Forum Network

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Cambridge Forum

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Cambridge Forum hosts free, public discussions that inform and engage, so that people can better explore the varied issues and ideas that shape our changing world. CF broadcasts its live events via podcasts, weekly NPR shows and online presentations via GBH Forum Network on YouTube.

http://www.cambridgeforum.org

Lani Guinier: Race, Gender and Power

Wed, Sep 25, 2002

Civil rights expert Lani Guinier discusses the current distribution of power in the United States. Like the canaries that alerted miners to a poisonous atmosphere, issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities. Addressing these issues is essential. Ignoring racial differences, race blindness, has failed. Focusing on individual achievement has diverted us from tackling pervasive inequalities. Guinier proposes a radical new way to confront race in the 21st-Century. How far have we come in achieving equality among all of our nation's citizens? **Lani Gunier** is the author of The Miner's Canary and Lift Every Voice, and the first African American woman to become tenured professor at Harvard Law School.

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Why Terrorism Works

Wed, Dec 4, 2002

Renowned criminal defense and civil rights attorney Alan M. Dershowitz shares insights from his new book, *Why Terrorism Works*, on understanding and responding to terrorism. The youngest tenured Harvard Law School professor in history and best-selling author of *Supreme Injustice*, *Chutzpah*, and *Reversal of Fortune*, among others, Dershowitz outlines a frank and controversial agenda to combat terror on American soil and around the world. How did America become so vulnerable? What can we do to stop terror without compromising civil liberties?

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Whither Psychoanalysis in Digital Culture?

Wed, Dec 18, 2002

Sherry Turkle, founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, discusses how novel and evocative computational objects, including virtual communities, robotic companions, and screen avatars, demand a depth psychology of our relationships with them, leading to a renewed relevance of a psychoanalytic discourse in digital culture. She argues that this relevance is so profound as to suggest an occasion for a revitalization and renewal of psychoanalytic thinking.

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Jennifer Jordan: Women of K2

Wed, Jan 29, 2003

Award-winning journalist and filmmaker Jennifer Jordan shares stories from her research expeditions on *The Women of K2*. In 2000, Jordan joined an American expedition of women climbers attempting to summit K2 on the Pakistan-China border. At 28,250 feet, K2 is the second highest mountain in the world, and is widely regarded as the ultimate climb. Its giant pyramid peak towers in isolation, its sheer icy summit flanked by six equally steep ridges, each presenting climbers with a maze of precipices and treacherous overhangs. By the turn of the millennium, only 164 climbers, including just 12 Americans, had reached its summit. Of those, only a handful were women. Jordan discusses her forthcoming film and book about the women who pioneered, pursued, and perished on this most challenging mountain.

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Fixing Elections: America's Winner-Take-All Politics

Wed, Feb 5, 2003

Political analyst Steven Hill discusses his book, *Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner-Take-All Politics* (Routledge, 2002). An exhaustive study completed in 2000 found that the last four decades of the 20th century have seen the lowest levels of voter turnout in our nation's history. Among the explanations for this were the public's distaste for modern campaign techniques, our front-loaded system of nominating candidates, and the Electoral College that renders non-swing states irrelevant in deciding elections. Has voter apathy grown too great? Is our current voting system broken beyond repair? What can be done to restore America's faith in participatory democracy? Hill believes that the root of our political failures is our winner-take-all electoral system. In his new book, he shows why the Electoral College is an antiquated system in desperate need of overhaul, and proposes reasonable, proven solutions for change based on European political models. **Steven Hill** is Senior Analyst for the Center for Voting and Democracy in Washington, DC. His analyses and commentaries have been published in dozens of magazines and journals, including *The Los Angeles Times*, *The Wall Street Journal*, and *The Nation*. Previously, he co-authored *Reflecting All of Us*.

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Preparing Students for College

Wed, Mar 19, 2003

Jo Ann Gora focuses on the changing role of colleges, the demands being placed on them, and the qualities they look for in assessing applicants. She describes how can schools give students the foundations they need to better meet the challenges of higher education.

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Educating Educators

Wed, Mar 26, 2003

Margaret McKenna describes the essential tools that teachers need in order to be effective educators and how can schools give teachers the solid foundation and practical experience that they need to succeed in our nation's classrooms.

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Assessing the Success of Schools in Society

Wed, Apr 9, 2003

Paul Reville asks how can we prepare children for life as citizens, workers, and responsible adults in the 21st Century. Educators, parents, policy makers and legislators seem overwhelmed by the number of challenges facing public education today, and by the enormous costs, financial and social, of addressing those challenges. Behind the buzz words, platitudes and anecdotes lies the stark fact that education in the United States is in search of a new mission and in need of a redefined contract with the society that supports it. In the absence of a new social contract between society and schools, test scores have become the generally accepted measure of achievement. Reville focuses on appropriate methods of assessing educational success, asking what role high stakes testing should play in our public schools and what alternatives might assure school accountability.

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Reinventing Public Education

Wed, Apr 23, 2003

Jay Kaufman explores the changes that need to be made in our thinking about the mission, governance, structure, and funding of a transformed public school system, and raises questions about how to effect such meaningful change.

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Mental Health and Women

Wed, Oct 29, 2003

Lauren Slater and Jessica Henderson Daniel discuss an expansive book, The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women. From anxiety to eating disorders to postpartum depression, over 50 experts navigate the milestones and issues affecting women's mental health and the medical assistance that is available. The vast majority of books on mental illness focus on men. This book is the first comprehensive volume that seeks to depict women's lives through their illnesses and their life stages, taking into account both race and class. Over 50 medical experts contribute to chapters on anxiety, depressive and bipolar disorders, body image and eating disorders, as well as disorders associated with specific stages in women's lives: marriage, motherhood, postpartum depression and menopause and the effects of aging on mood, memory and hormones.

Mental Health Month

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