General
October 2026 • Podcast
The California Gold Rush
National Book Award winner Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, discusses his new book, The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World.
May 2026 • General
BIRDING IS BOOMING: with young and old alike
Everybody notices birds. But how many of us are birders?
Right now, birding is one of the fastest‑growing communities in America.
And something unexpected is fueling that growth.
April 2026 • Technology
Can Democracy Survive the Data Economy? Privacy, Power, and the Right to Dissent
The data‑broker economy has quietly become a powerful surveillance engine for federal agencies and law enforcement. This conversation asks a pressing question: when dissent is recorded, classified, and stored, can democracy survive?
March 2026 • Civil Rights
FREEDOM LOST, FREEDOM WON: American History Through a Black Family’s Story
The American story is often packaged as a linear climb toward a “more perfect union”. But for many Black families, history feels less like a ladder and more like a pendulum—swinging between hard‑won breakthroughs and the inevitable backlashes that follow. Join Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and commentator Eugene Robinson for an exploration of this rhythmic history.
January 1985 • Civil Rights
Rev. Jesse Jackson: “Happy Birthday, Doctor King”
A birthday present to Dr. King, featuring the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was by the side of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during many of the historic civil rights marches which inspired the nation during the 1960’s. Herbert Vetter, Director of Cambridge Forum introduces this broadcast on the occasion of a 1985 memorial service in commemoration of Dr. King, on his birthday, at the Memorial Church, Harvard University.
February 2026 • Podcast
THE MEDICATED APPETITE: How GLP‑1s Are Reshaping the Food System
GLP‑1 medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro are reshaping how Americans think about appetite, health, and the food around us. What happens when medication becomes one of the most effective ways to navigate a food system built around overconsumption? How might these drugs change what we eat, how companies design and sell food?
February 2026 • General
SKATING ON THIN ICE
As climate changes accelerate and global power dynamics shift, the Arctic is emerging as one of the most strategically contested regions on earth. Greenland now sits at the center of a geopolitical chess game involving the U.S, China, Russia, and Europe.
January 2026 • Podcast
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES: WHO IS IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT?
Will driverless technology impact and reshape our identity and urban existence in ways we have not considered? In our car-centric culture, are the promises of convenience and safety of the autonomous car worth the price we may pay in terms of personal privacy?
December 2025 • Podcast
RESISTING ERASURE: The role of Indigenous People in American Identity
Even as Indigenous knowledge and ways of life have been borrowed and celebrated by mainstream culture, Native peoples have faced dispossession, exclusion and erasure. How, despite all efforts to eradicate them over the centuries, have Indigenous communities continued to survive and exercise their sovereignty and sacred cultural ways?
September 2025 • General
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.
March 2025 • General
Abundance: What progress takes
ABUNDANCE: What Progress Takes – a conversation between Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson at First Parish Church on March 19 at 7 pm – the event is sold out but we are recording the audio thanks to our partnership with Harvard Book Store. The podcast will be available shortly after […]