Category Archives: Podcasts

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Events, Podcasts

Challenging History: On The Streets Of Newtowne

CF – Challenging History: On The Streets Of Newtowne

Recorded 5/16/2023

What was Cambridge like back when it was called Newtowne and even before that?   A new history book, ostensibly for kids, aims to paint a more multi-dimensional view of the area charting its cultural influences and history starting back 10,000 years ago, when indigenous people farmed, fished and built communities there. The Massachusett tribe were the first documented humans known to have lived on this land.

Art Historian Suzanne Preston Blier, Harvard Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies has just published “The Streets of Newtowne: A Story of Cambridge, MA.” Blier, a Cambridge civic activist, serves as President of the Harvard Square Neighborhood Association, a group she helped to found in 2017.

Joining her to help amplify our understanding of Newtowne’s diverse past are Nicola Williams, President of The Williams Agency, located in an historic building on Story Street. Once a boarding house run by former slave Harriet Jacobs, who self-published her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Jacobs went on to become an abolitionist, activist and suffragette. Williams serves on the board of the Sustainable Business Network of Boston.  Also Sage Carbone, Community Programs Director for the Fenway Community Development Corporation.  Sage is a descendant of the Massachusett tribe and a resident of Cambridge, where she is active in the collective Cambridge City Growers which distributes thousands of seedlings to urban gardeners. 

Resource link: History Cambridge: May 10 Indigenous Voices: A Conversation with Sage Carbone and Dr. David Shane Lowry

Augmenting the historical discussion will be Daniel Berger-Jones, in the guise of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who delivered his famous “American Scholar” address in the church in 1837. This speech was referred to as America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence” by Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Suzanne Preston Blier
Nicola Williams
Sage Carbone

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Environment, Events, Podcasts

Beauty Or The Beast: The True Cost of ChatGPT?

Recent concerns about the long-term implications of artificial intelligence apps like Chat GPT have prompted journalists, academics and entrepreneurs to seek a temporary halt to the training of AIs saying “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity.” In this Forum, we consider the direct and also unseen impacts of utilizing a tool that has yet to be regulated or even fully understood.

Gary Marcus, scientist, entrepreneur and author of Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can trust is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU and hosts the podcast Humans versus Machines.  Jane Rosenzweig is Director of the Harvard Writing Center, freelance writer and author of Writing Hacks newsletter.  Wesley Wildman is a Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics + Computing & Data Sciences at Boston University. Andrew Kimble, Director of Online Lifelong Learning at BU School of Theology, will act as moderator. 

Gary Marcus
Jane Rosenzweig
Wesley Wildman

Recorded 4/25/2023

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New York Times: The Road to AI We Can Trust

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Podcasts, Search For Meaning

Forgetting & Remembering: What Can We Do About It?

Why do we remember certain things and forget others? Well research shows us that committing things to memory is far more complex than we imagine but so too is retrieving that information.

According to neurologist Andrew Budson and neuroscientist Elizabeth Kensinger, forgetting is a necessary part of the process and there’s nothing shameful about using memory aids. In their book “Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: the science behind memory” they outline the three different phases that must occur, in order for us to have access to past content. They suggest some useful tips for helping us improve our recall and also say that sleep is critical if we are to have long-term access to our stored information. Other factors like aerobic exercise, eating right, interacting socially and doing crossword puzzles are all good tools that will help keep brains healthy and maintain strong memories.

Recorded 2/28/2023

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Andrew E. Budson, MD is Professor of Neurology at Boston University, Lecturer in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Chief of Cognitive & Behavioral Neurology at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System. His career combines education, research, and clinical care to help those with memory disorders. Budson is also the author of Seven Steps to Managing Your Memory.

Elizabeth A. Kensinger, PhD is now Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College. She directs a research laboratory that investigates many aspects of human memory, including how emotion, stress, and sleep affect memory, and how memory strengths shift as adults age.

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Events, Podcasts

Why Do We Need The Humanities?

What kind of society do we wish to live in?  Nobel Laureate and physicist Steven Weinberg once said that science discovers many things but nothing in science can ever tell us what we ought to value.  At a time when interest and investment in the humanities is plummeting, and enrolment in STEM subjects is flourishing, we consider the human consequences of such a shift in direction. 

What good are the arts and why should we care about the past? 

Recorded 1/31/2023

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Author and Harvard Professor of English and Comparative Literature Martin Puchner has been grappling with these questions in his latest book CULTURE: THE STORY OF US, FROM CAVE ART TO K-POP.  Historically, humanity has sought to understand and pass onto future generations not just the know-how of life but the know-why.  Puchner suggests that the meaning of existence as expressed in art, philosophy and religion are essential to human civilization. 

Patrick Bringley, a writer, spent 10 years working as a museum guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and he has just published ALL THE BEAUTY IN THE WORLD about his many and varied experiences there.

