James
September 2025
Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America
Robert Reich’s latest book Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America is a deeply felt, compelling memoir of growing up in a baby-boom America that made progress in certain areas, but fell short in so many important ways, and still has lots of work to do.
June 2024
Playtime vs Screentime
Dr Michael Rich, director of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital, and UMASS Professor David Toomey bat around the most recent research, including the upside of boredom for kids.
June 2024
Live Longer, Better
Join us for a discussion about ageism—it is as much about how the elderly see themselves as it is about how society views them, according to Professor Andrew Scott, author of The Longevity Imperative.
May 2024
Why Do We Need Art Museums?
We will discuss this idea with Natalie Dykstra, the acclaimed biographer of Isabella Stewart Gardner, one of the first female art collectors in America.
April 2024
Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution
While the motto of the French Revolution was “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” it might as well have been “Liberty, Equality, Fashion,” as Anne Higonnet argues in her groundbreaking new book of the same title.
April 2024
Age of Revolutions
Fareed Zakaria discusses his latest book, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, with Steven Pinker
March 2024
What Is Healthcare: Is It a Public or Personal Responsibility?
Cambridge Forum takes a look at our current health care to see how it is changing.
March 2024
Russia’s New Recklessness
Cambridge Forum considers what future prospects exist for Russia, post-Navalny and pre-election, and what the global response should be in light of America’s ambivalence about the future of NATO.
February 2024
A Long Time Coming: The Role Of Race In American History
Ray Anthony Shepard has put together an award-winning book for young readers to counter what he says are “years of sanitized Black History months and schoolbooks.”
February 2024
Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action
A conversation with Dana R. Fisher, renowned climate researcher. This self-proclaimed ‘apocalyptic optimist’ will discuss her belief that we can no longer wait for governments to pass the laws we need or technological silver bullets to maintain a livable planet.
January 2024
Is Our Junk Food Addiction Killing Us?
An astounding 60% of a typical American diet is made up of ultra-processed foods. We know that food can be either medicine or toxin; so how do we recognize “junk” food and make better eating choices?
January 2024
Is the American Century Over?
Joseph Nye shares his memories of living through the American century and discusses the future of America’s role on the international stage.
November 2023
Building Bridges to Belonging
Are there simple steps we can all take in our everyday lives to forge lasting connections? Yes, says Stanford psychologist Geoffrey L. Cohen.
December 2023
Single-Minded: Can You Live a Happy Satisfied Life, Alone?
Consider the state of singlehood: research indicates that people who live alone are generally unhappier. Not so, according to Bella DePaulo.
December 2023
Crushed Wild Mint: Language Rooted in Landscape
Explore some indigenous thinking mixed with a little magic as Jess Housty shares her debut poetry collection, Crushed Wild Mint.
November 2023
Out of Sight
This forum accompanies two men, Mark Erelli, a musician and Andrew Leland, a writer, on their separate journeys from the world of sightedness to one of blindness.
October 2023
Beyond Belief
The effort to destroy facts and make American ungovernable didn’t come out of nowhere. It is the culmination of seventy years of strategic denialism
October 2023
Can Local News Fix the Crisis in Democracy?
In this forum, a panel of journalists considers the pivotal role of information and facts in a healthy democracy.
September 2023
Living on Borrowed Time
Jeff Goodell’s latest book, The Heat Will Kill You First looks at the impact that rising temperatures will have on our lives and on our planet.
September 2023
Doppleganger
Naomi Klein’s new book Doppelganger explores “what it feels like to watch one’s identity slip away in the digital ether, an experience many more of us will have in the age of AI”.
September 2023
Reclaiming Life From Work
Simone Stolzoff, journalist and author of The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work, considers the changing nature of work.
June 2023
Gunfight: Is Healthy Gun Ownership Ever Possible?
Ryan Busse, former executive at Kimber America, a major gun manufacturer and author of Gunfight talks about his battle with the gun industry which he says, has radicalized America.
June 2023
How Not to Kill Yourself
Suicide rates are rising at an alarming rate in America and the populations most at risk are no longer white middle-aged men, they are increasingly young people and minorities. What societal ills might be fueling this tragic trend?
May 2023
Plastic: Our Toxic Addiction
What can be done to break our toxic addiction to plastic, and to terminate its lethal global legacy?
May 2023
Challenging History: On the Streets of Newtowne
A new book aims to paint a more multi-dimensional view of the area charting its cultural influences and history starting ten thousand years ago, when indigenous people built communities there.
April 2023
Beauty or the Beast: The True Cost of ChatGPT
Recent concerns about the implications of artificial intelligence apps like Chat GPT have prompted journalists, academics, and entrepreneurs to seek a halt to the training of AIs. What do you think?
April 2023
Cartoonists, Racism, and Free Speech in a Threatened Democracy
What is the role of the cartoonist in the today’s convoluted world? Is it poking fun at the powerful, parodying the absurdities of life or acting as “a troublemaker”?
March 2023
Bringing Healing to the Homeless
Traci Kidder, author of Rough Sleepers, explores how a small but dedicated group of people have improved thousands of lives by facing homelessness rather than looking away.
March 2023
Fragile But Resilient
Daily we hear more dire news about the future of the planet. Christopher Preston believes all is not lost; there are some fragments of good news to note.
February 2023
Forgetting & Remembering: What Can We Do About It?
Why do we remember certain things and forget others? Research shows us that committing things to memory is far more complex than we imagine but so too is retrieving that information.
