In 2019, WGBH’s Forum Network recorded 150 talks around greater Boston on topics ranging from sustainable housing development, to the psychology behind political movements, to snow leopard conservation, and numerous author readings, including one of the year's Nobel laureates and a newly named MacArthur genius.
While it’s hard to pick our favorite lectures from among so many, here are six that introduce surprising perspectives and offer context to some of this year’s top news events.
1. Jared Hardesty On How New England Was Built By The Slave Trade
Over the last 25 years, increased access to numerous historic collections from the slave trade has spurred a new era of scholarship on U.S. slavery, according to Jared Hardesty, associate professor of history at Western Washington University. In his book “Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History Of Slavery In New England,” Hardesty explains how New England was built on earnings and supported by the the slave trade.
In his talk at the Royall House and Slave Quarters Museum in Medford, Mass. on Oct. 17, Hardesty shares the findings from his book. He examines how slavery supported the growth of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later New England states, spanning from the 1630s to the early 1890s. Puritans arriving in New England needed labor for clearing fields and building shelters. They traded captured Piquots for African slaves coming from sugar plantations on Barbados, Antigua, and later Jamaica.
This boon in scholarship, Hardesty said, has inspired many New England institutions, historic sites and local and state governments to reckon with their own ties to slavery.
“I was just at Old North Church talking about their connections with slavery,” Hardesty says. “There is this kind of thirst of these institutions to explore their own ties and histories of slavery in the region.”
2. As The Opioid Crisis Continues, The Medical Community Discusses Resources
Following a community screening of the
NOVA film "Addiction" hosted by the Wayside Youth and Family Support Network at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown, Mass., on March 5, a panel of medical providers and substance abuse prevention workers discuss the roles that physicians and families can fill to help end the opioid epidemic.
From examining the first signs of addiction to debating the state’s hesitation in implementing supervised consumption sites, the panel provided context to policy initiatives while offering tangible steps for families seeking addiction support.
The four panelists were Dr. Laura Kehoe, medical director of the Substance Abuse Disorder Bridge Clinic at Mass General Hospital; Dr. Damian Archer, chief medical officer at North Shore Community Health Center; Dr. Dara Arons, family physician at Charles River Community Health; and Peter Airasian, founder of the advocacy group Watertown Overcoming Addiction. They discussed infrastructure and policy solutions to the epidemic, gave a local perspective on the resources needed in the state to provide adequate support, and suggested services for those struggling with addiction.
While Purdue Pharma and several other pharmaceutical companies began to meet states and citizens in court in 2019 to answer accusations that they misled doctors and the public in the marketing of opioid painkillers and fueled the opioid epidemic, efforts by states to address the crisis and more public education may be helping. A November 2019 Massachusetts Department of Public Health report shows a slight decrease in opioid-related overdose deaths since the height of the crisis in 2016, but substance abuse is still impacting many people across the state.
3. Local Literature Series Highlights Underrepresented Voices
One of the first Transnational Literature talks of the year, recorded on Jan. 22 at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline's Coolidge Corner, features three celebrated, Asian-American poets who share work about identity, representation, family, immigration and trauma.
Ocean Vuong, recently named a "MacArthur genius" by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and author of “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” reads drafts of new work that tackle personal and historic trauma. Jennifer Tseng, author of “Not So Dear Jenny,” weaves together letters from her immigrant father. Sally Wen Mao, author of “Oculus,” shares complicated tropes of depictions of Asian-American people in films and pop culture.
Their poetry gives perspectives that often go underrepresented in American media and literature. As Wen Mao explains while discussing the blockbuster movie "Crazy Rich Asians" and her poetry on Asian-American actresses, “It’s only when we don’t get that one token film, when we get a multiplicity of stories, that we really have made any kind of progress.”
The Brookline Booksmith’s entire Transnational Literature Series highlights diverse voices and focuses on literature of migration, displacement, and works in translation.
