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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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Philanthropy Reconsidered

Wed, Sep 22, 2010

George McCully, creator of the *Catalogue for Philanthropy* and the new *Massachusetts Philanthropic Directory*, discusses the contemporary transformation of philanthropy. Rooted in the Classical tradition of “humane-ness,” philanthropy provided the explicit rationale for the founding of the United States. How is the practice of philanthropy changing today? What role have electronic technologies and the new demographics of wealth played in the philanthropic revolution?

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Deadly Spin: How PR Is Killing Health Care and Undermining Democracy

Wed, Nov 24, 2010

In his book *Deadly Spin*, Wendell Potter takes readers behind the scenes to show how a huge chunk of our healthcare spending actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. Whatever the fate of the current health care legislation, it makes no attempt to change that fundamental problem. Relentless PR assaults play an insidious role in our political process anywhere that corporate profits are at stake--from climate change to defense policy. *Deadly Spin* tells us why--and how--we must fight back.

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World on the Edge: Preventing Environemtnal and Economic Collapse

Wed, Feb 9, 2011

Environmentalist Lester Brown has been assessing the health of the earth's ecosystems for more than two decades. Over that time he has seen increasing signs of break-down until we are now facing issues of near overwhelming complexity and unprecedented urgency. Can we change direction before we go over the edge? In his book *World on the Edge*, Brown attempts to answer that question by systemically laying out both the challenges and the potential policy solutions.

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Common As Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership

Wed, Jan 26, 2011

Lewis Hyde defends the concept of the "cultural commons." How has our cultural heritage, the store of ideas, art, and inventions we have inherited from the past, come to be seen as "intellectual property?" Have we taken the concept of "ownership" too far?

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Yellow: Decoding Emily Dickinson

Thu, Feb 24, 2011

The Amherst poet Emily Dickinson remains an enigmatic and therefore fascinating figure in American literature and popular culture. While the poetic genius of the “woman in white” is widely recognized, the person behind the poems remains a mystery. Biographers, most recently Lyndall Gordon in *Lives Like Loaded Guns*, have looked to the data of history–-letters, memoirs, etc.–-to explain Dickinson. Others have looked to her poetry as a code to her personality and hidden inner life. In 1962 Swiss-born Hans Werner Luescher wrote to T.J. Wilson, then Director of Harvard University Press, “In the course of my painstaking analysis of the symbols, similes, and parables contained in Emily Dickinson’s poems, I have come to discover the central fact of the life of the poet.” **Lynn Margulis**, famously applying her unique scientific perspective to her favorite poet, responds to Luescher’s lifework “decoding Dickinson.” How is Luescher’s work related to Amherst scholar, Ruth Owen Jones’, far more reliable identification of Emily’s Master figure? How did Margulis, the evolutionist, become interested in Dickinson anyway?

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Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the 21st Century

Wed, Feb 11, 2009

Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz discuss the previously un-reported American epidemic of living in social isolation in their new book, The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the 21st Century. Why do 25% of Americans report that they have talked to no one about anything important in the last six months? How do contemporary American lifestyle and work place demands lead to social isolation? What are the negative affects - on children, physical health, the environment - of so many people living lonely lives? Are there remedies? Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz are both Associate Clinical Professors of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Olds teaches child psychiatry and Dr. Schwartz teaches adult psychiatry at McLean and Massachusetts General Hospital. They both are psychoanalysts and have written two other books, Overcoming Loneliness in Everyday Life and Marriage in Motion. Married to each other and with two grown children, they each maintain a private practice in Cambridge, MA.

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Nigger: Strange Career of a Troublesome Word

Wed, Apr 3, 2002

In this lecture, Randall Kennedy discusses the profound history of this "troublesome" word in an attempt to further understand the racial dynamics that define American society. Using the major points of his research, both legal and sociological, Kennedy relates his lessons with sparkling clarity. This is one lecture that everyone who has ever heard the famous "N-word" should hear. Kennedy asserts, "Given the power of 'nigger' to wound, it is important to provide a context within which presentation of that term can be properly understood. It is also imperative, however, to permit present and future readers to see for themselves directly the full gamut of American cultural productions, the ugly as well as the beautiful, those that mirror the majestic features of American democracy and those that mirror America's most depressing failings."

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Kathleen McCartney: Why Care About Child Care?

Wed, Feb 20, 2002

Kathleen McCartney explains how tests of child care policy provide convincing evidence about how child care assistance affects patterns of child care use. Kathleen McCartney, one of the principal investigators of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Child Care and Youth Development, shares the study's conclusions about early childhood development. Child care policies have been a relatively understudied element of experimental welfare and employment studies. Yet, the tests of child care policy provide a source of convincing evidence about whether or not, and how, child care assistance, for paid or regulated care, can affect patterns of child care use, including subsidy use and reported problems with child care.

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When Doctors are Writers

Wed, Mar 11, 2009

Elissa Ely and Tess Gerritsen talk about how writing affects their medical practice, and vice versa. They discuss the attention and analysis that the practice of medicine requires, and how the demands of being a doctor differ from the demands of being a writer. Alexander Helper moderates this panel discussion, which explores the questions: Why do some strive to be successful at both writing and doctoring, two demanding professions? What drives doctors to form a unique identity as a writer as well as a doctor? What is added in their medical practice when they write satisfying words? How do doctors ethically balance privacy and story telling? And, is writing a respite from medicine or an extension of it? **Alexander Helper** is a child psychiatrist with a private practice in the Boston area, and is herself a writer. Her columns appear regularly in Psychiatric Times. **Elissa Ely** is a psychiatrist who completed her training at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She works with very ill psychiatric patients, and is an essayist for The Boston Globe and other national newspapers, and a commentator for National Public Radio. **Tess Gerritsen** went to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco and practiced as an internist for five years. While on maternity leave, she began to write fiction, starting with nine romantic suspense novels. In 1996 she published her first medical thriller, Harvest, and she has continued to write award-winning medical thrillers ever since, culminating with her most recent book, Keeping the Dead. This program was organized by fellow physician Sasha Helper.

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The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East

Wed, Mar 18, 2009

Rashid Khalidi discusses his new book, Sowing Crisis: the Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East. For over 45 years in the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union engaged in a deadly global rivalry, using political and military policy to win allies and exert power. How did these Cold War strategies shape the political and ideological landscape in the Middle East? What was the impact of American policy, driven to win the Cold War regardless of cost, to the nation states and their economies in this most dangerous region? Is there a connection between American need to defeat the Russians by humiliating their friends in the Middle East and wide spread support for the 9/11 attacks among the "Arab street"? Recognizing the US historical standing in the Middle East, what should the new Obama presidency do? **Rashid Khalidi** is the Edward Said chair in Arab Studies and the director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. Considered the preeminent scholar among US historians of the Middle East, he is the author of five major books and more than 75 articles on Middle Eastern history and politics.

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