In this Cambridge Forum Classic, best-selling writer David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous, tells a story that reveals the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment.What lessons can we learn from our relationship with the natural world?
Category Archives: Events
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Imagination And Failure
in 2008, children’s author J.K. Rowling spoke at Harvard University about her own life story, as a lesson for young people looking for future success. She argues that the world in which they live suffers from a failure of imagination, and she urges them to cultivate genuine imagination to solve problems, rather than falling into the trap of magical thinking.
Continue reading Imagination And FailureDeadly Spin
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.
Renewing Democracy: Change Congress
(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.
Phil Ochs Songs
Sonny Ochs, sister of the song-writer Phil Ochs, brings together a group of musicians, including Fred Small, to perform her brother’s songs and keep his music alive today.
Phil Ochs’ political songs helped shape the social consciousness of the protest movements of the 1960s. These performances are a vivid expression of the power of music to move us and change the world.
Recorded October 23, 2010
Philanthropy Reconsidered
George McCully, creator of the Catalogue for Philanthropy, discusses the philosophy underlying voluntary giving. What are the reasons behind the idea of including private philanthropy as part of the way our society promotes social well-being? Recorded 9/22/2010
In Between
Mark Morrison-Read, a Unitarian Universalist minister, discusses In Between: Memoir of an Integration Baby, his memoir of growing up during the era of the civil rights movement.
The author wrestles with racism, the death of Martin Luther King, black radicalism, his interracial family, and his experience as one of the first black Unitarian Universalist ministers. Recorded October 2010
Soul of a Citizen
Author Paul Loeb discusses his idea of citizenship.
It’s more than political engagement, he argues, in his underground bestseller Soul of a Citizen. How do his narratives of creative, moral, and emotional citizenship play out in our age of cynicism and fear?
The Freedom to Write
The late historian Howard Zinn was well known for his support of progressive causes and for his historical research and writing. Another facet of his life’s work was to encourage young writers and small publishers.
PEN-New England celebrates Howard Zinn and his support for the freedom to write with a panel discussion.
Recorded October 3rd, 2010
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