Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater
Boston area that catch the editor's eye.
Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com
What I Do and Why I Do It: The Story of Energy (and Other) EventsGeo
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Details of these events are available when you scroll past the index
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Index
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Monday, August 26
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4pm Where Engineering Meets Finance - A Conversation with Javier Vila ‘94
6pm A Conversation on Union Square's Community Benefits Agreement
6:30pm Cooling the Climate Mess: Soil, Water, and the Power of Nature
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Tuesday, August 27
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6pm Boston Medical Center Rooftop Farm Tour
6pm HRATG & Future of Work Speaker Panel
7pm Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War
7pm W2O Movie Night: A Plastic Ocean @ The Coolidge
7pm Science for the People
12am Extinction Rebellion [XR] Sharing Circle
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Wednesday August 28
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10am Assessing byproduct mining and metal recycling as indicators of material criticality
3pm Jamaica Plain - Local Voices Network Conversation 8/28
6pm How to Be an Antiracist
7:30pm Come Hell or High Water: A Climate Justice Film Night
8:30pm #ClimateStrike Mass Call
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Thursday, August 29
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8am Amazon Indigenous Rights Protest @ Brazilian Consulate
11:30am HGSE Orientation Freecycle
1pm Plant-Based Planet Talk
6pm Authors@MIT | Jay Bolter: The Digital Plenitude @ The MIT Press Bookstore
7pm Sunrise Karaoke/Open Mic Night
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Friday, August 30 and Saturday, August 31
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Boston Jazz Fest
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Friday, August 30
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12pm A New Perspective
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Saturday, August 31
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6:30pm Busted, A Bankers Run To Prison: BookReading/Signing by author Rich Mangone
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Sunday, September 1
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10am Sounding the Body / Sounding the City - BOSTON
4pm Activist Afternoon
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Tuesday, September 3
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6:30pm Second Info Meeting to Form a Local Red Rebel Brigade
7pm The Road to San Donato
7pm How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
1 Million Solar Lights for 1 Million Students to Commemorate Gandhi’s 150th Birthda
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Monday, August 26
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Where Engineering Meets Finance - A Conversation with Javier Vila '94
Monday, August 26
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 1-236, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Hear from MechE alum Javier Vila as he recounts how he has merged his interests in mechanical engineering and business at companies such as Proctor and Gamble and UBS Financial Services.
About Javier Vila: Javier Vila received his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1994. While at MIT he studied 3D printing with LMP, was on the crew team, served on the Association of Puerto Rican Students he lived at MacGregor House.
Vila received a master's in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and joined Proctor and Gamble working in product supply management and customer marketing management. After returning to his education to receive his MBA from The Wharton School, Vila shifted into investment banking with UBS Financial Services.
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A Conversation on Union Square's Community Benefits Agreement
Monday, August 26
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
VOX POP, 431 Artisan Way, Somerville
Somerville Community Corporation (SCC) will be hosting a community conversation about the new Community Benefits Agreement in Union Square- including how the concept came about, what it means, and how people can get involved. It will be a chance to learn more about the upcoming CBA community presentation, and how to support the referendum. There will be a short video, a community discussion and a Q & A.
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Cooling the Climate Mess: Soil, Water, and the Power of Nature
Monday, August 26
6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate is a small non-profit so a $10 donation is requested.
Walter Jehne is an internationally known Australian soil microbiologist and climate scientist. He is passionate about educating farmers, policymakers and others about "the soil carbon sponge" and its crucial role in reversing and mitigating flooding, drought, wildfires, and searing global temperatures. He shows us how we can safely cool the climate and restore essential biodiversity by repairing our disrupted hydrological cycles. We thus return excess carbon to the soils, where it can build a sponge that soaks up water and revives the biosphere.
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Tuesday, August 27
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Boston Medical Center Rooftop Farm Tour
Tuesday, August 27
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM EDT
Boston Medical Center Rooftop Farm, 750 Albany Street, Boston
Experience the intersection of food and health on a tour of Boston Medical Center’s rooftop farm. On this tour you will learn about rooftop farming and green roofs, bee keeping, and how Boston Medical Center utilizes their farm in multiple ways to improve the health of our community.
Hosted by Boston Medical Center, Higher Ground Farm, and Recover Green Roofs.
The farm has two active beehives onsite so please use caution if you are allergic.
Space is limited. Please register to secure your spot.
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HRATG & Future of Work Speaker Panel
Tuesday, August 27
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
WeWork, 625 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
We will host this meetup to bring some of the HR Leaders who are actively leading and working in Advanced Technology Leadership capacity to share their journey, findings and help us into understanding the future of work.
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Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War
Tuesday, August 27
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes award-winning journalist and academic DUNCAN WHITE—Assistant Director of Studies in History & Literature at Harvard University—for a discussion of his latest book, Cold Warriors: Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War. This event is co-sponsored by Mass Humanities.
