Swanee Hunt speaks about her experiences in Rwanda from her new book Rwandan Women Rising which follows the story of the women who worked for peace after the genocide in 1994. Today 64% of the seats in the Rwandan parliament are held by elected women, a number unrivaled by any other nation.
Swanee Hunt chairs the Washington-based Institute for Inclusive Security. She is the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and CEO of Hunt Alternatives. Recorded June 13, 2017
Listen to Rwandan Women Rising, 1 & 2
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CAMFORUM-Rwandan-Women-1.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum RWANDAN WOMEN RISING – Part 1]
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CAMFORUM-Rwandan-Women-2.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum RWANDAN WOMEN RISING – Part 2]
What divides Americans from the world and from each other?
Stanford Law professor Mugambi Jouet discusses his new book Exceptional America which tackles why Americans are far more divided than other Westerners over basic issues, including wealth inequality, health care, climate change, evolution, gender roles, abortion, gay rights, sex, gun control, mass incarceration, the death penalty, torture, human rights, and war.
Why is America so polarized? How does American exceptionalism explain these social changes?
Mugambi Jouet teaches at Stanford Law School and is a frequent media commentator. His research focuses on U.S. criminal law, constitutional law, and policymaking from a multidisciplinary perspective encompassing history, sociology, political science, and the humanities.
Krista Tippett, host of award-winning NPR program “On Being“, discusses her latest book Becoming Wise: an inquiry into the mystery and art of living. Sh’s joined in conversation bypoet and author, David Whyte
Whyte’s most recent publications are The Sea in You: Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love and Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
LET THEM EAT DIRT!
Are we living in an over-sanitized world?
Brett Finlay PhD., a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia and world leader on understanding how bacterial infections work, talks about his new book “Let Them Eat Dirt”, in which he questions whether our hyper-vigilant hygiene practices are helping or hurting our health. In the 200 years since we first discovered that microbes cause infectious diseases, we have battled to keep them at bay. But a recent explosion of scientific knowledge has led to undeniable evidence that early exposure to these organisms is beneficial to or health. Finlay argues that our super-clean approach to living is damaging our health and the health of our children. Indeed, the imbalance of these important microbes can lead to the development of obesity, diabetes and asthma.
Recorded February 1, 2017
Listen to Let Them Eat Dirt, part 1 & part 2
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CF-MICROBES-1.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum LET THEM EAT DIRT – Part 1]
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CF-MICROBES-2.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum LET THEM EAT DIRT – Part 2]
Bill McKibben, author, educator, founder of 350.org Dr. Gretchen Goldman, Research Director, Center for Science and Democracy Tim DeChristopher, climate activist Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, minister and Boston-based activist Moderated by Wen Stephenson, author and writer, The Nation
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CF-CLIMATE-DENIAL-1.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum NORMALIZING DENIAL – Part 1]
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CF-CLIMATE-DENIAL-2.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum NORMALIZING DENIAL – Part 2]
Loneliness may be one of the most urgent issues facing American society. In this 2-part forum, we attempt to unravel some of the causes of this pernicious condition and consider the ways to ward off, or at least alleviate, the curse of loneliness.
Recorded December 7, 2016
With the help of four great minds from different disciplines, we consider why loneliness is a such a growing sociological phenomenon in our hi-tech, super-wired world. Neuroscientific research seems to suggest that our brains are indeed wired to connect, but they prefer human rather than digital interaction. So what constitutes true friendship and can a device ever substitute for the power of human touch?
Our panel includes Dr. Terry Freiberg, a social psychologist and author of Four Seasons of Loneliness; Dr. Amy Banks, a psychiatrist at Wellesley Centers for Women and author of Wired to Connect: The Surprising Link between Brain Science and Strong, Healthy Relationships; Alex Pentland, who directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics Labs and co-author of a recent study in the journal PLOS , Are you Your Friends’ Friend? Poor Perception of Friendship Ties; and Alexander Nehamas, Princeton philosopher and author of the book On Friendship.
Listen to Loneliness in the Digital Age, part 1 & part 2
Cambridge Forum celebrates the legacy and future of folk music as it marks its 50th anniversary.
Recorded 11/16/2016
Music and memories from the early days of the Harvard Square folk scene to the current state of the Americana genre.
Betsy Siggins, raconteur extraordinaire, recalls her early days at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge when Joan Baez performed. Folklorist Millie Rahn joins the conversation, along with live music from multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Jake Armerding.
