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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.

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Storytelling in the Electronic Era (Part 2)

Wed, Dec 2, 2009

Storyteller Odds Bodkin and Harvard folklorist Maria Tatar explore the art of the story in the 21st century. Telling stories is an ancient art, a holdover from the pre-literate human past. How did the advent of the written word affect the art of storytelling and the stories themselves? Why does oral storytelling persist? What impact will the digital culture of wikis and filesharing have on the future of storytelling?

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African Americans and the American Dream

Wed, Oct 1, 2008

Theologian Vincent Harding argues that, especially for African Americans, the American dream has never been realized. Harding, professor emeritus of religion and social transformation at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, suggests that the dream is at best a hope, at worst a mockery, and that it remains alive in the words and imaginations of the artists and activists of the community. Retracing the roads and revisiting his companions of the civil rights movement, Harding reflects on their achievements in making the dream more of a reality and points out the work that still needs to be done.

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Three Trillion Dollar War: True Cost of the Iraq Conflict

Wed, Oct 29, 2008

Linda Bilmes, expert in budgeting and public finance at Harvard's Kennedy School, discusses the true cost of the Iraq conflict, as calculated in her new book, co-authored with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. What expense items have been hidden from American taxpayers? What future costs does war entail? What trade-offs does the cost of war impose on the U.S. economy?

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Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Wed, Nov 12, 2008

Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein applies cutting edge social science research on human behavior to legal questions in the stock market, mortgage markets, environmental protection, and family law. What are the implications for law and public policy of psychology's new insights into decision-making behavior? What is the moral significance of developing public policies that 'nudge' people to make 'wise decisions'?

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Laughs with Planet Washington

Wed, Sep 23, 2009

The comedy duo Planet Washington opens Cambridge Forum's 2009 fall season with a benefit performance. Ken Rynne, an alum of the renowned Capitol Steps troupe, and his faithful piano accompanist, Frank Plumer, are Planet Washington. Together they provide an evening of music, song, and comedy improv that cuts through the rhetoric and gets to the laughter. If you sometimes think that "Inside the Beltway" seems like another planet, this show is for you!

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Joss Whedon: Cultural Humanist

Fri, Apr 10, 2009

Television writer and director Joss Whedon receives the third annual 2009 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism. The award, previously presented to novelist Salman Rushdie and punk rocker (and evolutionary biologist) Greg Graffin, is sponsored by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and the Harvard Secular Society. The creator of the long-running television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon explores the moral foundation of a humanistic universe. **Joss Whedon** is the Academy Award and Emmy Award-nominated creator of the TV shows Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this past summer's media-redefining Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and the new Fox show Dollhouse. Whedon has a devoted following of fans, including the online web community whedonesque.com. In addition to his art, he has also been active in promoting women's rights through his work with Equality Now, an organization that honored him in 2006.

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Fairly Unbalanced: Writing Political Satire in the 21st Century

Sun, Jun 14, 2009

PEN New England and Cambridge Forum present a discussion of the power and the pitfalls of writing in the age of Jon Stewart and Al Franken. PEN also presents the 2009 Vasyl Stus Freedom to Write Award to Nurmuhemmet Yasin, whose satirical story "Wild Pigeon" Chinese authorities considered critical of their presence in the Xinjiang Uighur Region. After a closed trial in 2005 at which he was denied a lawyer, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The award is named in honor of Vasyl Stus, the leading Ukrainian poet of his generation and the last poet to die in a Soviet gulag, and is awarded to Yasin *in absentia*. PEN New England is one of five regional branches of PEN America Center, which in turn is part of International PEN, the only worldwide organization of writing professionals and the world's first human rights organization. PEN's mission is to promote literacy and a culture of literature, and to defend free expression everywhere.

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Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

Mon, Oct 5, 2009

Conservative historian Andrew Bacevich discusses his provocative book *The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism*. Bacevich joins Charles Sennott, founder of the online news service GlobalPost, to discuss the challenges the Obama administration faces in Afghanistan. Written in the days leading up to the 2008 presidential election, *The Limits of Power* asks us to take a step back from the policies that have not served us well, and calls for a return to respect for power and its limits; aversion to claims of exceptionalism; skepticism of easy solutions, especially those involving force; and a conviction that Americans must live within their means. Only a return to such principles, Bacevich argues, can provide common ground for fixing America's urgent problems before the damage becomes irreparable.

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Hollowing Out the Middle: Rural Brain Drain

Wed, Oct 14, 2009

Sociology professor Patrick J. Carr discusses *Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What It Means For America*. *In Hollowing Out the Middle*, husband and wife research team Patrick Carr and Maria Kefalas draw attention to a problem that is little discussed in urban and academic centers, but is keenly felt in rural towns across the country: namely the exodus of young, educated adults toward those same urban and academic centers. Carr and Kefalas use the case study of "Ellis", Iowa to better understand this phenomenon, and to offer strategies for creating sustainable, thriving communities across the Heartland.

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Creativity and Mood

Wed, Oct 21, 2009

Poet and songwriter Paul Muldoon joins poet/playright Elizabeth Swados to explore the relationship between creativity and mood. For more than a century, artistic genius has been linked in the popular imagination with suffering, mental illness, and untimely death--as though creativity somehow rendered artists unfit for ordinary human life. Swados, who has detailed her own battles with bipolar disorder in print, and Muldoon, who wrote some of the haunting lyrics on Warren Zevon's last CD, reflect on this Romantic idea of artistic creativity. Special thanks to Michael J. Kerpan, a visual arts student from UMass Boston, for providing this video.

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