About Cold Warriors
During the Cold War, literature was both sword and noose. Novels, essays and poems could win the hearts and minds of those caught between the competing creeds of capitalism and communism. They could also lead to exile, imprisonment or execution if they offended those in power. The clandestine intelligence services of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union had secret agents and vast propaganda networks devoted to literary warfare. But the battles were personal, too: friends turning on each other, lovers cleaved by political fissures, artists undermined by inadvertent complicities.
In Cold Warriors, Harvard University’s Duncan White vividly chronicles how this ferocious intellectual struggle was waged on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The book has at its heart five major writers—George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene and Andrei Sinyavsky—but the full cast includes a dazzling array of giants, among them Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, John le Carré, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Gioconda Belli, Arthur Koestler, Vaclav Havel, Joan Didion, Isaac Babel, Howard Fast, Lillian Hellman, Mikhail Sholokhov —and scores more.
Spanning decades and continents and spectacularly meshing gripping narrative with perceptive literary detective work, Cold Warriors is a welcome reminder that, at a moment when ignorance is celebrated and reading seen as increasingly irrelevant, writers and books can change the world.
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W2O Movie Night: A Plastic Ocean @ The Coolidge
Tuesday, August 27
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/w2o-movie-night-a-plastic-ocean-the-coolidge-tickets-68850468605
Cost: $7
Join W2O for our first ever film screening to learn about the plastics industry and its impact on ocean health.
Plastics are a part of our every day life, but should they be? Plastics pollute our communities and environment at every stage of their manufacture and use. Eight million metric tons of plastic are dumped or swept into our oceans each year, killing sea life, filling beaches, and breaking down into hazardous microplastics. If we don’t change our plastic habits, by 2050, our world’s oceans will contain more plastic than fish (https://www.clf.org/blog/stemming-single-use-plastics-in-ocean-state/).
With September around the corner, now is the time to get informed and up your advocacy game. Join W2O to watch A Plastic Ocean and discuss policy solutions to this massive issue.
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Science for the People
Tuesday, August 27
7 to 9 pm
MIT, Building 4-144, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
We will discuss the issue of gender bias and discrimination in academia. A recent n+1 article covered this topic:
There is also a relevant article in the new issue of Science for the People:
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Extinction Rebellion [XR] Sharing Circle
Tuesday, August 27
midnight
Zoom meeting link coming soon
All are welcome as we sit with each other's feelings on the ecological crisis and this huge adventure we're on together. On Zoom from 7:00-8:00pm, link coming soon.
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Wednesday August 28
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Assessing byproduct mining and metal recycling as indicators of material criticality
Wednesday, August 28
10:00am to 11:00am
MIT, Building 4-237, 182 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Xinkai Fu on their final DMSE doctoral thesis defense
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Jamaica Plain - Local Voices Network Conversation 8/28
Wednesday, August 28
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM EDT
Jamaica Plain Branch of the Boston Public Library, 30 South Street, Boston
Share your stories and lift up community conversation through the Local Voices Network, launching in Boston and in JP this summer!
Join us on August 28 from 3-5pm for an introduction to the Local Voices Network, an innovative approach to community conversation to share local voices, concerns, and ideas in the Boston area. After a brief overview, we'll engage in a recorded conversation about local issues that matter to us. We're excited to see you there!
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How to Be an Antiracist
Wednesday August 28
6:00 pm
Coolidge Corner Theatre
Cost: $5 - $27
Ibram X. Kendi will speak at the Coolidge Corner Theatre at 6:00pm on August 28th (ticket required).
Ibram X. Kendi’s concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America—but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.
Ibram X. Kendi is a New York Times bestselling author and the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. A professor of history and international relations and frequent public speaker, Kendi is a columnist at The Atlantic. He is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and The Black Campus Movement, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize. Kendi lives in Washington, D.C.
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Come Hell or High Water: A Climate Justice Film Night
Wednesday, August 28
7:30pm
Beacon Hill Friends House, 6-8 Chestnut Street, Boston
Suggested donation $5-$20
discussion featuring Alex Ponte-Capellan of City Life/Vida Urbana
Learn about the intersection of climate crisis, racial justice, and housing and how you can get involved in climate justice campaigns here in the Boston area.
More information at https://bhfh.org/events/come-hell-or-high-water-a-climate-justice-film-night/
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#ClimateStrike Mass Call
Wednesday, August 28
8:30 PM
Zoom phone conference
We have just 11 years to stop the climate crisis, but right now the leaders supposed to tackle this are asleep at the wheel.
That's why on September 20th, we're joining the global climate strike. Millions of people across the world will all be walking out of school and work on the same day.
Together we'll send a message that we refuse to go on with business as usual: Any political leader hoping for our support -- any Presidential candidate, member of Congress, or state or local representative -- needs to take action on this crisis right now by joining us in our fight for a Green New Deal.
Join this call to learn about our plan to stop the climate crisis, win a Green New Deal, and join or plan a climate strike near you!
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Thursday, August 29
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Amazon Indigenous Rights Protest @ Brazilian Consulate
Thursday, August 29
8 a.m.
