Political activist and consumer advocate Ralph Nader discusses his latest book Only the Super Rich Can Save Us! Described as a work of imagination, but not of fiction, Nader’s newest book challenges our vision of the American dream.
How does Nader’s provocative message resonate with American voters as an economic recession drags on? Recorded Thursday, May 5
Harvard Kennedy School expert in nuclear security
Author Andrew Rimas discusses his latest book Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. What does this sweeping look at the relationships among food, food availability, new foods, and developing human civilizations tell us about food security in our own warming world?
Wednesday, April 13th @ 7:00 pm
Co-sponsored by Food for Free
Evolutionary psychologist Robert Kurzban challenges the traditional notion of the integrated self. The human mind’s very structure makes for behavioral inconsistency, he argues, so it is perfectly natural to believe that everyone else is a hypocrite.
In Kurzban’s stunningly new thesis, our human mind is made up of specialized modules, each with its own evolution by natural selection. While these modules sometimes work together seamlessly. But, when they do not, it results in impossibly contradictory beliefs, vacillations between patience and impulsiveness, violations of our supposed moral principals and overinflated views of ourselves. Kurzban challenges the current thinking in the field of psychology, arguing that it has not yet adopted the findings of deep evolution. He argues for a totally new view: no “I” but a contentious “we”.
What is meant by the concept of the” modular mind?” What are the implications of inevitable human inconsistency in a world built around rational models?
Robert Kurzban, received his Ph.D. from the Center for Evolutionary Psychology, at the University of California, Santa Barbara and did postdoctoral work in economics and anthropology. In 2008, he won the inaugural Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.
Recorded March 21, 2011
Harvard sociologist Mark Warren uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white Americans become activists for racial justice in his new book Fire in the Heart. Warren finds that the motivation to take and sustain action for racial justice is profoundly moral and relational. What paths have white activists taken to embrace activism? What challenges have they faced?
recorded March 2011
Harvard Kennedy School expert in nuclear security Matthew Bunn discusses the nuclear threats of the 21st century: nuclear theft and terrorism, proliferation, and the nuclear energy fuel cycle. How serious are the new nuclear threats? What methods for handling them are effective?
Recorded March, 2011
Matthew Bunn is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and author of Coping with the New Nuclear Threat.
The nuclear threat did not disappear when the Cold War ended. Instead it fractured and morphed into new 21st century forms which have kept the nuclear clock set close to midnight. From disposing of old nuclear weapons to building new uranium enrichment facilities, from the protocols of “mutually assured destruction to the image of the “suitcase bomb,” Matthew Bunn examines the various sources of nuclear threat today and explores means of containing and controlling them. Which nation states pose the greatest nuclear danger? What role do non-state actors play in the current landscape of nuclear threat? How are domestic and international governing bodies addressing these new nuclear threats? What role can concerned citizens play in preventing nuclear catastrophe today?
Internationally renowned 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 breakdown 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 new book World On The Edge, Brown attempts to illuminate a path toward preventing environmental and economic collapse.
Recorded February 9th, 2011
WORLD ON THE EDGE: Preventing Environmental and Economic Collapse
Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, a D.C. research organization, discusses his new book, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse.
For two decades, Lester Brown has been assessing the state of planet’s well being. How does he analyze the current status of the Earth’s ecosystems? Dramatic events have already altered the status quo for populations across the globe. Given the loss of wheat, due to the 2010 record summer heat wave in Russia, will future generations of farmers be able to feed 8 billion people? What solutions does Brown propose to restore the Earth’s health?
Author of 20 major books alerting the public to possible environmental problems, Lester Brown is widely perceived as the nation’s leading environmental writer. E.O. Wilson, in his supporting note on the book cover writes: “If the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has been extended to a third recipient, the logical candidate would have been Lester Brown.” Brown has received numerous prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the U.N. Environment Prize, Japan’s Blue Planet Prize and twenty-five honorary degrees.
Wendell Potter, currently the senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy, discusses his new book, Deadly Spin. As an executive for a major health insurance company, Potter was on the inside team that created the public relations strategy to challenge threats from government regulation. He eventually left his 30 year career and wrote his whistle blowing critique, Deadly Spin. In 2009, Potter testified before Congress, giving powerful specifics of industry practices to “dump the sick” to increase shareholder value. This forum was recorded November 30, 2010.
(recorded in October, 2010) Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig argues that American democracy is broken and that only a concerted effort to change the way Congress operates can restore our system of government. What changes are necessary? And how will they come about?
View the presentation on YouTube here.
Social critic and author Barbara Ehrenreich exposes the economic cruelty of today’s globalized, just-in-time, lean and mean world of work. Does education still assure access to the American Dream? Has the middle class reached the limit of its potential for upward mobility? What happens to democracy without a stable middle class? (recorded in 2005)
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