February 2023
The 64-Year Climate Change Cover-Up
Big oil knew about greenhouse gases and their impact on climate change more than half a century ago – but instead of sharing the information, they lied and undermined its veracity.
January 2023
Why Do We Need the Humanities?
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.
January 2023
The Resurgence of the Independent Bookstore
More than 300 new independent bookstores have sprouted up across the country and another interesting development has accompanied this trend: the bookselling business has become much more diverse.
December 2022
Living a Good Enough Life
This forum challenges the notion that happiness should be life’s primary pursuit, arguing we might be better served by living well within our means and concentrating on leading a meaningful life instead.
November 2022
All About Medicare: Info Session and Q&A
Despite the information available to the public, many people still find themselves confused and in need of personal advice about Medicare benefits.
November 2022
Retire or Resist: The Pros and Cons of Working Longer
Many policymakers think it is logical—almost inevitable—that Americans will delay retirement and spend more years in the paid labor force.
October 2022
Healing Trauma With EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing is a novel method of treatment for helping people by aligning their “thinking brains” with their “emotional brains”, to help process traumatic events.
October 2022
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.
September 2022
Heart to Heart: The Exquisite Machine
Cardiologist Sian Harding explores the latest scientific developments and mysteries of the heart including the latest cardiac health discoveries as well as the relationship between the emotions and heart function.
September 2022
Tyrants on Twitter
Author David Sloss shares his analysis of how Chinese and Russian agents weaponize social media platforms for the sole purpose of subverting the liberal international order.
June 2022
Much Ado About Mushrooms
Psilocybin mushrooms may be making a comeback within the medical community who have conducted clinical trials showing remarkable success in treating patients with severe depression, anxiety and PTSD.
May 2022
Legacies of Slavery
Historian David Hackett Fischer shines a light on the little-known history of how enslaved Africans and their descendants created new regional cultures and enlarged American ideas of freedom.
May 2022
Harnessing the Power of Seaweed
An increasing number of marine scientists, ecologists, entrepreneurs and foodies are beginning to appreciate seaweed’s remarkable properties.
May 2022
Can We Resist the Hijacking of Democracy in America and Beyond?
Russia’s terrible assault on Ukraine and the recent elections of pro-Putin regimes in Hungary and Serbia, coincide with a growing threat to American democracy from within its own borders.
April 2022
Can Having Good Friends Prolong Your Life?
Research is providing us with proof that having friends is beneficial, if not essential, to good health. But friendships are both a science and an art.
March 2022
Black History: On Rewind
To celebrate our newly digitized collection of eminent historical black orators, Cambridge Forum has teamed up with the Lincoln Institute to present a panel discussion.
February 2022
The Curse of the Smartphone
It is hard to imagine life without the ubiquitous smartphone. What negative effects is this dependency having on our behavior? What can we do about it? Paul Greenberg has some answers.
February 2022
Tick, Tick, and More Ticks
Brian Owens, an award-winning science journalist for Nature and the New Scientist, has investigated the causes, treatments, and controversy surrounding Lyme disease, an insidious but often overlooked disease.
January 2022
The Soundtrack of the World
For over 50 years, naturalist Bernie Krause has witnessed evidence of multiple environments being radically altered by human influence, and the resultant soundtracks or “biophonies” reflect chaotic alterations due to stress.
January 2022
Smell: An Olfactory Orgy
Research into olfaction, the science of what happens between the nose and the brain, has intensified due to the huge number of people who lost their sense of smell due to COVID.
December 2021
Art as a Prescription for Culture
Michael Bobbitt of the Mass. Cultural Council and Catherine Carr Kelly of Central Square Theater tackle the issue of whether or not the arts are a key asset? How much do they contribute to the economy?
December 2021
The Art of Possibility
Benjamin Zander, renowned conductor of the Boston Philharmonic orchestra and Boston Youth Philharmonic orchestra, will discuss the everyday miracles that can happen despite catastrophe.
November 2021
What I Learned in Prison
Journalist Chris Hedges has been teaching classes in drama, literature, philosophy and history in a program offered by Rutgers University to inmates in the New Jersey prison system.
December 2021
Eco-Anxiety
Does the future plight of the planet keep you up at night? You’re not alone. Journalist Arno Kopecky and Professor Theresa Marteau discuss some of the options we have available to us
October 2021
The Day the World Stops Shopping
What are we willing to give up in order to save the planet? And what would happen to our economies and our lives if we seriously committed to consuming fewer of the Earth’s resources?
October 2021
The Truth at The Heart of the Lie: How the Catholic Church Lost Its Soul
James Carroll explores what has broken the modern Catholic Church as chronicled in The Truth At The Heart Of The Lie.
September 2021
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Kristin Du Mez traces how a militant ideal of white Christian manhood has come to pervade evangelical popular culture in America.
September 2021
How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion
Psychologist David DeSteno discusses some fascinating findings from his latest book How God Works.
August 2021
N***er: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
Randall Kennedy takes on not just the N-word word, but our laws, attitudes, and culture with references that extend from the Jim Crow south to Chris Rock and the O. J. Simpson trial.
January 1998
Truth and Reconciliation
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a world-renowned human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
September 1998
Nelson Mandela at Harvard
In 1998, Nelson Mandela received an honorary degree awarded by Harvard. In his speech, Mandela reflects with wit and humor on the formidable challenge of democratization of developing nations.