175 Purchase Street, Boston
The Amazon has raging wildfires at a scale that they can be seen from space! Since the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, took office this year there has been a 39% increase in deforesting the Amazon over 2018. More than 1,300 square miles were cut in the first 7 months of his term. That's the size of Rhode Island! And it puts him on pace to deforest an area larger than the whole of Massachusetts.
Bolsonaro is opening up Amazonia for increased cattle ranching, agriculture, and mining. At the expense of indigenous land. "Not one centimeter of land will be demarcated for Indigenous reserves," Bolsonaro declared during the 2018 presidential campaign.
Come join us from 8-9am at the Brazilian consulate in downtown Boston to let the Brazilian government know they need to respect indigenous rights! The address is 175 Purchase Street, Boston.
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HGSE Orientation Freecycle
Thursday, August 29
11:30am – 1:30pm
Gutman Commons Café, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
Each semester during course previews, the HGSE Green Team and Operations host a Freecycle—an ‘everything is free yard sale’—to promote reuse and reduce waste. You’re invited to do one or both of the following:
Give: Drop off items you no longer need the day of the event, giving our community a chance to reuse rather than buy new. We accept office, school and kitchen supplies, and toys and clothing.
Take: Before buying something new, “shop” the Freecycle to pick up something new-to-you. No donation necessary and everything is free!
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Plant-Based Planet Talk
Thursday, August 29
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (Local Time)
93 Winchester Street, Brookline
Learn how to eat a healthy plant-based diet based on whole grains, legumes, fruit, and vegetables. By eating a plant-based diet, you can decrease your carbon footprint and use of natural resources, while lowering your blood pressure and improving your overall health.
Event Organizers: Sara Sezun sara.sezun@gmail.com
Signup Instructions: Please confirm registration by calling the Brookline Senior Center at (617) 730-2770.
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Authors@MIT | Jay Bolter: The Digital Plenitude @ The MIT Press Bookstore
Thursday, August 29
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
MIT Press Bookstore, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/authorsmit-jay-bolter-the-digital-plenitude-tickets-64192968898
Please join the MIT Press Bookstore in welcoming author Jay Bolter to discuss his book, The Digital Plenitude: The Decline of Elite Culture and the Rise of New Media.
How the creative abundance of today’s media culture was made possible by the decline of elitism in the arts and the rise of digital media.
Media culture today encompasses a universe of forms—websites, video games, blogs, books, films, television and radio programs, magazines, and more—and a multitude of practices that include making, remixing, sharing, and critiquing. This multiplicity is so vast that it cannot be comprehended as a whole. In this book, Jay Bolter traces the roots of our media multiverse to two developments in the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of elite art and the rise of digital media. Bolter explains that we no longer have a collective belief in “Culture with a capital C.” The hierarchies that ranked, for example, classical music as more important than pop, literary novels as more worthy than comic books, and television and movies as unserious have broken down. The art formerly known as high takes its place in the media plenitude. The elite culture of the twentieth century has left its mark on our current media landscape in the form of what Bolter calls “popular modernism.” Meanwhile, new forms of digital media have emerged and magnified these changes, offering new platforms for communication and expression.
Bolter outlines a series of dichotomies that characterize our current media culture: catharsis and flow, the continuous rhythm of digital experience; remix (fueled by the internet’s vast resources for sampling and mixing) and originality; history (not replayable) and simulation (endlessly replayable); and social media and coherent politics.
Jay Bolter is Wesley Chair of New Media and Codirector of the Augmented Media Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of Remediation: Understanding New Media (with Richard Grusin), Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art and the Myth of Transparency (with Diane Gromala), both published by the MIT Press, and other books.
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Sunrise Karaoke/Open Mic Night
Thursday, August 29
7 PM – 9 PM
Democracy Brewing, 35 Temple Place, Boston
Come one come all to the first ever Sunrise Boston karaoke and open mic fundraiser event at Democracy Brewing! Sunrise is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. The Boston hub is raising money to send young people to the Northeast Regional Summit in Providence, RI in the beginning of September. Funds will be used to provide transportation and food for those attending the summit!
Donate $5 to sing or perform ($10 for 2 or more people), OR donate $10 to sign your friend up to sing!! We all have one of those friends who needs some encouragement. A $3 suggested donation to entry will also enter you into a raffle with additional raffle tickets available.
Democracy Brewing has generously allowed us to use their back room, and has agreed to donate $1 per beer sold. Open Mic will be from 7-8, and karaoke after. Sunrise swag will be available for sale. Bring all your friends, we’re trying to pack the place!
See you there!!
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Friday, August 30 and Saturday, August 31
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Boston Jazz Fest
Friday, August 30 and Saturday, August 31
Starts at 12:00
Boston Maritime Park in the Seaport
More information at https://bostonjazzfest.org
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Friday, August 30
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A New Perspective
Friday, August 30
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EDT
CIC Boston, 50 Milk Street, Boston
Humans definitely have patterns of thinking. What's yours and how does it compare to others?
This workshop is the culmination of many years of interviews and psychological research. Combining perspectives from fashion models, lawyers, janitors, CEOs, analysts, designers, chefs, and among many others.
