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Forum Network

Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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GBH Forum Network

The Forum Network is a public media service of the GBH Educational Foundation that offers thousands of video lectures by the world's foremost scholars, authors, artists, scientists, policymakers, and community leaders, made available to the public for free.

Lectures hosted on The Forum Network are presented by community organizations and educational institutions from the Boston area and beyond.

From science to the humanities, from local to global topics, The Forum Network is committed to providing outstanding educational content for lifelong learners, and to encouraging deeper understanding and civic engagement around the vital issues of our time.

Explore lectures by Topics, Series, Partners, and Speakers. To provide viewers with more information, lectures are further augmented with speaker biographies, related lectures and books, captions and transcripts, and downloadable audio.

In the past, GBH has collaborated with other public media partners—WETA in Washington, DC; Public Broadcasting Atlanta; and WNET New York—to record public speaking events. While the structure of the Forum Network changed in 2014 to focus specifically on the Boston region, previously recorded lectures remain archived in this website.

Major support for the GBH Forum Network comes from the Lowell Institute, an organization created to carry out the 1836 bequest of John Lowell Jr., to make free public lectures available to the citizens of Boston

Stay in touch with Forum Network. » Facebook Find us on Facebook and Twitter. Become a partner by joining our network as a local community content contributor. Email forumnetwork@wgbh.org with the subject line "New Partner".

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About GBH Educational Foundation

GBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate, inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of learning, and the power of diverse perspectives. GBH serves New England, the nation, and the world with programs that inform, inspire, and entertain. GBH is PBS's single largest producer of content for television (prime-time and children's programs) and the Web. Some of your favorite series and websites -- Nova, Masterpiece, Frontline, Antiques Roadshow, Curious George, Arthur, and The Victory Garden, to name a few -- are produced here in our Boston studios. GBH also is a major supplier of programs heard nationally on public radio, including The World. And we're a pioneer in educational multimedia and in media access technologies for people with hearing or vision loss. Our community ties run deep. We're a local public broadcaster serving southern New England, with 11 public television services and three public radio services -- and productions (from Greater Boston to Jazz with Eric in the Evening) that reflect the issues and cultural riches of our region. We're a member station of PBS and an affiliate of both NPR and PRI. In today's fast-changing media landscape, we're making sure you can find our content when and where you choose -- on TV, radio, the Web, podcasts, vodcasts, streaming audio and video, iPhone applications, groundbreaking teaching tools, and more. Our reach and impact keep growing. GBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors -- Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards -- even two Academy Awards. In 2002, a special institutional Peabody Award cited GBH's 50 years of service to the "community, the nation, and the world with outstanding productions and collaborations."

GBH is devoted to bringing you new experiences, taking you to new worlds, and giving you the very best in educational content. We're here for you -- and it all happens thanks to your interest and generous support!

https://forum-network.org/

  • David F. Wood: The Best Workman in the Shop - William Monroe of Concord, Massachusetts

    Wed, Sep 24, 2014
    In June, 1800, 21 year-old cabinetmaker William Munroe arrived in Concord with a set of tools and $3.40 in cash. Forty years later he proudly recorded having more than $20,000 in assets, a remarkable achievement for a craftsman. Concord Museum Curator David F. Wood describes how, influenced by fashion and international politics and motivated by self-esteem and good food, William Munroe steered a path through the treacherous economic landscape of Federal New England and along the way helped make some of the most beautiful clocks the new nation ever produced.
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  • Immigrant Struggles, Immigrant Gifts

    Wed, Oct 8, 2014
    In the summer of 2014, more than 50,000 children crossing the southern border of the United States brought U.S. immigration policy into sharp relief. Are current policies adequate for today's immigrant experience? By examining the immigrant experience of various ethnic and religious groups throughout U.S. history, the Immigrant Learning Center’s book _Immigrant Struggles, Immigrant Gifts_ demonstrates that the same patterns of native resistance, immigrant struggles and contributions have occurred over and over again. Diane Portnoy of the Immigrant Learning Center leads a panel, including historian Deborah Dash Moore, Constitutional scholar William G. Ross; and Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute, in an exploration of the larger political, historical, sociological and legal context surrounding today’s immigration debate.
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  • Exoplanet Atmospheres