February 1999
I’ll Make Me a World
Filmmaker and co-executive producer of the PBS television series, I’ll Make Me A World: A Century of African-American Arts, Sam Pollard talks about his dedication to chronicling the Black experience in America.
March 2006
Epic Journeys of Freedom
Historian Cassandra Pybus traces the lives of the runaway slaves who absorbed the dreams of liberty from their masters during the American Revolution and fled to the British to find freedom.
May 1987
Eyes on the Prize
Henry Hampton, the driving force behind Eyes on the Prize and Blackside, speaks in 1987 at Cambridge Forum about his vision of the remarkable human drama that was the Civil Rights Movement.
June 2003
Slavery and the Invention of America
Civil rights activist Byron Rushing traces the theme of colonial domination and slavery in the shaping of America’s history and civilization, beginning with the “founding” of a country that was already known to its original inhabitants, the native Americans.
July 1997
Beloved Community: African American Women
Civil rights activist and Baptist minister Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, reflects on how Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman helped shape our ideas of humanity and advanced the struggle to recognize the dignity of all.
March 1998
Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man
In this Cambridge Forum Classic, Paul Tucker, professor emeritus of art at UMass, offers a striking new view of Monet, the quintessential impressionist.
February 2009
The Third Chapter
Renowned sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot details a process of creative reinvention which redefines our views about the casualties and opportunities of aging.
May 1996
Beloved Community: Cornel West & bell hooks
Can America ever become such a beloved community as Martin Luther King Jr. imagined it, a society free of prejudice where racial differences would be erased and forgotten?
February 1992
Colored People
Henry Louis Gates, Chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University, discusses his book Colored People, a memoir that weaves personal narrative with social history of the 1950s.
July 2021
What Have We Learned From the First Covid Wave?
COVID-19 has proved to be the biggest global public health in history. Although it has posed the same threat across the globe, countries have responded very differently and some are faring better than others.
September 1997
Beloved Law Community: Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier discusses her vision of a beloved community in a law school setting. How should the terms of legal education be re-defined?
November 1998
Rabindranath Tagore: Exemplar of Power?
Herbert Vetter, editor of The Heart of God, a collection of the prayers and poems of Indian philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, discusses the power of spirituality that Tagore evoked in his writings.
February 1998
Beloved Community: Cosmopolitanism
Afro-American scholar and philosopher K. Anthony Appiah considers the idea of a community founded on the principles of inclusion, hope, and mutual respect, a community that transcends the polarizing rhetoric of racism.
July 2003
Brown: The Last Discovery of America
Author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America, Richard Rodriguez reflects on the color brown and explores issues of race, arguing that America has been brown since its inception.
June 2021
Has the Pandemic Made the World Better?
Despite the damage and carnage, the pandemic accelerated our ingenuity and innovation and good things happened. What good things will you keep from 2020?
June 2021
Relationship Rollercoaster
What relationships did you acquire or lose in the past year? Has your emotional life shifted irrevocably? Join our discussion and tell us about your experiences over the past year—for better or worse.
May 2021
The End Of The Office?
How will the pandemic affect your work, life, and home? Some people can’t wait to get back to the office but 80% don’t want to or would prefer a hybrid schedule. All of us must consider the future of our workplaces going forward.
April 2021
Severe Information Disorder: Can We Restore a Healthier Information Economy?
Many of the problems we face in the world today—the global pandemic, the economic crisis, political violence of the kind that rocked the US Capitol in January—are the result of our severe information disorder. How do we create a universe of truthful and verifiable information, available to everyone? We are […]
April 2021
Coming to Our Senses: Empathy
MIT Professor Sherry Turkle helps us understand how we might rejuvenate our senses and flex our empathy muscles once again.
March 2021
Green Growth: A Guide to Post-Pandemic Economic Sustainability
Can we achieve healthy growth that is more regenerative than wasteful, more equitable than unjust? Per Espen Stoknes and L. Hunter Lovins offer blueprints for an inspiring regenerative economy.
February 2021
The Power of Ethics: How to Make Good Choices in a Complicated World
Susan Liautaud shows how ethics can be used to create a sea change of positive decisions that can ripple outward to our families, communities, workplaces, and the wider world.
February 2021
Women and Leadership
Hear a powerful call to action for achieving equality in leadership from Julie Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia, as she reflects on her new book Women and Leadership.
January 2021
Markers and Reminders: MLK to BLM
Cambridge Forum partners with the Harvard Square Business Association to examine Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and Black Lives Matter’s impact on the history of Cambridge, Boston, and beyond.
January 2021
How To Think Long-Term In A Short-Term World
It’s time to trade in shortsightedness for long-term thinking. That’s according to author and philosopher Roman Krznaric, who writes about the power of ideas in his new book The Good Ancestor.
December 2020
Exercised
Professor Daniel Lieberman, Human Evolutionary Biologist at Harvard University discusses his new book, Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding.
December 2020
Can We Save Journalism in America?
Respect for a free press is the cornerstone of democracy. What will it take to restore public confidence and trust in American journalism?
November 2020
How to Make Meaningful Conversation
Architect and designer Fred Dust considers ways to have constructive conversations that are critical to problem-solving in all sorts of different settings from schools to non-profits and governments.
October 2020
Trust in a Polarized Age
Are we caught in a downward spiral that must end in institutional decay or even civil war, or can we restore trust through our shared social institutions?
October 2020
A Synthesizing Mind
Long an authority on the human mind, Professor Howard Gardner’s latest book reflects on his childhood and intellectual development in addition to a review of his groundbreaking work on multiple intelligences—including his own.