Join Alec Lai, Cognition Coach and CEO of Zephyr, to learn how to recognize other people's thought patterns and use their perspectives to hone your own problem-solving skills. Perhaps their perspective will allow you to see things in a new light.
Located on the 16th floor of CIC Boston
Learn more about us at zephyr.business
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Saturday, August 31
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Busted, A Bankers Run To Prison: BookReading/Signing by author Rich Mangone
Saturday, August 31
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Nate Smith House, 155 Lamartine Street, Boston
Richard Mangone will be announcing his memoirs about living as a millionaire, breaking the law and prison life. It is a redemption story.
A signed copy of "Busted, A Bankers Run To Prison" will be sold for $15.00, ebook $3.99. A short reading, followed by questions and answers for the author. Refreshments will be served at the event.
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Sunday, September 1
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Sounding the Body / Sounding the City - BOSTON
Sunday, September 1
10:00 – 11:00am EDT
Park st. MBTA: Tremont Street opposite Temple Place, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sounding-the-body-sounding-the-city-boston-tickets-66766194485
What happens when our sense of connection weakens? Connection to our surroundings, and also to ourselves.
Join artists Marion Tu (US) and Nathania Hartley (UK) for a synchronised walk in Boston and London.
During this walk we will realign with the sounds and vibrations of the city, listening and re-orienting ourselves through the rhythmic movement of our bodies.
Boston meeting point: 10am outside Park street MBTA.
For more information, see https://www.mariontu.com/soundwalksunday2019
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Activist Afternoon
Sunday, September 1
4 PM – 6 PM
Workbar (Workbar Cambridge), 45 Prospect Street, Cambridge
Activist Afternoons (ActA) creates a space for members of the community to gather and take action on the issues and elections we care about every Sunday from 4pm to 6pm in Central Square.
Each week we provide a menu of causes and actions to help move our politics forward on all levels, from your neighborhood to the White House.
*Might phonebank? Please bring a cellphone, laptop, and charger. A headset or pair of earphones is also helpful when calling voters or potential volunteers!*
To see this week's menu, go to http://activistafternoons.com
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Tuesday, September 3
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Second Info Meeting to Form a Local Red Rebel Brigade
Tuesday, September 3
6:30 p.m.
Nero Cafe, 589 Massachusetts Avenue, Central Square, Cambridge
We are looking into forming our own local version of the Red Rebel Brigade, a unique form of climate performance first began in the UK, with the goal to have our first performance at the September 27 action. If you are interested in being a part of the group or making the costumes come to this information meeting. Email MARRB@protonmail.com to RSVP.
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The Road to San Donato
Tuesday, September 3
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
Join local author Robert Cocuzzo for a reading from his newest book, The Road to San Donato: Fathers, Sons, and Cycling Across Italy!
The Road to San Donato is an adventurous travel memoir of an American father and son tracing their Italian heritage by bicycle. With only the bare essentials on their backs, author Robert Cocuzzo and his sixty-four-year-old father, Stephen, embark on a torturous 425-mile ride from Florence, Italy, to San Donato Val di Comino, an ancient village hidden in the Apennine mountains from which their family emigrated a hundred years earlier. After getting lost, beaten down, and very nearly stranded, when they finally reach the village the Cocuzzos discover so much more than their own family story.
For many Jews in the 1940s, the road to San Donato was one of exile; during World War II, dozens were interned in the village. When the Nazis came to ship them off to death camps, however, many of the villagers went to heroic lengths to save their lives. Walking and pedaling through this history, Robert Cocuzzo is determined to learn the role his family played at the time. The Road to San Donato is a story of fathers and sons, discovering lost "cousins," valorous history, and the challenge and exhilaration of traveling by bicycle.
Robert Cocuzzo is an adventure author based in Boston. His latest book, The Road to San Donato, takes readers on a wild ride through the back roads of Tuscany as he and his sixty-seven-year-old father trace their family’s roots in Italy by bicycle. Off his bicycle, Cocuzzo also serves as the longtime editor of Nantucket Magazine and has contributed to a number of publications. He lives in the South End with his wife Jenny and one-year-old daughter Vienna.
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How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
Tuesday, September 3
7:00 PM
Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store is thrilled to welcome RANDALL MUNROE—bestselling author of What If? and Thing Explainer and creator of the beloved webcomic xkcd—for a discussion of his latest book, How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems. This event is co-sponsored by the Harvard University Division of Science and the Cabot Science Library.
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Upcoming Events
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Thursday, September 5
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The Elephant in the Room: Talking about Climate Change
Thursday, September 5
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Coolidge Room, Ballou Hall, 1 The Green, Medford
This is the INAUGURAL Hoch Cunningham Environmental Lecture.
Award-Winning Washington Post Columnist Tamar Haspel will discuss how climate change has become such a charged issue and what to do about it.
How did climate change become such a charged issue? It's gone from being an obscure field of study to a badge of identity, all in the last decade or so. We're not going to be able to de-escalate until we understand how we got here in the first place. To do that, we have to figure out how humans make decisions -- and take a long, hard look in the mirror.