Back in the late ’60s, Club 47 was the place to play for folk musicians in the Boston area and all the greats performed there, including Maybelle Carter, Doc Watson, and Muddy Waters. The space eventually morphed into today’s Club Passim, which has given rise to some of the top musicians in the folk world, like Shawn Colvin and Suzanne Vega.
The music scene has changed greatly over the past 50 years, when Cambridge Forum first captured the spirit of the times. But Harvard Square and Club Passim continue to turn out fresh and exciting talent, that reflect many influential trends in today’s music industry. In the tradition of the Club 47 legends, musician Jake Armerding embodies the consummate, hard-working troubadour. He hails from a Massachusetts family of musicians, in which he honed his songwriting skills, while also becoming an accomplished fiddle, mandolin, and guitar player.
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan on stage at Club Passim, when it was known as Club 47.
Courtesy of Passim.
Forever Young 1Forever Young 2
For those interested in brushing up on the what’s been happening on the folk scene over the last few decades, here’s a *short* bibliography courtesy of folklorist Millie Rahn.
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years, by Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney. Originally published 1979; updated and republished by the University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive by Dick Waterman; preface by Bonnie Raitt; introduction by Peter Guralnick. Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003. Bluegrass: A History by Neil Rosenberg. University of Illinois Press,1985.
“Cambridge, Club 47, and the 1960s Folk Revival,” chapter by Millie Rahn in A City’s Life and Times: Cambridge in the Twentieth Century. Published by the Cambridge Historical Society, 2007.
Country Music, U.S.A. by Bill C. Malone and Jocelyn R. Neal. Originally published 1968; University of Texas Press, 1985.
In It for the Long Run: A Musial Odyssey by Jim Rooney. University of Illinois Press, 2014.
The Face of Folk Music: Essential Portraits from America’s Folk Music Revival. Photographs by David Gahr; text by Robert Shelton. The Citadel Press, 1968.
“The Folk Revival: Beyond Child’s Canon and Sharp’s Song Catching,” chapter by Millie Rahn in American Popular Music: New Approaches to the Twentieth Century. University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.
Films
Festival!, by Murray Lerner. The Newport Folk Festivals 1963-1966. Produced by the Newport Festival Foundation, 1967.
For the Love of the Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival by Ezzie Films & Blue Star Media, 2012.
ALISON GOPNIK discusses her book The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children.
Recorded October 12, 2016
Listen to A Manifesto Against Parenting
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CF-PARENTING.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum RWANDAN WOMEN RISING – Part 1]
Gopnik is a professor of psychology and philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. An internationally recognized leader in the study of children’s learning and development, Gopnik writes the “Mind and Matter” column for The Wall Street Journal and is the author of The Philosophical Baby and coauthor of The Scientist in the Crib
Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman joined us on her national speaking tour to celebrate 20 years of the daily, independent, global TV/Radio news hour and the release of her most recent book, Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America.
Returning to the Cambridge Forum, Amy talks about the most pressing issues facing our democracy today, the 2016 presidential election, and reflects on the past twenty years of covering the heroes at the forefront of movements for change in America.
Cambridge Forum examines the plight of honey bees with the help of Noah Wilson-Rich from Best Bees and apiarist David Hackenberg of Buffy Bees from Lewisburg, PA. If you care about the future of food and want to learn more about how to ensure the survival of our precious honey bees, please plan to attend.
Bees don’t just make honey, they pollinate a third of our food supply. But bee colonies are disappearing at an alarming rate in the US. In addition to being ecologically essential, bees are highly social and complex creatures that are vulnerable to a barrage of attacks ranging from parasitic mites to pesticides and herbicides.
Recorded April 27, 2016 Coming soon on the WGBH Forum Network
Listen to All About Bees – Part 1
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CAMFORUM-ABOUT-BEES-1.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum ALL ABOUT BEES – Part 1]
Listen to All About Bees – Part 2
[audio:https://www.cambridgeforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CAMFORUM-ABOUT-BEES-2.mp3|titles=Cambridge Forum ALL ABOUT BEES – Part 2]
Swanee Hunt speaks about her experiences in Rwanda from her new book Rwandan Women Rising which follows the story of the women who worked for peace after the genocide in 1994. Today 64% of the seats in the Rwandan parliament are held by elected women, a number unrivaled by any other nation.
What divides Americans from the world and from each other?
Krista Tippett, host of award-winning NPR program “On Being“, discusses her latest book Becoming Wise: an inquiry into the mystery and art of living. Sh’s joined in conversation by poet and author, David Whyte
LET THEM EAT DIRT!
ALISON GOPNIK discusses her book The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children.