  What is the function of a place like MMA and what effects does it have on our psyche and humanity? 

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Archive, Podcasts

The Resurgence Of The Independent Bookstore

Something exciting and unexpected has been happening over the past few years. More than 300 new independent bookstores have sprouted up across the country and the bookstore owners and their inventory have become much more diverse. 

The phenomenon is in some part, attributable to the pandemic. People were shuttered in for extended periods and had time to read.  Secondly, they recognized their hunger for a place of connection that was safe.  The public had rallied rather unexpectedly to support their local bookstores during lockdown and when restrictions relaxed, people returned to their favorite places. These bookstores represented much more than anonymous Amazonian warehouses for purchasing; they had become much-needed centers for community engagement and dialogue, crucibles for ideas and human interaction.

Consequently, all sorts of people with no professional background in books, used their savings or government stimulus checks to follow a dream of opening their own bookstore. Despite the numerous ongoing challenges, nobody seems to have regretted their decision.

So, what makes a bookstore special and why become a bookseller?

Recorded 1/17/2023

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LEONARD AND CLARRISSA CROPPER EGERTON are owners of the Frugal Bookstore in Roxbury, the only black-owned bookstore in Boston. They are business partners and the proud parents of four children, aged 13 to 30 years. Leonard was helped initially by Robert Romanow, who had a passion for starting businesses and selling them to people in the local community.  In June 2008, Romanow sold the couple The Frugal Bookstore and Clarrissa quit her corporate banking job and jumped right in as the new co-owner.  The couple have worked diligently to make the bookstore a place that “people in our community could be very proud of, a place where our young people and older folk could come and see themselves reflected in the pages of books. We strive to contribute to literacy in our community, our mission, is to change minds one book at a time.”  They have been in business together for 15 years and it is their desire to make the Frugal Bookstore not only a part of their legacy, but a part of Roxbury’s legacy

Leonard Egerton and Clarrissa Cropper Egerton, owners of the Frugal Bookstore.

CHRISTINA PASCUCCI CIAMPA is the owner of All She Wrote Books in Somerville, MA. ASWB is an inclusive feminist and queer indie bookstore that supports, celebrates and amplifies underrepresented voices through a carefully curated selection of books spanning across all genres.  

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Events, Podcasts

Living A Good Enough Life

Do you constantly obsess about being happy?  Well, you’re not alone.  It appears that many Americans share this national proclivity.

These pervasive desires with how to be the wealthiest, the most powerful or famous, take up a lot of psychic energy, and the end results are not too impressive.  Despite the myriad of self-help books out there, we Americans are among the most anxious people on earth. 

So, we are taking a stop and asking, is there a better way? 

AVRAM ALPERT, writer and educator, shares his ideas from The Good-Enough Life, suggesting how an acceptance of our own limitations can lead to a more fulfilling life and a more harmonious society.

Obsessing about greatness has given us an epidemic of stress, anxiety, inequality and ecological damage.

Alpert is a writer and teacher, and currently a Research Fellow at The New Institute in Hamburg where he is working on a book on wisdom.

KIERAN SETIYA, a professor of philosophy at MIT, provides a refreshing and realistic antidote to many of the platitudes pushed by our contemporary American self-improvement industry.  His latest book Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help us Find our Way suggests that trying to live a perfect life in difficult circumstances only brings dismay.  Much in life that makes us miserable can neither be changed nor ignored, so we need to come to terms with reality.  

Both guests challenge the notion that happiness should be life’s primary pursuit – arguing we might be better served by living well within our means, acknowledging some difficult truths and concentrating on leading a meaningful life instead.  Embracing the “good-enough” life might be preferable to hankering for the perfect one, and we might just stumble across happiness in the process. 

Recorded 12/22/2022

CF Living A Good Enough Life 1
CF Living A Good Enough Life 2

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Archive, Podcasts

THE ART OF RESISTANCE: Visions And Voices Of Change

Art provides a powerful expression for resistance both in word and image, and Peter Sacks uses both to great effect in his latest works. Sacks, an expatriate of South Africa is currently presenting his first solo museum exhibition at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

RESISTANCE is a collection of 88 portraits of individuals who have resisted political, racial or cultural oppression over the past two centuries ranging from Frederick Douglass, Rachel Carson and Nelson Mandela to Emmeline Pankhurst, Sitting Bull and Volodymyr Zelensky.

Sacks, who began as a poet and still teaches at Harvard University produced all the portraits in the past two years, a prolific output for someone who did not pick up a paintbrush until he was 48 years of age.

Drawing from his anti-apartheid activism and multicultural experiences, Sacks creates an inspiring cast of writers, artists, philosophers and activists from around the world, who all resisted oppression in various ways.  Each portrait consists of a face embedded in a tactile composition of fabric, paint, personal items and text.  The exhibit is immersive; alongside the visuals, there is an audio collage of voices of numerous contemporary literary, social, political and cultural figures.