Tamar Haspel is a journalist who has been on the food and science beat for the best part of two decades. She writes the James Beard award-winning Washington Post column, Unearthed, which covers food supply issues: biotech, pesticides, food additives, organics, nutrition, food policy among other subjects. She also contributes
to National Geographic, Discover, Cooking Light, Edible Cape Cod, and other publications. Haspel is knee-deep in the public food conversation, and speaks frequently at venues where the debates about our food supply play out, including the National Academy of Sciences, food- and ag-related conferences, and SXSW. She is also an oyster farmer, growing over 300,000 oysters a year off Cape Cod.
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Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts Networking Event
Thursday, September 5
6 - 8 pm
Democracy Brewing, 35 Temple Place, Boston
The Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts invites you to join us for a fun and inspiring networking gathering at Democracy Brewing in Boston!
Save the Date for Thursday, September 5 at 6-8:00 p.m.
Welcome the coming of the New England autumn with a gathering of like-minded business colleagues who will be sharing ideas about important topics of our day including ways that we can put our money in places that make a positive impact – Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG).
The event will feature two short presentations and is sponsored by Natixis Investment Managers.
Stay tuned for a more detailed agenda and registration information!
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Resonant Energy Office Warming Party!
Thursday September 5
6pm – 8pm
60 Clayton Street, Dorchester
We are pleased to announce that we have relocated our company headquarters from the cozy annex of Second Church in Dorchester in Codman Square to a new sunny space in the Fields Corner! Join us to celebrate the growth of Resonant Energy and reflect on all of the work we've been able to do with community partners across Dorchester.
To welcome our team and our community to the new office, we are planning an office warming party on September 5th from 6 - 8pm. Join new and old friends for drinks, food, and music to celebrate the new space!
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LASER Boston: Data x Sound
Thursday, September 5
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
swissnex Boston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge
How can you hear data? What new perspectives are revealed when data is translated into music? Why does music affect our bodies and minds?
On September 5th, LASER Boston will explore these questions and more as we hear from three speakers across the arts and sciences. With the ultimate goal of fostering cross-disciplinary discovery and dialogue, this event will feature biomaterials scientist Markus Buehler, sonic artist Rachel Devorah, and musician and composer Hubert Ho.
Presented by swissnex Boston and SciArt Initiative.
Program
6:00pm Community Networking
Speakers and audience members are welcome to join in a pre-talks networking session.
6:30pm Talks
See descriptions below.
Stick around to continue the discussion over drinks and snacks.
Talks
Markus Buehler
“The Nexus of Materialized Sound and Sonified Material”
Markus Buehler is the McAfee Professor of Engineering and directs MIT’s Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics. In his research, Markus pursues new modeling, design and manufacturing approaches for advanced biomaterials that offer greater resilience and a wide range of controllable properties from the nano- to the macroscale. One such approach includes data sonification, and the creation of new forms of musical expression from biological systems as a means to better understand the underlying science, and to use musical composition as a way to design new materials from the bottom up.
Rachel Devorah
“Sonification and the Social”
Rachel Devorah Wood Rome is a sonic artist whose works engage the poetics and politics of their specific context. Her work has been heard in the United States at institutions such as the National Opera Center and Pioneer Works as well as in 12 countries over 3 continents. Rachel is an Artist Fellow at MIT’s OpenDocLab and Assistant Professor of Electronic Production and Design at the Berklee College of Music. Rachel’s projects span sonifying quantitative and qualitative aurora borealis data to re-rendering of sounds that have historically inhabited certain sites.
Hubert Ho
“Sonic Play, Playful Sound: What Composers Learn from Psychoacoustic Research”
Hubert Ho is a composer, pianist, and teaching professor at Northeastern University. As a former United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Hubert’s music has been performed in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Corcoran Gallery. Ensembles playing his music include the Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Prague Modern, and the New York New Music Ensemble. Hubert’s scholarly interests focus on the relationship between music theory and psychoacoustics.
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The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age
Thursday, September 5
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes BINA VENKATARAMAN—director of Global Policy Initiatives at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT—for a discussion of her new book, The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age. She will be joined in conversation by LISA MULLINS, the voice of WBUR's All Things Considered.
About The Optimist's Telescope
Instant gratification is the norm today—in our lives, our culture, our economy, and our politics. Many of us have forgotten (if we ever learned) how to make smart decisions for the long run. Whether it comes to our finances, our health, our communities, or our planet, it’s easy to avoid thinking ahead.
The consequences of this immediacy are stark: Superbugs spawned by the overuse of antibiotics endanger our health. Companies that fail to invest stagnate and fall behind. Hurricanes and wildfires turn deadly for communities that could have taken more precaution. Today more than ever, all of us need to know how we can make better long-term decisions in our lives, businesses, and society.
Bina Venkataraman sees the way forward. A former journalist and adviser in the Obama administration, she helped communities and businesses prepare for climate change, and she learned firsthand why people don’t think ahead—and what can be done to change that. In The Optimist’s Telescope, she draws from stories she has reported around the world and new research in biology, psychology, and economics to explain how we can make decisions that benefit us over time. With examples from ancient Pompeii to modern-day Fukushima, she dispels the myth that human nature is impossibly reckless and highlights the surprising practices each of us can adopt in our own lives—and the ones we must fight for as a society. The result is a book brimming with the ideas and insights all of us need in order to forge a better future.