September 2020
Does COVID-19 Signal the End of the American Era?
Wade Davis attracted global attention with his opinion piece in Rolling Stone raising this question: Does Covid-19 signal the end of the American era? Why did he ask this question and why has it struck a chord around the world?
September 2020
Magdalena: River of Dreams
Anthropologist Wade Davis’s latest book, Magdalena: River of Dreams brings to life the story of the great Río Magdalena, illuminating Colombia’s complex past, present, and future.
September 2020
Too Much Information—Or Too Little Substance?
Too Much Information, Cass R. Sunstein’s latest book, examines the effects of excessive information in our lives.
July 2020
Civil Rights: Yesterday and Today
In honor of the late US Congressman from Georgia John Lewis, here’s a special Cambridge Forum we recorded in 2001 at the National History Museum in Lexington, Massachusetts.
July 2020
Parenting While Black
Writer, poet, and teacher Clint Smith in conversation with Jude Nixon, Professor of English at Salem State University. Their discussion explores what it means to raise children during this challenging period of Black Lives Matter.
June 2020
Farming for the Future
This forum features three uniquely different farmers who are all equally passionate about smart and sustainable ways of growing our food.
June 2020
The Rise of Environmental Illness
Freelance journalist Oliver Broudy explores environmental toxicity and the community of “sensitives”—people with powerful, puzzling symptoms resulting from exposure to chemicals, fragrances, and cell phone signals.
May 2020
Living Without Working
Daniel Susskind, author and economist, teaches at Balliol College, Oxford, and his new book is A Work Without Work: Technology, Automation and How We Should Respond.
May 2020
Locked-Down Americans: Isolation and Loneliness
J. W. Freiberg’s latest book Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone looks at the problem of chronic loneliness. So how do we surmount this current crisis and help to create healthy connections going forward, in our own lives and in the lives of our children?
May 2020
The Alchemy of Us
Anissa Ramirez is a material scientist who is passionate about getting everyone excited about science, so much so that she calls herself a “science evangelist”. In her latest book, she looks at eight world-changing technologies.
April 1984
Black Writers in White America: James Baldwin
Here’s a Cambridge Forum classic featuring James Baldwin, who visited the harbor campus of the University of Massachusetts in Boston in 1984.
April 2020
In Search of Meadowlarks
John Marzluff outlines a personal approach to sustainable agriculture. Through an ornithologist’s lens, he observes current farming practices to see if we can broker a more harmonious relationship between our birds, farms, food and land.
April 2020
Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy
Joseph Nye, leading scholar of international relations considers presidents and their foreign policy from FDR to Trump who come up short in the morality polls.
March 2020
Nature Underfoot: Learning to live with tiny life
John Hainze, an entomologist, ethicist, and former pesticide-developer calls for greater respect and moral consideration for humans and their natural world.
February 2020
Migrating to Prison
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández takes a hard look at the immigration prison system’s origins, how it currently operates, and why.
January 2020
The Age of Illusions
Andrew Bacevich, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at the Boston University, discusses his new book, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory.
December 2019
How to Start a Revolution
Writers Lauren Duca and Martin Lukacs, author of The Trudeau Formula, discuss collective action and non-violent protest with members of the climate action group, Extinction Rebellion.
November 2019
Appalachia: A Cultural Crossroads
This forum features performances by Revels musicians Jake Blount and Libby Weitnauer exploring the history and roots of traditional music of Appalachia.
October 2019
On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal
Naomi Klein makes the case that we will rise to the existential challenge of climate change only if we are willing to transform the systems that produced this crisis.
October 2019
Kochland
If you want to understand how we destroyed unions in this country, how we widened the income divide, how we stalled progress on climate change, and how corporate America bought the influence industry, you have to understand the story of Koch Industries.
September 2019
The End of Meat?
Can Americans survive without their hamburgers? This juicy question raises many fundamental issues: nutritional, moral and environmental.
September 2019
Chinese Democracy in Crisis: The New Long March
In light of the escalating developments in Hong Kong with pro-Democracy demonstrators becoming increasingly galvanized in response to the Chinese government’s crackdown, we examine the current situation both inside and outside mainland China with regard to human rights.
June 2019
Fake news vs facts: living in a post-truth world
Are we living in a post-truth world where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? Lee McIntrye discusses our modern dilemma.
May 2019
Poetry Fuels Democracy
Former poet laureate Richard Blanco reads from his new book How To Love A Country.
April 2019
They Were Her Property
Historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers discusses her new book about the role of white women in American slavery. They Were Her Property reveals that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who benefited from the South’s slave market.
March 2019
How to Be Happy
Happiness is a choice you make. So writes John Leland who reflects on the timeless subject in his new book Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old.
January 2019
Living With Robots
Judith Shulevitz, from the Atlantic Monthly, and Maxim Pozdorovkin, filmmaker of The Truth About Killer Robots discuss the future of robots.
January 2019
Surveillance Capitalism and Democracy
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism reveals what is at stake for our digital future and how we can reclaim control by harnessing the power of indignant citizens, journalists and policymakers.
November 2018
Healing From Hate: How Young Men Get Into and Out of Violent Extremism
Drawing on his work with skinheads, neo-Nazis and KKK members, sociologist Michael Kimmel considers the root causes of this addiction and how to bring marginalized men back from society’s extremist edge.
