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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/

  • Time, Talent, Treasure, and Tradition in a Tight Economy

    Sat, Mar 14, 2009
    Meizhu Lui, director of Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, talks to the Women's Economic Forum at Simmons College about her new book, The Color of Wealth. This lecture is sponsored by Our Public Spirit (OPS), a project of the Boston Women’s Fund in collaboration with Haymarket People’s Fund and the Women’s Theological Center (WTC). OPS recognizes and honors the giving traditions of women of color, while promoting social justice philanthropy within communities of color. Through OPS, Boston Women’s Fund works to continue diversifying the base of donors who fund social and economic justice efforts.
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  • The Moral Side of Murder / The Case for Cannibalism

    Sun, Sep 13, 2009
    Lecture One: "The Moral Side of Murder" If you had to choose between killing one person or five, what would you do? What's the right thing to do? Professor Michael Sandel launches into his lecture series by presenting students with a hypothetical scenario that has the majority of students voting for killing one person in order to save the lives of five others. But then Sandel presents three similar moral conundrums -- each one artfully designed to make the decision increasingly complex. As students stand up to defend their conflicting choices, Sandel's point is made. The assumptions behind our moral reasoning are often contradictory, and the question of what is right and what is wrong is not always black and white. Lecture Two: "The Case for Cannibalism" Sandel introduces the principles of Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, with a famous 19th century law case involving a shipwrecked crew of four. After 19 days lost at sea, the captain decides to kill the cabin boy, the weakest amongst them, so they can feed on his blood and body to survive. The case leads to a debate among students about the moral validity of the Utilitarian theory of maximizing overall happiness -- often summed up with the slogan "the greatest good for the greatest number".
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  • Free to Choose / Who Owns Me?

    Sun, Sep 27, 2009
    Lecture Five: "Free to Choose" Libertarians believe the ideal state is a society with minimal governmental interference. Sandel introduces Robert Nozick, a libertarian philosopher, who argues that individuals have the fundamental right to choose how they want to live their own lives. Government shouldn't have the power to enact laws that protect people from themselves (seat belt laws), to enact laws that force a moral value on society, or enact laws that redistribute income from the rich to the poor. Sandel uses the examples of Bill Gates and Michael Jordan to explain Nozick's theory that redistributive taxation is a form of forced labor. Lecture Six: "Who Owns Me?" Libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick makes the case that taxing the wealthy -- to pay for housing, health care, and education for the poor -- is a form of coercion. Students first discuss the arguments in favor of redistributive taxation. If you live in a society that has a system of progressive taxation, aren't you obligated to pay your taxes? Don't the poor need and deserve the social services they receive? And isn't wealth often achieved through sheer luck or family fortune? In this lecture, a group of students ("Team Libertarianism") are asked to defend the objections against Libertarianism.
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  • Yusef Komunyakaa Reads "Facing It"

    Wed, Apr 1, 2009
    Yusef Komunyakaa reads his poem "Facing It" about seeing the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial wall in Washington, D.C. through his eyes as a war veteran and contemporary poet.
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  • Adrienne Rich Reads "What Kind of Times Are These"

    Wed, Apr 1, 2009
    The poem "What Kind of Times Are These" from Rich's book *Dark Fields of the Republic*, makes reference to the Bertolt Brecht poem "For Those Born Later": "What kind of times are these/ When it's almost a crime to talk about trees/ Because it means keeping still about so many evil deeds?"
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  • Gerald Stern Reads "The Dancing"

    Thu, Apr 1, 2010
    "The Dancing," from Gerald Stern's 1984 collection *Paradise Poems,* captures the discord between the poet's relatively carefree all-American upbringing and the suffering endured by his fellow Jews during the Holocaust.
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    Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy

    Tue, Mar 23, 2010
    Lidia Bastianich, host of the *Lidia's Italy* television series and best-selling author discusses her latest cookbook, *Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy*.
    Food and Wellness
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    GBH Forum Network

  • Faces of Syria

    Sun, Jan 9, 2011
    Fully subscribing to Mark Twain’s phrase, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness," Dick Simon and his family went to Syria in 2011 to better understand the human story behind the headlines. The Syria they experienced was not what they expected, the way our media has portrayed it. Simon said, "We found Syria to be a beautiful place with wonderful people. Our interactions with those we met opened our eyes and changed our perspective. Everyone welcomed us, including an encounter with President Bashar Assad, even after learning we were from the United States, the country which has imposed embargoes and labeled them Axis of Evil."
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  • The Road Ahead: Investment Outlook

    Tue, May 17, 2011
    After two years of strong returns, can the bull market continue? Investors have a lot to be concerned about. Unrest in the Mideast. Natural disasters in Japan. Rising government indebtedness around the world. What are the key long-term themes that will determine future investment returns? Choate Investment Advisors and Managing Director Todd Millay host a panel discussion of key investment trends. Todd and a panel of economists and senior financial experts discuss the road ahead for investors.
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  • Einstein's Relativity

    Thu, Dec 2, 2010
    Dr. Brainerd discusses some of the fascinating, and perhaps unsettling, consequences of Einstein's theories of Special Relativity and General Relativity. How do two observers, one moving with respect to the other, experience different perceptions of time and distance? How does gravity affect time and space? Is time travel possible?
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