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Friday, September 6
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Futurity Island Installation
Friday, September 6
12:00pm to 5:30pm
MIT, Building 50: Walker Memorial, West Lawn, 142 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Installation, Sound Performance, LP Launch, and Discursive Event on the Amphibian Pedagogies and Submerged Perspectives
Concept: Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Co-organized with Christine Shaw
Sound: Nicole L’Huillier (Chile), MIT Media Lab: Indrė Umbrasaitė. In collaboration with Tobias Putrih.
Land acknowledgement: Sadada Jackson (Nipmuc), Harvard Divinity School, MTS ’19;
Performance: Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), SMACT ’19
With participation by MIT faculty, students, and guests
The Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) is presenting the Futurity Island, an infrastructure for interspecies communication and an open space for learning. Built on the legacy of pioneering work by the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), an island by the river is an urgent call for cross disciplinary research and a learning platform aimed at developing creative solutions for the environment impacted by the changing climate and introducing the public to the challenges and opportunities of future life on and with the water.
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Shadow Archives: The Lifecycles of African American Literature
Friday, September 6
3:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store and the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research welcome JEAN-CHRISTOPHE CLOUTIER—assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania—for a discussion of his new book, Shadow Archives: The Lifecycles of African American Literature. He will be joined in conversation by author JESSE MCCARTHY, Assistant Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard.
About Shadow Archives
Recasting the history of African American literature, Shadow Archives brings to life a slew of newly discovered texts―including Claude McKay’s Amiable with Big Teeth―to tell the stories of black special collections and their struggle for institutional recognition. Jean-Christophe Cloutier offers revelatory readings of major African American writers, including McKay, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, and Ralph Ellison, and provides a nuanced view of how archival methodology, access, and the power dynamics of acquisitions shape literary history.
Shadow Archives argues that the notion of the archive is crucial to our understanding of postwar African American literary history. Cloutier combines his own experiences as a researcher and archivist with a theoretically rich account of the archive to offer a pioneering study of the importance of African American authors’ archival practices and how these shaped their writing.
Given the lack of institutions dedicated to the black experience, the novel became an alternative site of historical preservation, a means to ensure both individual legacy and group survival. Such archivism manifests in the work of these authors through evolving lifecycles where documents undergo repurposing, revision, insertion, falsification, transformation, and fictionalization, sometimes across decades.
An innovative interdisciplinary consideration of literary papers, Shadow Archives proposes new ways for literary scholars to engage with the archive.
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Millennials Rising: Nonprofit POC Leaders-Fierce Urgency of Now!
Friday, September 6
4:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
NonProfit Center, 89 South Street, Boston, MA 02111
TSNE MissionWorks invites you to an evening with millennials of color in nonprofit leadership who will speak to their trials and triumphs of rising to the top.
As millennials of color begin to take the helm of nonprofit leadership, many are discovering that they are inheriting difficult jobs at unprepared and under-resourced organizations. In this panel, millennial nonprofit executives of color will discuss their experiences as leaders. There will be a moderator-led discussion for panelists to share lessons learned for those on similar journeys and for questions from the audience.
Join us for networking opportunities before and after the event. Free food and drinks are provided.
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Open Mic at Herter Park, Charles River
Friday, September 6
5 p.m.
Herter Park, 1175 Soldiers Field Road, Brighton
Free open mic, part of the Herter Park series that’s going all summer. Coral Reef affinity group will flyer and chat with people about XR and climate anxiety. We also want to participate in the open mic, will post more info on sign-ups. Eight minutes segments. Talks, songs, etc. Happy for any and all XR folks to join us to help or present. Performance starts at 7 but we’ll be there at 5 to chat with people while they wait. Sign up to get meeting info.
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Justice on the Ropes: Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Fred W. Hogan, John Artis and the Wrongful Conviction Movement
Friday, September 6
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
Rubin Carter and John Artis had been knocked down. But the prosecutor–who built a highly questionable case against the famous middleweight boxer, and his teenage acquaintance, in the 1966 Lafayette Bar and Grille triple murders in Paterson, NJ–did not count on a young investigator from the Office of the Public Defender. Fred W. Hogan devoted his free time, talent and energies to picking apart the case built on “eyewitnesses,” who likely saw nothing they had claimed to see and exercised racial prejudice against two African-American defendants. As Hogan revealed that their statements to police were lies, the world began to pay attention.
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Saturday, September 7 - Sunday, September 8
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Sunrise Movement Northeast Region Summit
Saturday, September 7 - Sunday, September 8
Providence, RI
On September 7th & 8th, hundreds of Sunrisers from across the Northeast and other parts of the country are going to gather in Providence, Rhode Island, for one of Sunrise’s four regional Summits.
