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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/

  • Modern Slavery: MIT-BBC Symposium

    Sat, May 14, 2005
    In an effort to shine light on this issues of forced labor, enforced prostitution and human trafficking, MIT's Program on Human Rights and Justice at the Center for International Studies partners with the BBC World Service Trust, an independent BBC charity that promotes development through the innovative use of the media, to present a day-long public symposium on the problem of forced labor in the global economy and what can be done about it. The event coincides with the May 11, 2005 release of a major report by the International Labor Organization. The ILO report provides the first estimates by an international organization of forced labor, globally and regionally, and the first estimate of profits made by those exploiting trafficked workers. Cosponsored by MIT's Center for International Studies and The MIT Program on Human Rights and Justice. MIT's [Center for International Studies](http://web.mit.edu/cis/) is one of the country's leading international affairs research centers. The [MIT Program on Human Rights and Justice](http://web.mit.edu/phrj/) is the first human rights program with a focus on the human rights aspects of economic, scientific and technological developments.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • Pitch Panel for Documentary Filmmakers

    Thu, Jun 9, 2005
    Join in on a pitch session as a diverse group of documentary filmmakers present their ideas to an esteemed panel of experts who give feedback and advice. What do filmmakers need to know to make funders and broadcasters prick up their ears and fund their film projects? How can producers maximize their pitches in short amounts of time? Though filmmaker's descriptions of their work and actual pitches are included, this webcast does not include video clips or other imagery shown during the pitches. This panel discussion is a part of the 2005 Boston Fimmaker's Expo, presented by The Filmmaker's Collaborative.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • NOVA scienceNOW: Fuel Cells

    Thu, Nov 10, 2005
    Fuel cell researcher, Martin Baucom moderates a discussion of the science of fuel cell research at a Science Café after a screening of *NOVA scienceNOW: Fuel Cells*. Everyone from automakers to environmentalists to politicians is touting hydrogen fuel cell cars as the wave of the future. But just how soon will that wave arrive? Most experts agree that major technological and economic hurdles need to be cleared before these silent, pollution-free automobiles proliferate on the nation's highways. *NOVA scienceNOW*, *NOVA's* new magazine-format miniseries about cutting-edge science produced by WGBH, presents a Science Café to address fuel cell research. This event attempts to demystify the science and encourage discussion in an informal setting. We encourage you to explore the [NOVA scienceNOW](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/01.html) website for additional information.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

    Sat, Oct 8, 2005
    Richard L Bushman makes a strong case for Joseph Smith's vision as a trace of the regional culture that he left behind with his childhood. Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, was a New Englander at heart: his family left the region when he was 10 and he never returned. Economic hardship and religious confusion cut him off from his New England roots, but his religious vision evoked the Antinomian side of the Puritan heritage, and his attempts to build a City of Zion are powerfully reminiscent of the first generation's desire to erect "a city on a hill".
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • Adam Pertman on Adoption

    Fri, Nov 4, 2005
    Adam Pertman argues that adoption is changing the way we form our families, the way we perceive families, the importance of blood ties, how families are formed, what they look like and the way we perceive basic concepts of life like nature and nurture. According to Pertman, adoption is having a significant effect on helping us understand how our country is changing, how our lives are changing. [*Adoption: An American Revolution*](http://www.adoptionfilm.org) is a major multimedia project that plans to explore how transformations taking place in adoption today are having far-reaching effects on all our public and private lives. The centerpiece of the project will be a two-hour documentary special for national public broadcasting. The documentary will feature a rich tapestry of original stories, illuminating the joys, the challenges and the impact of adoption. The television broadcast will be linked to an ambitious adoption education effort, with innovative adoption-related materials for public libraries and schools, a new Web site with adoption resources, and more.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • American Experience: John & Abigail Adams

    Tue, Jan 10, 2006
    American Experience producer Elizabeth Deane provides a strikingly intimate look inside a marriage of true companions in the new documentary, John & Abigail Adams. For this couple, life included not just the great events memorialized in textbooks, but also laughter, loneliness and family tragedy. To present the couple's story in their own words, Deane drew extensively on the more than 1,000 Adams letters that survive, born of their lengthy time apart, as John served his country at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and as a diplomat in Europe. Their revealing, often deeply personal correspondence, chronicles an inspiring political marriage along with the birth of a nation. A visionary and gifted political thinker, Adams moved a reluctant Congress to declare independence from England, and single-handedly secured millions of dollars in loans to keep the American army from collapse during the Revolutionary War. Later, he was named the first US ambassador to England. He penned the Massachusetts constitution, which would serve as the basis for the US constitution. He was the nation's first vice president and its second president. Through it all, Abigail remained his most trusted political advisor and confidante, as well as his dearest friend. She adored him and he adored her.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • Why We Must Rise to the Global Health Challenge

    Tue, Oct 25, 2005
    Philip J. Hilts, health and science reporter and author of the companion book for the PBS *Rx for Survival* series, speaks at a supplemental public outreach event sponsored by the series. These events raise public awareness in an era of international travel, where communicable diseases know no borders. Here, Philip J. Hilts takes a look at what is working in public health around the world, and why we have cause for hope.
    Global Health
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • Nantucket Sound Offshore Wind Farm Debate

    Wed, Apr 5, 2006
    The WGBH Conservation Initiative hosts a debate concerning the proposed development of America's first offshore wind farm in the shallow waters of Nantucket Sound. The Cape Wind offshore wind farm would provide Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket with approximately 75% of their electricity needs in average winds. However, there is strong opposition to this controversial project.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • American Experience: Eyes on the Prize

    Tue, Sep 26, 2006
    WGBH hosts a preview screening of part one of the *American Experience: Eyes on the Prize* series and a panel discussion with Coolidge Corner Theater audience members. The evening also includes a special performance by a group of Berklee students who welcome the audience with "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," the theme song for the series. American Experience: Eyes on the Prize is an award-winning 14-hour television series produced by Blackside and narrated by Julian Bond. Through contemporary interviews and historical footage, the series covers all of the major events of the civil rights movement from 1954-1985.
    Civil Rights Movement Series
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network

  • 2006 MA Gubernatorial Candidate Debate: Round II

    Thu, Oct 19, 2006
    Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates, Grace Ross, Christy Mihos, Deval Patrick, and Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, debate at Boston's Faneuil Hall. As election day grows near, and negative political advertising increases, growing tension between Democrat Deval Patrick and Republican Kerry Healey bubbles over.
    Forum Network
    Partner:
    GBH Forum Network
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