October 2018
Whitewash
Carey Gillam won the Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists for her book, Whitewash, which follows the first historic verdict against Monsanto in the San Francisco courts.
October 2018
Good and Mad: How Women’s Anger is Reshaping America
Rebecca Traister, author and NY magazine journalist, examines the history of feminism and the #Metoo movement in the light of recent political events in Washington and beyond.
September 2018
America: The Farewell Tour
Chris Hedges returns to the Cambridge Forum in a vigorous attempt to jolt us out of our complacency about the current state of affairs—while there is still time
September 2018
Grand Canyon for Sale
Stephen Nash, renowned author of books about science and the environment, warns that America’s public lands will “tumble away” unless people act.
June 2018
From Trump to the Pope: Inside the Mind of a Political Cartoonist
Political cartoonist Ted Rall talks about the besieged state of political cartooning in an America where the media landscape has evolved radically in a recent years leaving many artists, writers and cartoonists behind.
May 2018
Is Capitalism Devouring Democracy?
The provocative and controversial ex-Greek finance minister of Greece and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, Yanis Varoufakis, considers the need for a radically new way of thinking about the economy and capitalism.
April 2018
The New Cold War?
Journalist James Kirchick’s latest book The End of Europe, considers the implications of Putin’s victory in the recent Russian election and other cultural and political developments in Europe.
March 2018
The Dream Machine
Princeton University professor and author of Undocumented Dan-El Padilla Peralta shares the story of his American dream journey.
February 2018
Romance in the Information Age
New Atlantis editor Christine Rosen, actor Johnny Lee Davenport, and art historian Curt DeCamillo tackle the issue of how our social media and personal technologies influence our emotions.
January 2018
How Storytelling Shaped the History of the World
Stories are much more than entertainment—they shape our world. They’ve inspired the rise and fall of empires and nations, sparked our understandings of basic political and philosophical concepts, and have given rise to religious beliefs.
December 2017
Race Still Matters
Political activist, author, and Harvard University professor Cornel West speaks on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his national best-seller Race Matters.
November 2017
Who Can You Trust?
Rachel Botsman writes about and researches how technology is transforming trust and what this means for life, work, and business.
November 2017
The War Against Science
A conversation with environmental scientists Joel Clement, former employee of the Department of the Interior, H. Curtis Spalding, Professor at Brown University, and Andrew Rosenberg, Union of Concerned Scientists on the War Against Science.
September 2017
No Justice, No Peace: Race and Power in America
Harvard Professor of Government Danielle Allen moderates this discussion with Professors Tommie Shelby, Elizabeth Hinton, and Khalil Gibran Muhammed.
September 2017
Cuz
Danielle Allen, Director of the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, discusses her new memoir Cuz.
June 2017
Rwandan Women Rising
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.
May 2017
Exceptional America
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.
March 2017
Ways of Being in the World
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. She’s joined in conversation by poet and author David Whyte.
February 2017
Let Them Eat Dirt!
Brett Finlay PhD., a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia, 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.
January 2017
Normalizing Denial
The climate science debate is heating up.
December 2016
Loneliness in the Digital Age
In this two-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.
October 2016
A Manifesto Against Parenting
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.
May 2016
Democracy Now! Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America
Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman joined us on her national speaking tour to celebrate 20 years of the daily, independent, global news hour.
April 2016
All About Bees
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.
March 2016
The Future of Food, an Urban Answer?
Climate change has forced us to rethink our options about many things, including how and where we grow our food.
March 2016
Rotten Reportage: Do We Have the Media We Deserve?
Cambridge Forum invited a panel of journalists and experts drawn from the Internet, academia, and NPR to discuss the state of journalism in America today.
February 2016
Reclaiming Conversation
Most conversations today involve distracted people looking at their phones and not their partners. This, according to Sherry Turkle, is leading to a “crisis of empathy” at work, at home and in our public life.
January 2016
Infiltrating the Terrorist Network
After the Paris terrorist attacks, many feel that the world has entered a new and terrible “reign of terror”. We start our new Deep Globalization series by considering the challenge of balancing security concerns with protecting our privacy.
December 2016
The Cuban Connection
Richard Blanco is the first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person and the youngest person to be the U.S. inaugural poet.
October 2015
Rise Again! A Sing-Along Concert
Cambridge Forum hosted a sing-along concert featuring Peter and Annie; Charlie King; the Nields; Kallet Epstein & Cicone; and Fred Small.
October 2015
Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice
Journalist and author Wen Stephenson provides a candid look at some of the “new American radicals” who are risking everything to build a stronger climate justice movement.
April 2015
The Health of Democracy: Voter Suppression and Disenfranchisement
How can citizens respond when the ideals of democracy come into conflict with the policies of government?
April 2015
The Health of Democracy: A Polarized People
The American people have become polarized over the past 50 years. Michael Dimock, President of the Pew Research Center, discusses the implications for the health of our democracy with Ted Landsmark, president emeritus of the Boston Architectural College.
April 2015
Iyad Burnat: Non-Violent Resistance in Palestine
Since 2005, citizens of Bil’in, joined by Israeli and international peace activists, have held weekly non-violent demonstrations against the Israeli encroachment of illegal settlements.
March 2015
The Health of Democracy: Economic Inequality
Historian Colin Gordon explores the growth of economic inequality and its implications for a healthy democracy. Michael Widmer, former president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, examines how tax policy can support or lessen economic inequality.
