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Forum Network

Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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GBH Forum Network

The Forum Network is a public media service of the GBH Educational Foundation that offers thousands of video lectures by the world's foremost scholars, authors, artists, scientists, policymakers, and community leaders, made available to the public for free.

Lectures hosted on The Forum Network are presented by community organizations and educational institutions from the Boston area and beyond.

From science to the humanities, from local to global topics, The Forum Network is committed to providing outstanding educational content for lifelong learners, and to encouraging deeper understanding and civic engagement around the vital issues of our time.

Explore lectures by Topics, Series, Partners, and Speakers. To provide viewers with more information, lectures are further augmented with speaker biographies, related lectures and books, captions and transcripts, and downloadable audio.

In the past, GBH has collaborated with other public media partners—WETA in Washington, DC; Public Broadcasting Atlanta; and WNET New York—to record public speaking events. While the structure of the Forum Network changed in 2014 to focus specifically on the Boston region, previously recorded lectures remain archived in this website.

Major support for the GBH Forum Network comes from the Lowell Institute, an organization created to carry out the 1836 bequest of John Lowell Jr., to make free public lectures available to the citizens of Boston

Stay in touch with Forum Network. » Facebook Find us on Facebook and Twitter. Become a partner by joining our network as a local community content contributor. Email forumnetwork@wgbh.org with the subject line "New Partner".

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About GBH Educational Foundation

GBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate, inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of learning, and the power of diverse perspectives. GBH serves New England, the nation, and the world with programs that inform, inspire, and entertain. GBH is PBS's single largest producer of content for television (prime-time and children's programs) and the Web. Some of your favorite series and websites -- Nova, Masterpiece, Frontline, Antiques Roadshow, Curious George, Arthur, and The Victory Garden, to name a few -- are produced here in our Boston studios. GBH also is a major supplier of programs heard nationally on public radio, including The World. And we're a pioneer in educational multimedia and in media access technologies for people with hearing or vision loss. Our community ties run deep. We're a local public broadcaster serving southern New England, with 11 public television services and three public radio services -- and productions (from Greater Boston to Jazz with Eric in the Evening) that reflect the issues and cultural riches of our region. We're a member station of PBS and an affiliate of both NPR and PRI. In today's fast-changing media landscape, we're making sure you can find our content when and where you choose -- on TV, radio, the Web, podcasts, vodcasts, streaming audio and video, iPhone applications, groundbreaking teaching tools, and more. Our reach and impact keep growing. GBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors -- Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards -- even two Academy Awards. In 2002, a special institutional Peabody Award cited GBH's 50 years of service to the "community, the nation, and the world with outstanding productions and collaborations."

GBH is devoted to bringing you new experiences, taking you to new worlds, and giving you the very best in educational content. We're here for you -- and it all happens thanks to your interest and generous support!

https://forum-network.org/

  • Rob Velella: An Afternoon with Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Fri, Nov 7, 2014
    Historian **Rob Velella** (or rather, author Nathaniel Hawthorne) visited the Old South Meeting House to read a selection of the Salem-born writer’s short stories. Complete with a timid entrance and a gruff salutation, Velella’s performance as this literary icon is clearly well researched. Though famous for novels like _The Scarlet Letter_ and _The House of the Seven Gables_, Hawthorne penned his fair share of short stories, as well, such as “Monsieur du Miroir” (beginning at 2:38) and “Young Goodman Brown” (12:52).
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  • Benny Golson on Composing and Arranging

    Thu, Apr 17, 2008
    Benny Golson discusses his life as a composer and arranger for such artists as Count Basie, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie.
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  • PRI's The World: Invisible Nation

    Tue, Apr 29, 2008
    Quil Lawrence discusses the Iraq War's seldom-told success story, the rise of the Kurds of northern Iraq. Lawrence has recently released a new book *Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East*, based on his experiences as a reporter in Iraq. Quil's photos of Kurdistan can be seen on the [ PRI's The World Flickr page.](http://www.flickr.com/photos/pritheworld/sets/72157604814728071/) Generously shared with the Forum Network by David Leveille and Stephen Snyder.
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  • The Pleasures of Winter 2008

    Tue, Nov 25, 2008
    'The Pleasures of Winter' is an annual, live-performance, winter holiday music special hosted by folk duo [Jay Ungar and Molly Mason](http://www.jayandmolly.com/index.shtml) and recorded at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, New York. The music includes fiddle tunes, vintage jazz, beautiful waltzes, and original songs, all with a seasonal flavor. This year's show is a collection of the hosts' performances, featuring a variety of guest musicians sitting in with the house band including: Butch Thompson, David Bromberg, Kate Pierson of the B52s, Tony Trischka, Laurel Masse, and many more of Ungar and Mason's musical friends.
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  • Private Rights and Public Broadcasting: Panel 1

    Wed, Mar 26, 2008
    Robert Lippincott, Senior Vice President of Education for PBS, Steve Altman, Senior Vice President of Business Affairs for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Jay Fialkov, Deputy General Counsel for WGBH, talk about issues for the digital age from the perspective of Public Broadcasting. For many years, Congress has recognized the important educational mission and the limited resources of public broadcasters, and the Copyright Act of 1976 included several specific provisions designed for their benefit. The business culture that developed around rights and distribution grew out of a broadcast-based system for public television and radio. Today, in the evolving digital environment, PBS, NPR, the stations, and other producers and distributors of public television and radio programming are working to embrace new production and distribution models beyond traditional broadcast. They must now aim to act more broadly as 'public service media' in order to further their mission and meet the changing needs of our audience. At the same time, public broadcasters are running up against a legal and business environment that has not kept pace with digital transformations. The provisions in copyright law that were intended to benefit public broadcasting have limited application to new technology and media formats; business systems that were formulated in the pre-digital era can create confusion, slow down or prevent new kinds of distribution, and have enormous cost implications. These issues challenge public broadcasters in our efforts to produce and distribute both new content and older archived materials for the public benefit. This conference brings together public broadcasting leaders with representatives of copyright organizations, talent unions, music rights holders, archives, and other key stakeholders for two days of discussions on balancing private rights and public interests in the ever-changing landscape of digital convergence. Its goals are to survey existing copyright laws and business practices; to educate its participants about the issues that affect public broadcasters' work in a multi-platform world; to hear and understand more fully the perspectives of union and rights holders; and to look for 'next steps' that public broadcasting, unions, and rights holders can take together.
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  • NOVA: Doctors' Diaries