The summit will be an opportunity to meet other hub members from around the region and build community across the movement. Attendees will be trained in Sunrise’s DNA as well as attend specialized breakout trainings on communications strategy, action planning, fundraising, building partnerships, and other core skills to build out powerful hubs. Join us for one of Sunrise’s biggest training yet!
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Saturday, September 7
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Annual fall plant swap
Saturday September 7
12 to 2pm
Fayette Park, Cambridge
All gardeners welcome. We generally have perennials, biennial seedlings, seeds, indoor plants, catalogs, pots, and lots of "whatever." Rain date (in case of downpour): Sun Sep 8, 12 to 2. Nice leftovers go to SGC sale. More info: Hmsnively@aol.com
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XR NVDA training
Saturday, September 7
noon
First Church Jamaica Plain, 6 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain
Learn how to take part in XR actions at this NVDA training series! You will be empowered to engage in non-violent civil disobedience and have the opportunity to form an affinity group, which is your creative team and support system for Extinction Rebellion actions. Bring friends who you would like to form an affinity group with, or make one with fellow rebels that you meet while you're here!
We recommend that you attend an XR orientation meeting before you attend our NVDA training. You can find the next orientation on our calendar.
Event logistics
Time: Saturday September 7, 12pm until 6pm. Please arrive at 11:50am to give yourself time to settle before the training begins, and please plan to stay the entire time.
Location: First Church Jamaica Plain, 6 Eliot Street
What to bring
wear comfortable clothes
your own plate, cup, and cutlery to minimize waste. We will provide snacks and drinks during a short break.
this training is free. If you would like to and can bring a contribution, we will collect cash donations for our trainer at the end of the session.
Preparation for Civil Disobedience. Honoring the movements we stand on. Building community for action.
This training session will provide engagement on non-violence and the dynamics of civil disobedience, offer scenarios and practical information for taking collective action. Time to connect, get energized, and deepen readiness for being and acting together.
Trainer Cathy Hoffman has been involved in activism over many decades - most recently with the two-year-long fight to stop the West Roxbury Pipeline and civil disobedience actions for the local Poor Peoples Campaign.
Contact mcusi@pm.me with questions.
This event is free.
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Sunday, September 8
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Slow Food Boston's 7th Tour de Farms
Sunday, September 8
9:30am-4:30pm (end time approximate)
REGISTER NOW: https://tourdefarmsconcord.eventbrite.com
Cost: $65 for the day, includes lunch & farm visits
Number of spots is limited - don't delay!
This year, we're welcoming the bountiful fall harvest season by visiting farms around historic Concord, Massachusetts.
Together we'll bike a 20 mile loop over flat country roads, visiting four neighboring food producers and learning about local farm products in the beautiful landscape in which they are grown and produced.
Tour de Farms riders will be specially welcomed onto each farm, hearing directly from the owners and operators about the history of their farms, and their production of good, clean, and fair food - along with a delicious picnic along the way!
Further details on meeting place, bike route & schedule, what to expect and bring along will be provided upon registration and payment.
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Build your own cold frame
Sunday September 8
10 to 12pm
500 Tremont Street, Boston
Help build and plant a cold frame, and leave with the knowledge you need to do one of your own. Learn about the best recycled materials, simple designs, hardy varieties, and a planting schedule. FREE. Pre-registration recommended.
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27th Annual Cambridge Carnival
Sunday, September 8
12:00pm to 6:00pm
Kendall Square, Cambridge
Cambridge Carnival International is a colorful and festive celebration that is rooted in African traditions.
This free festival is celebrating 27 years this year and is considered a Cambridge Institution, and is the largest festival in Cambridge with thousands of attendees. The highlight of the festival is a grand costume parade accompanied by rich rhythmic musicality promoting all types of cultures. Participants can be seen as revelers masquerading through the streets in dazzling handmade costumes, dancing to the beat of the Carnival. The festival is also an opportunity to celebrate Cambridge’s diversity, enjoy international foods, and purchase multicultural crafts from around the world!
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Boston Hassle presents: Green Market Flea!
Sunday, September 8
12 PM – 6 PM
Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callender Street, Cambridge
We are excited to present our eco-friendly version of our Bi-Monthly Black Market Flea, complete with sustainable and eco-friendly vendors and an assortment of workshops. Including getting more engaged with fighting climate change in your homes and in your communities. Take a step away from the carbon-based life you know and check out these radical, conscious vendors and organizations!
Vendor applications are open: https://bostonhassle.com/blackmarketvendorform/
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International Solidarity Rebel Ride for action on the climate emergency
Sunday, September 8
3 p.m.
Boston Common, near Beacon and Charles Streets, Boston
Cities around the world are hosting bike rides for climate on September 8th. The XR MA chapter will meet to ride at 3pm and end with a picnic (around 5).
XR non-biking families and friends are invited to join us for music and fun at the picnic. Spread the word!
We will meet on the Boston Common near the corner of Beacon and Charles St. We'll ride together at an easy pace (7-8 mph) and tour the major areas of downtown Boston, occasionally pausing to notice a high watermark for areas that will be underwater in a few years.
We return to the Common at around 5pm to meet with family and friends for a picnic (near Frog Pond on the Beacon St. Side). Bring your own food, snacks or sweets to share.