March 2015
Witnessing: A People’s History of Ferguson
PEN-New England recognizes Ferguson activists and bloggers Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson with its 2015 Howard Zinn Freedom to Write award for their work as activists, organizers, and citizen journalists in the Ferguson protest movement.
March 2015
The Health of Democracy: Privatizing Education
How do contemporary efforts to privatize public education square with the civic role that education has played in American democracy?
February 2015
The Health of Democracy: Social Immobility and Civic Participation
Economist Randy Albelda examines the rise in U.S. social immobility and the role that contemporary labor conditions have played in limiting Americans’ expectations to do better than their parents’ generation.
January 2015
Pete Seeger Sing Out Tribute
We cannot replicate his voice, but we can keep his music and his spirit alive. Cambridge Forum celebrates Pete Seeger and the power of music with this tribute Sing Out concert.
January 2015
The Health of Democracy: The Role of the Media
Alex Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, and Charles Sennott, founder of Global Post and The GroundTruth Project, assess how today’s press—print and electronic—is carrying out its mission.
January 2015
Duel Over Dinner: Washington and Hancock on State Sovereignty
Historian Timothy Breen explores one of the first disagreements over the power relationship between federal and state governments.
January 2015
Putin’s War Against the West
Russian-American journalist, author, and LGBT activist Masha Gessen voluntarily left Russia last year when tightening anti-gay and lesbian policies threatened her family.
September 2014
Uncertain Justice: The Supreme Court and the Constitution
On the day the United States celebrates its 227th Constitution Day., Laurence Tribe, eminent Constitutional Law scholar at Harvard Law School, discusses his new book, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution.
October 2014
Carbon Tax to Combat Climate Change
A panel including Massachusetts State Senator Mike Barrett, activist Dr. Gary Rucinski, and Anne Kelly, director of public policy at CERES, discusses a carbon tax to combat global warming and create a sustainable economic future.
October 2014
Immigrant Struggles, Immigrant Gifts
By examining the immigrant experience of various ethnic and religious groups throughout U.S. history, Immigrant Struggles, Immigrant Gifts demonstrates that the same patterns of native resistance, immigrant struggles, and contributions have occurred repeatedly.
October 2014
This Changes Everything
Naomi Klein’s new book provides a far-reaching explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market” ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.
November 2014
Witness to History: Remembering Freedom Summer
Jack Landron, a young musician well known to Boston-area audiences for his performances as Jackie Washington at Club 47 in Harvard Square, remembers his journey to Mississippi during the Freedom Summer.
December 2014
Christ Actually: Jesus in the 21st Century
Award-winning author James Carroll discusses his new book, Christ Actually: The Son of God for The Secular Age with Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School.
April 2001
Folklore of Violence
Afro-American folk singer James Sparky Rucker talks about the glorification of the outlaw in popular and traditional folk music. Using songs and lyrics, he traces the tradition of celebrating outlaws from Jesse James to modern gangsta rappers.
May 2014
Election 2014: Key Issues
With Congress experiencing record-low approval ratings, voters are primed to look seriously at the policy positions of aspirants for national office. What should voters be attuned to as they sort through candidates in the upcoming Congressional elections?
April 2014
Learning to Look
Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee and Paul Tucker, curator of the Monet exhibitions at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, discuss the ways that looking at a work of art can open it up to reveal a rich web of information.
April 2014
Putting Together the Pieces: The Power of Narrative
Producer Mary McGrath and award-winning storyteller Jo Radner discuss their materials including facts, memories, voices, pauses, music, sound effects, and the ways they come together to create a narrative that inspires the imagination.
March 2014
Why Doctors Write
Beacon Press director Helene Atwan explores the relationship between editor and author with Danielle Ofri, a practicing physician and the editor of the Bellevue Literary Review, a literary journal focused on illness, health, and healing.
March 2014
Framing Military Occupation: Close-Ups of Daily Life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Physician Alice Rothchild of American Jews for a Just Peace leads a panel discussion on living under military occupation in the occupied Palestinian Territories.
February 2014
Stolen Art
Art security expert Anthony Amore discusses the crime of art theft. Art conservator Ingrid Neuman joins the conversation to explore the threat that theft poses to the physical materials that artworks are made from.
January 2014
Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books
In a culture that is increasingly visual and virtual in orientation, what role does old-fashioned reading play? Author and essayist Wendy Lesser discusses her latest book Why I Read with poet Robert Pinsky.
December 2013
Bunker Hill and the Crisis of Leadership in Revolutionary America
Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution reflects on the bloody battle in Charlestown on June 17, 1775.
October 2013
Taiwan: Island of Contention
Filmmaker Will Tiao addresses one of the thorniest balancing acts in global politics: the role of Taiwan in U.S. relations with China.
October 2013
Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World
Harvard’s Graham Allison discusses his new biography (co-authored with Robert Blackwell) of Lee Kuan Yew, “the power behind the throne” in modern Asian political leadership.
October 2013
Cancer in America: From Lab to Life
Two noted cancer researchers, Dr. Vincent Tuohy of the Cleveland Clinic and Dr. Beatriz Pogo of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, discuss the torturous path that a medical treatment or procedure or device takes from the scientist’s imagination to clinical implementation with actual human patients.
October 2013
Breaking New Ground: A Personal History
Internationally renowned environmental “guru” Lester Brown recounts his life story. What paths did he follow to become the powerful and respected voice for environmental issues that he is today?
November 2013
The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience
Musician and author Stephen Wade takes an in-depth look at the ordinary people who recorded live music for the Library of Congress during the 1930s and ’40s.