    Tue, Mar 31, 2009
    The producers of NOVA's long-running documentary series Doctors' Diaries join medical doctors for a screening and a discussion of the series' latest installment. Over the past 21 years, NOVA has followed a group of seven doctors from their first day at Harvard Medical School in 1987. All young, bright, and accomplished, none of them could have predicted what it would take, personally and professionally, to become a member of the medical tribe. NOVA's cameras have been there through the difficult years of classes and clinical training, internship and residency, marriage and divorce, and documenting the trials and tribulations as these individuals have struggled to become doctors and balance time at work and at home. Candid, in-depth interviews give viewers a real sense of what each person has had to deal with day in and day out since they made the decision to practice medicine. In this special two-part program, NOVA returns one last time to get an update on the kind of doctors, and people, they have become.
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  • The Moral Side of Murder / The Case for Cannibalism

    Sun, Sep 13, 2009
    Lecture One: "The Moral Side of Murder" If you had to choose between killing one person or five, what would you do? What's the right thing to do? Professor Michael Sandel launches into his lecture series by presenting students with a hypothetical scenario that has the majority of students voting for killing one person in order to save the lives of five others. But then Sandel presents three similar moral conundrums -- each one artfully designed to make the decision increasingly complex. As students stand up to defend their conflicting choices, Sandel's point is made. The assumptions behind our moral reasoning are often contradictory, and the question of what is right and what is wrong is not always black and white. Lecture Two: "The Case for Cannibalism" Sandel introduces the principles of Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, with a famous 19th century law case involving a shipwrecked crew of four. After 19 days lost at sea, the captain decides to kill the cabin boy, the weakest amongst them, so they can feed on his blood and body to survive. The case leads to a debate among students about the moral validity of the Utilitarian theory of maximizing overall happiness -- often summed up with the slogan "the greatest good for the greatest number".
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    Putting a Price Tag on Life / How to Measure Pleasure

    Sun, Sep 20, 2009
    Lecture Three: "Putting a Price Tag on Life" Jeremy Bentham's late 18th century Utilitarian theory -- summed up as "the greatest good for the greatest number" -- is often used today under the name of "cost-benefit analysis." Sandel presents some contemporary examples where corporations used this theory -- which required assigning a dollar value on human lives -- to make important business decisions. This leads to a discussion about the objections to Utilitarianism: is it fair to give more weight to the values of a majority, even when the values of the majority may be ignoble or inhumane? Lecture Four: "How to Measure Pleasure" Sandel introduces J.S. Mill, another Utilitarian philosopher, who argues that all human experience can be quantifiable, and that some kinds of pleasures are more desirable and more valuable than others. Mill argues that if society values the higher pleasures, and values justice, then society as a whole will be better off in the long run. Sandel tests this theory by showing the class three video clips -- from *The Simpsons*, the reality show *Fear Factor* and Shakespeare's *Hamlet* -- then asks students to debate which of the three experiences qualifies as the "highest" pleasure.
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  • Free to Choose / Who Owns Me?

    Sun, Sep 27, 2009
    Lecture Five: "Free to Choose" Libertarians believe the ideal state is a society with minimal governmental interference. Sandel introduces Robert Nozick, a libertarian philosopher, who argues that individuals have the fundamental right to choose how they want to live their own lives. Government shouldn't have the power to enact laws that protect people from themselves (seat belt laws), to enact laws that force a moral value on society, or enact laws that redistribute income from the rich to the poor. Sandel uses the examples of Bill Gates and Michael Jordan to explain Nozick's theory that redistributive taxation is a form of forced labor. Lecture Six: "Who Owns Me?" Libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick makes the case that taxing the wealthy -- to pay for housing, health care, and education for the poor -- is a form of coercion. Students first discuss the arguments in favor of redistributive taxation. If you live in a society that has a system of progressive taxation, aren't you obligated to pay your taxes? Don't the poor need and deserve the social services they receive? And isn't wealth often achieved through sheer luck or family fortune? In this lecture, a group of students ("Team Libertarianism") are asked to defend the objections against Libertarianism.
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  • This Land is My Land / Consenting Adults

    Sun, Oct 4, 2009
    Lecture Seven: "This Land is My Land" John Locke is both a supporter and detractor from the theory of Libertarianism. Locke argues that in the "state of nature," before any political structure has been established, every human has certain natural rights to life, liberty -- and property. However, once we agree to enter into society, we are consenting to being governed by a system of laws. And so, Locke argues, even though government is charged with looking after one's individual rights, it is the majority that defines those rights. Lecture Eight: "Consenting Adults" John Locke on the issue of taxation and consent. How does John Locke square away the conflict between 1) his belief that individuals have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and property and 2) that government -- through majority rule -- can tax individuals without their consent? Doesn't that amount to taking an individual's property without his/her consent? Locke's answer to that is that we are giving our "implied consent" to taxation laws, by living in society, therefore taxation is legitimate. And, as long as government doesn't target a particular group for taxation -- if it isn't arbitrary -- then taxation isn't a violation of the fundamental rights of individuals.
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