4. The Soil “Sponge” Is The Answer To Reverse Global Warming, Microbiologist Says
Walter Jehne, an Australian soil microbiologist, has spent his career studying the composition of soil and its function in relation to weather. Invited by the organization
Biodiversity For A Liveable Climate in anticipation of news coverage of the September 2019 UN Climate Summit, Jehne shared his research and solutions to prevent further climate change with an audience in the Cambridge Public Library on Aug. 26.
With the help of an easel, colored markers and a giant pad of paper, he diagrams the simple science that occurs when trees and plants are rooted in healthy soil, and how more prairie and forest growth can combat global warming.
“It’s actually quite exquisite and beautiful,” Jehne assured one man who asked for more details. “... If you've got a healthy soil, it's got about 1.1 grams per cc, in terms of density. Sixty percent of that is voids. You build healthy soil by adding nothing. Easy. Doesn't cost a thing.”
While he talks, Jehne draws symbolic mineral particles on the page and connects them with a web of organic matter. His point: By opening up space in soil on this elemental level, it can absorb and hold a tremendous amount of water, thus absorbing more flooding, preventing drought and resisting forest fires. Heathy soil can support robust plant and tree systems of carbon consumption and respiration, Jehne explains, and that's what we need to bring down rising global temperatures. Promoting more growth of prairies and forests will get flooding, drought and forest fires under control.
What won’t work in the climate change battles, Jehne points out, is to simply pay attention to reducing our carbon footprints. He reminds us that fossil fuels allow us to produce and deliver most of our food today. He asks if any one of us is willing to “fall off the perch” voluntarily and stop eating in order to use less fuel. Yes, fossil fuel reduction must happen, he agrees, and yes, we should recycle. But we should also consider how much of Earth can be reclaimed by allowing the planet to do what it does best.
5. Makers Of A Winning "BattleBot" Share Some Fails
Artisans Asylum is a Somerville, Mass., maker space for local artists and builders. It is also home to Valkyrie, a fighting robot that stars on the Science Channel’s television show "BattleBots." On July 25, members of team Valkyrie spoke in a room packed with avid "BattleBots" fans, many of them children, detailing the nuts, bolts, motors and blades that make up the razor-sharp machine, composed of 55, 3D-printed parts and a series of interchangeable blades.
Leanne Cushing is the founder, captain and engineering lead of team Questionable Design, Valkyrie's combat robotics team. Speaking with teammates Brooks Willis and Alex Crease, "BattleBots" fans get a unique, behind-the-scenes look at robot building, tech failures, and the engineering that fuels the show’s battles. Instead of focusing on the finished robot, the panel shares their process of optimization and encourages building work that “fails early and fails often” to learn from design mistakes. The discussion will inspire any creator and design thinker to start tinkering.
6. Tufts Professor Argues Immigration Isn’t Overwhelming And Shouldn't Be Seen As A Threat
There are approximately 260 million migrants worldwide today, according to the 2018 report from the UN's International Organization for Migration. Karen Jacobsen, the Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration at Tufts University and director of the Refugees and Forced Migration Program at the Tufts Feinstein International Center, began a WorldBoston panel discussion at the Boston Public Library on April 4, using data from the report to illustrate the big picture of human flow around the planet.
The United Nations defines migrants, she said, as people who left their own country to live elsewhere for more than one year, and not for tourism or business. That number makes up only 3 percent of the global population. The other 97 percent, she said, remain in their own countries.
She goes on to say that exceptional media coverage in 2015 of the refugee crisis stemming from Syria, while dire, focuses on a very small portion of those humans on the move. Of the 260 million migrants tallied worldwide, she said 24 million are refugees fleeing persecution or war.
Jacobsen aims, in her portion of the discussion, on global migration. She joins panelists Mary Truong, executive director of the Massachusetts Office For Refugees, and Jeffrey Thielman, president and CEO of the International Institute Of New England, to say that the problem of displaced people is not insurmountable, nor should it be seen as a threat.
“We tend to think about refugees who come into our own country,” she said, “but the fact is that most of the refugees in the world are living in other countries and we should really be thinking about how we as a country can help those countries hosting those refugees.”
For more frequent, bite-sized moments from panels and talks, follow the Forum Network on Facebook and Twitter.