    Tue, Dec 2, 2014
    Dr. Lopez-Morales explains how she and her colleagues detect and then analyze exoplanet atmospheres, a very exciting part of the exoplanet frontier. She is involved in several large international projects, and she what the exo-atmospheric signatures reveal up to now.
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  • Evolution of the Cosmos

    Tue, Dec 9, 2014
    Eric Chaisson is especially well known for his multidisciplinary approach to the evolution of the cosmos: from sub-atomic particles at the very beginning, to the emergence of galaxies (still difficult to explain), to stars, planets, and life. Each stage represents greater complexity, yet there is an underlying order. Dr. Chaisson is the author of the most widely used astronomy textbook, plus several books for the general reader. His lecture series at the Museum of Science some years back was also very popular.
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  • Carbon Tax to Combat Climate Change

    Wed, Oct 1, 2014
    The notion of a carbon tax as the most efficient way to combat greenhouse gas emissions was first proposed by MIT professor David G. Wilson in 1973 and was greeted with silence. James Hansen proposed the idea again 30 years later and was greeted with skepticism. Now Massachusetts has taken up the idea. A panel including Massachusetts State Senator Mike Barrett, co-sponsor of a bill proposing the nation’s first carbon tax, physicist and activist Dr. Gary Rucinski, and Anne Kelly, director of public policy at CERES, discusses using a carbon tax to combat global warming and create a sustainable economic future. How would a carbon tax work? What impact would it have on jobs and the economy? What hurdles would it have to clear to be adopted?
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  • Sandy Oliver: Is It True What They Say About Lobster?

    Tue, Oct 21, 2014
    Lobsters as fertilizer? Children and prisoners forced to eat lobster? Apprentices refusing to eat lobster more than twice a week? Renowned food historian **Sandy Oliver** returns to Old South Meeting House to set the record straight about one of the region’s most mythologized foods.
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  • A Conversation with Henry David Thoreau

    Fri, Oct 24, 2014
    Step back in time to 1855 as Henry David Thoreau, the “Hermit of Walden Pond,” visits Old South Meeting House! Was noted Transcendentalist, abolitionist and naturalist Thoreau really a hermit? What did he think of Boston, where he regularly visited the Athenaeum? Get the answers to these and other questions as you visit with Mr. Thoreau, portrayed by historian **Richard Smith**. Mr. Thoreau reads selections from his writings, including Walden, and answers questions about his experiences in 19th-century Concord and Boston.
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  • George Kalogeris: Read Us Some More Seferi

    Mon, Oct 6, 2014
    Greeks Speak Lecture Series: "Read Us Some More Seferi," a talk on George Seferis, one of the most important Greek poets of the twentieth century and Nobel laureate, by **George Kalogeris**, poet and professor of English Literature and Classics in Translation at Suffolk University. A highlight beginning at 37:45 of the YouTube video: as an interlude amid Kalogeris’ recitation and analysis, native speaker Maria Zervos recites the original Greek text of Seferis’ Argonauts.
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  • Paul Greenberg: The Fight for Local Seafood

    Thu, Sep 25, 2014
    _New York Times_ bestselling author **Paul Greenberg** is back with his latest book, _American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood_. Greenberg explores the idea that Americans need to repair their relationship with local seafood. As more of us become health-conscious and realize the benefits of eating fish, we also need to support local fishing and ensure the protection of these natural resources. From Alaska's salmon in Bristol Bay, to New York City’s oysters, learn more about how you can protect the ocean with the choices you make in the grocery store. As an added bonus, Greenberg was joined by local fish supplier Mac’s Seafood for a conversation about how consumers can support their local seafood better. Located on Cape Cod since 1995, Mac’s Seafood is a family business that has been buying local seafood since the very beginning. Why? Because they knew there was nothing better out there.
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  • Rob Velella: An Afternoon with Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Fri, Nov 7, 2014
    Historian **Rob Velella** (or rather, author Nathaniel Hawthorne) visited the Old South Meeting House to read a selection of the Salem-born writer’s short stories. Complete with a timid entrance and a gruff salutation, Velella’s performance as this literary icon is clearly well researched. Though famous for novels like _The Scarlet Letter_ and _The House of the Seven Gables_, Hawthorne penned his fair share of short stories, as well, such as “Monsieur du Miroir” (beginning at 2:38) and “Young Goodman Brown” (12:52).
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