November 2013
The App Generation
Famed Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner and Katie Davis of the University of Washington’s Information School discuss how digital media is changing the manner in which young people learn and relate to the world.
September 2013
Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era
Joseph Nye of the Harvard Kennedy School discusses the foreign policies of 20th-century American presidents with David Gergen,
February 2013
Resilience: From PTSD to Hurricane Sandy
Psychiatrists Steven Southwick of Yale and Dennis Charney of Mount Sinai tell the stories of POWs, 9/11 survivors, and ordinary people with debilitating diseases or grievous personal losses.
April 2013
Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women of the War on Terror
British journalist and playwright Victoria Brittain reveals the unseen side of the ‘9/11 wars’: their impact on the wives and families of men incarcerated in Guantanamo, in prison or under house arrest in Britain and the US.
February 2013
The Banjo Project
Television writer-producer Marc Fields and banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka explore America’s quintessential instrument, assisted by Darol Anger on the fiddle.
March 2013
Brokers of Deceit
Rashid Khalidi, one of the foremost historians of the modern Middle East, zeroes in on the United States’ role as a broker of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Analyzing the 1982 “Reagan Plan,” the negotiations leading to the Oslo Accords, and President Obama’s stance toward the conditions for Middle East peace, […]
April 2013
The Richer Sex
Journalist and author Liza Mundy predicts that in the coming decades, women will overtake men as primary breadwinners and become the most financially powerful generation of women in history.
May 2011
Charles Sumner at 200: The Tradition of Civil Rights in America
Beverly Morgan-Welch of the Museum of African American History and Daniel Coquillette of Harvard Law School discuss Sumner’s significance in America’s ongoing struggle for civil rights.
January 2011
Common as Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership
MacArthur Fellow Lewis Hyde defends the concept of the cultural commons. How has our cultural heritage, the store of ideas and art we have inherited from the past, come to be seen as intellectual property?
February 2013
Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science
Biographer Christoph Irmscher examines the life of this controversial figure in its Victorian cultural context.
January 2013
The World Until Yesterday
Best-selling author Jared Diamond argues there are profound differences between so-called “traditional” societies and industrial or post-industrial societies in everything from the way we count to the way we meet strangers.
November 2012
Using the Internet to Create a Just, Sustainable Economy
The New Economic Institute hosts Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons and Change Congress, discussing the part the Internet could play in fostering a just and sustainable economy.
October 2012
May Doctors Help You Die?
Dr. Marcia Angell, senior lecturer in the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, discusses the Massachusetts ballot initiative in support of physician-assisted suicide.
September 2012
A Test Case for America: Washington, Longfellow and the Jewish Community at Newport
Ted Widmer, director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, speaks about George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Jewish community in Newport.
September 2012
The Spirit of Compromise
Harvard University’s Dennis Thompson discusses the sources of partisan intransigence and legislative gridlock in American political life.
October 2012
What’s the Economy For Anyway?
Activist, author, and film-maker John de Graaf looks beyond the current downturn to explore the assumptions underlying our economy.
November 2012
Censoring Children
MIT’s Noam Chomsky and Barbara Lubin of the Middle East Children’s Alliance discuss A Child’s View of Gaza, the book of Palestinian children’s artwork slated for exhibition at the Oakland Museum of Children’s Art. The exhibition was canceled at the last minute without explanation.
November 2012
The Second Nuclear Age
Yale national security strategist Paul Bracken argues that a new nuclear age is dawning.
March 2012
Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
Harvard China scholar Ezra Vogel discusses his highly acclaimed biography of transformational Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.
April 2012
The Rise of China and American Power
Joseph Nye of the Harvard Kennedy School examines the future of American relations with China. As China has become a more powerful player in the Pacific, how has it projected its strength?
January 2012
Being Alive and Having To Die
Author Dan Cryer discusses his biography of the Rev. Forrest Church, the foremost Unitarian Universalist of our time.
February 2012
The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program
UCLA neuroscientist Gary Small looks at what Alzheimer’s disease actually is and reviews the research on preventing its onset. Small challenges the notion that Alzheimer’s is not preventable and discusses a variety of ways to keep the brain healthy.
January 2012
Challenges of Globalization: Global Engagement
Cambridge Forum hosts a mini-conference on the impact of global engagement on America’s sense of security and well-being.
March 2012
Obama and Iran: A Single Roll of the Dice
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, assesses the high-stakes diplomatic sparring between Washington and Tehran.
April 2012
Challenges of Globalization: Economic Globalization
A mini-conference on economic globalization explores the impact of globalization of labor, capital, and markets on American workers, investors, and consumers. Robert Kuttner of Demos moderates.
April 2012
Creativity and Stress
Actors from the Underground Railway Theater read a selection from But the Giraffe!, the curtain-raiser Tony Kushner wrote for the Broadway revival of Brundibar.
April 2012
Wealth Inequality: The Gilded Road to Ruin?
Chuck Collins, director of the Institute for Policy Studies Program on inequality and the Common Good, and journalist Linda McQuaig explore the impact of the growing wealth gap and suggest ways to reverse the increase in economic inequality.
January 2012
Where Does Democracy Come From? Popular Uprising and Parliamentary Elections in Egypt
Stanford University Middle East specialist Joel Beinin discusses the results of the Egyptian elections.
