might? What does the Obama administration's new emphasis on the Pacific mean for the future of American relations with China? Moderated by PRI's The World's Lisa Mullins.

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Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

Thu, Mar 29, 2012

China expert, Ezra Vogel of Harvard University, spent twelve years researching and writing his biography of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and his era, *Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.* This masterful and comprehensive study chronicles Deng's rich and intricate career from his birth in 1904 at the end of the Qing Dynasty to his death in 1997 a few months before the return of Hong Kong to the mainland. Deng's life spanned almost a century of dramatic changes in China as it experienced war, the Communist Revolution, decades of Mao's rule, and finally, economic boom, and Deng played a major in his nation's development over that period. How did Deng Xiaoping find a way to turn China into a wealthy and powerful member of the international community? What personal and cultural factors contributed to his success? What obstacles did he face? How did Vogel go about researching and writing this study of Deng's life and legacy?

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