Many of these figures have inspired me over a lifetime, in ways at once intimate and public.  Many of the portrayed individuals became each other’s powerful guides and sources of courage. I hope they will do the same for viewers and conjure a community among them.

Peter Sacks

The Rose Art Museum exhibit runs until December 30, 2022 and admission is free.

Drawing from his anti-apartheid activism and multicultural experiences, artist and expatriate of South Africa, Peter Sacks, is currently presenting his first solo museum exhibition at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

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Events, Podcasts

Heart To Heart: The Exquisite Machine

The human heart is a miraculous organ, a marvel of construction unsurpassed by any human made creation with its resilience and precision.  It beats 100,000 times a day so that if you live 100 years, that would be more than 3 billion beats in a lifetime. 

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In our forum, Sian Harding will explore the latest scientific developments and mysteries of the heart.  Professor Harding, a world leader in cardiac research at Imperial College in London, is author of The Exquisite Machine: the new science of the heart. The book explains the latest cardiac discoveries as well as the relationship between the emotions and heart function.  In addition to being a powerful pump, the heart is super-sensitive – not just in responding to emotions but in creating them.  And yes, you can die of “broken heart syndrome” – although there are profound differences between men and women.  There is also a much deeper connection between the heart and the brain than was previously understood.

SIAN HARDING, a leading authority in cardiac science, is Emeritus Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology at Imperial College London. She served as Special Advisor to the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee on Regenerative Medicine.

Since the heart is at the nexus of feeling, we use the word in everyday conversation – heartfelt, heartache, the heart of the matter, a good heart.  E E Cummings famously wrote “I carry your heart with me” but writers have obsessed with this organ for centuries. One is the physician and poet, Dr. Fady Joudah who practices Internal Medicine at St Luke’s Baylor Medical Center in Houston, TX.

Joudah is an award-winning poet who first starting writing when working for Doctors Without Borders in Africa and published Earth in the Attic.  He will read from his work and discuss how poetry informs his mission as a physician.

Fady Joudah has published five collections of poems: The Earth in the Attic; Alight; Textu; Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance;  and, most recently, Tethered to Stars. He has translated several collections of poetry from the Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He is an Editor-at-Large for Milkweed Editions. He lives in Houston where he practices internal medicine.

Events, Podcasts

Tyrants On Twitter

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TYRANTS ON TWITTER, a new book by national security expert David Sloss, details how by investing heavily in global media and information technology systems, Russia and China are undermining democracy.  Sloss provides a careful analysis of how Chinese and Russian agents weaponize Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms for the sole purpose of subverting the liberal international order, both in America and Europe.  In this forum, we’ll examine questions about the 2016 US election and also explore Russia’s use of foreign infiltration to meddle with Western democratic elections. 

What can be done to mitigate the damage? 

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David L. Sloss is an educator, author, and national security expert. His latest book, Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare focuses on Russian and Chinese information warfare. Sloss is currently Professor of Law at Santa Clara University. Before entering academia, he worked for the federal government on U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations and nuclear proliferation issues.

Environment, Events, Podcasts

Much Ado About Mushrooms

Recorded June 28, 2022

Fungi are perhaps the most underappreciated kingdom of the natural world. As billion year-old organisms they are masters of survival and integral to the development of life on Earth. Fungi are also remarkable chemists producing molecules that humans still can’t make in a lab, and scientists are only scratching the surface since there are an estimated 5,000,000 species of fungi, and we’ve only discovered about one per cent of them. 

One species that is attracting great attention is psilocybin mushrooms, which have been part of religious rituals for thousands of years. The Aztecs referred to these mushrooms as “God’s flesh” in homage to their believed sacred power. In 1957, Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working for the pharmaceutical company Sandoz, isolated psilocybin from a mushroom and unleashed all sorts of interesting discoveries.  During the 60s, Sandoz sold psilocybin and LSD for research in medical trials, but the substances were soon outlawed after they became associated with Timothy Leary and the 60’s counterculture.

Well Psilocybin has been making a steady comeback within the medical community who  have conducted clinical trials showing remarkable success in treating patients with severe depression, anxiety and PTSD.  Many individuals speak of life-changing experiences during a single session and emerge with new-found awareness including author Michael Pollan, author of “How to Change your Mind”. 

GIULIANA FURCI is Chile’s first female mycologist who launched the Fungi Foundation in 2012 – the first NGO devoted to these organisms.

Giuliana Furci is Chile’s first female mycologist, who founded the Fungi Foundation, the first NGO in the world working solely for the protection and promotion of fungi, with offices in Chile and the USA.  Her work triggered the inclusion of fungi in Chilean environmental legislation and made it possible to assess the conservation status of over 80 species of fungi.  Furci has described several species of fungi and conducted mycological expeditions in close to 20 countries.

CF Much Ado About Mushrooms