November 2011
Columbus: The Four Voyages
Biographer Laurence Bergreen retraces the voyages of Christopher Columbus, placing the 15th-century explorer into the context of the Age of Discovery.
October 2011
Bob Dylan in America
Historian and cultural commentator Sean Wilentz explores the place that legendary artist Bob Dylan holds in America.
November 2011
Reinventing Discovery
Michael Nielsen, a pioneer of quantum computing, discusses the need to change the way scientific research is conducted and the way data is handled in the modern scientific era.
October 2011
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Author Gregory Maguire has re-imagined the stories of Oz beginning with Wicked, which took the viewpoint of one of the wicked witches. With the publication of Out of Oz, the final volume of the series, he looks back on his journey of imagination.
October 2011
America the Vulnerable: Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare
Former National Security Agency insider Joel Brenner explores the chilling future of espionage and warfare in the digital matrix that bounds our world.
September 2011
Wildness and Reason
In this Cambridge Forum Classic, David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous, tells a story that reveals the dependence of human cognition on the natural environment.
September 2011
Reimagining Equality
Anita Hill reflects on her experience as an African American woman in the late 20th century. How successful have the movements for racial and gender equality been in eliminating barriers to opportunity?
September 2011
Bullies and Cyberbullies
Psychologist Elizabeth Englander, neuroscientist Tracy Vaillancourt, and storyteller Odds Bodkin look at bullying from the perspectives of victims, victimizers, and communities.
September 2011
The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism
Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol discusses the Tea Party. What are the sources of this group’s influence?
September 2011
One Great Crisis
James K. Galbraith examines current economic debates about austerity, government spending, tax policy, and job creation.
June 2008
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.
May 2011
Ralph Nader: Can the Super Rich Save Us?
Described as a work of imagination, but not of fiction, Nader’s newest book challenges our vision of the American dream.
October 2011
Writing and Civil Disobedience
Poet and environmentalist Wendell Berry is joined by journalist Bill McKibben in a conversation about writing and civil disobedience.
May 2011
Climate Change: Is Green Consumption a Solution?
Heather Rogers, author of Green Gone Wrong, kicks off Climate Change Week in Cambridge, eight days of events about facing and reducing the escalating threats of a changing climate.
April 1998
Wisdom for Mind and Heart
In 1998, Reverend Peter J. Gomes, author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart spoke at the Cambridge Forum about what he saw as a revival of spirituality in American society
April 2003
Descent Into Limbo: Maurice Sendak’s Life in Children’s Art
In this Cambridge Forum conversation recorded in 2003, Sendak traces his lifelong journey in children’s literature and art.
April 2011
Empires of Food
Author Andrew Rimas discusses his latest book Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations.
March 2011
Why Everyone (Else) Is A Hypocrite
Evolutionary psychologist Robert Kurzban challenges the traditional notion of the integrated self.
March 2011
Fire in the Heart: White Activists for Racial Justice
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.
March 2011
Rogue States and Suitcase Bombs: Coping with the New Nuclear Threat
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.
February 2011
World on the Edge
In his new book World On The Edge, Lester Brown attempts to illuminate a path toward preventing environmental and economic collapse.
November 2010
Renewing Democracy: Deadly Spin
In 2009, Wendell Potter testified before Congress, giving powerful specifics of industry practices to “dump the sick” to increase shareholder value.
October 2010
Renewing Democracy: Change Congress
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.
February 2005
Bait and Switch: End of the White Collar American Dream?
Social critic and author Barbara Ehrenreich exposes the economic cruelty of today’s globalized, just-in-time, lean, and mean world of work.
September 2010
Philanthropy Reconsidered
George McCully, creator of the Catalogue for Philanthropy, discusses the philosophy underlying voluntary giving.
October 2010
In Between
Mark Morrison-Reed, 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.
September 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.
October 2010
The Freedom to Write
PEN-New England celebrates Howard Zinn and his support for the freedom to write with a panel discussion.
November 2007
Musicophilia
The late essayist-physician Oliver Sacks memorably reflected at Cambridge Forum on music and its mysterious relationship to the brain.
October 2007
Marco Polo’s Journey to China Along the Silk Road
Historian Laurence Bergreen discusses Marco Polo’s journey to China along the Silk Road.
January 2005
David McCullough: 1776
The late historian David McCullough, two-time winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award visited Cambridge Forum in 2005.
February 2005
Beloved Community: African American Lives
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, discusses African American Lives at Cambridge Forum in 2005.
August 2002
The Life and Times of Madame C.J. Walker
A’Lelia Bundles, Emmy-winning producer and journalist shares stories from her best-selling book about her great-great-grandmother, Madame C.J. Walker, one of the first black women entrepreneurs of the 20th century.
April 2000
Bob Dylan: Artist
Christopher Ricks, Professor of Humanities at Boston University, explores the poetry in Bob Dylan’s songs.
March 2000
Remembering the Negro Leagues
Henry “Pistol” Bow Mason pitched in the Negro Leagues for the great Kansas City Monarchs and the Majors with the Phillies. Here he shares his experiences of playing alongside such greats as Satchel Page, Willy Mays, and Jackie Robinson.
February 1993
Mississippi: Then and Now
Bob Moses, a veteran of the civil rights struggle, draws an analogy between the early voter registration drives in Mississippi during the 1960s and an innovative school curriculum called The Algebra Project.
May 1980
The Uncertainty Of Science
In 1980, Biologist and physician Dr. Lewis Thomas spoke at the Harvard College commencement about the uncertainty of science.