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Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World
Sunday, September 8
7:00pm
Trident Bookseller and Cafe, 338 Newbury Street, Boston
Our emotions and decisions are tremendously influenced by the stories told by our self-selected communities. Our moods, ideas, and even our perceptions of reality effortlessly synchronize. Tribes can coalesce around any topic, belief structure, or shared experience. This in-group bonding can be positive, as in the case of crowd funded campaigns to support natural disaster victims, but it can also send us down a path of echo chambers and political polarization and conspiracy theories. The deeply intrinsic sociality of human beings plays into the narrative that shape our reality; and that narrative is constantly shifting. The advent of social media and smartphones has amplified these tendencies in ways that spell both promise and confusion. Cavanagh's fascinating book, Hivemind, samples work from as divergent fields as neuroscience and speculative fiction to find ways to cut through our online tribalism and move us back to the larger world. She leaves no stone unturned in her quest to understand how social technology is reshaping our collective selves and what we can do to come back from the polarized brink.
With compelling storytelling and shocking research, Hivemind is a must read for anyone who would like to make sense of the madness around us.
About the Author
Dr. Sarah Rose Cavanagh is a psychologist, professor, writer, and Associate Director for grants and research for the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College. Her research focuses on affective science, specifically emotion regulation and mood and anxiety disorders. Dr. Cavanagh is the author of The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion, and she's been contributed to publications like Motherboard and Darling Magazine. She lives in Massachusetts.
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A Multinational Coming to the Rescue of Africa: Too Good to be True?
Sunday, September 8
7:00pm
Trident Booksellers 338 Newbury Street, Boston
Join Olivier van Beeman as he talks about his new book, Heineken in Africa: A Multinational Unleashed.
About the Book
For Heineken, ‘rising Africa’ is already a reality: the profts it extracts there are almost 50 per cent above the global average, and beer costs more in some African countries than it does in Europe. The world-famous Dutch brewing company claims its presence boosts economic development on the continent. But is this true? Investigative journalist Olivier van Beemen has spent years seeking the answer, and his conclusion is damning: Heineken has hardly benefted Africa at all. On the contrary, there are some shocking skeletons in its African closet: tax avoidance, sexual abuse, links to genocide and other human rights violations, high-level corruption, crushing competition from indigenous brewers, and collaboration with dictators and merciless anti-government rebels.
Heineken in Africa caused a political and media furore on publication in the Netherlands, and was debated in the Dutch and European Parliaments. Leading international media, such as The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Le Monde and El País reported on it. The revelations made the Global Fund, a multi-billion dollar organization that fights AIDS, TB and malaria with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, decide to suspend its partnership with Heineken. It is an unmissable exposé of the havoc wreaked by a global giant seeking profit in the developing world.
About the Author
Olivier van Beemen is a Dutch investigative journalist specializing in Africa. For this investigation, he won De Tegel, the most prestigious award in Dutch journalism, and got several nominations for other prizes. His work has been translated in English, French and (soon) Italian. He has presented his book in many different countries (including Australia, Nigeria and South Africa...) and at prestigious locations, such as the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Royal African Society in the UK, Sciences-Po in France and at a TEDx in the Netherlands.
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Monday, September 9
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Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium - Speaker: Clara Deser
Monday, September 9
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54, Room 915 (Ida Green Lounge) 21 Ames Street, (the tallest building on campus), Cambridge
Editorial Comment: The PAOC Colloquium runs throughout the academic year and has some of the best people in the world sharing their work on atmospheres, oceans, and climates.
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Harvard Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellows Talks
Monday, September 9
12:30 - 2pm
Harvard, Gund Hall-112, Stubbins Room, 42-48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Editorial Comment: The Loeb Fellows are always a great collection of practitioners doing interesting things around the world. These talks are short introductions each gives about their work and what they intend to do with their fellowships.
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Rally at Cambridge City Hall for Municipal Broadband
Monday, September 9
4:30pm
Cambridge City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
For years, the Cambridge City Manager has been exercising a one-man veto over moving forward on Municipal Broadband -- claiming that it is not a priority for the residents of Cambridge. We're not going to take it anymore.
On September 9th, at 4:30PM we will gather on the lawn of City Hall and deliver our message to the City Manager and the City Council: Cambridge is tired of the Comcast monopoly; tired of unreliable access; tired of high costs; and tired of living in a city where 50% of low-income families don't have access to the internet.
We must do better.
We're going to bring a show of force to City Hall and show the City that Cambridge residents do consider broadband a priority. We want every person who has ever had a Comcast complaint; every person who thinks that we deserve better; every person who knows the digital divide is real and Cambridge has the chance to improve it for everyone who lives here.
At the rally, we will be delivering our petition -- signed by more than 1000 Cambridge residents -- demanding the City Manager move forward with Municipal Broadband in Cambridge. You can sign the petition at https://upgradecambridge.org/petition
Together, we can Upgrade Cambridge to a Better Internet for All.
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The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir
Monday, September 9
7:00 PM (Doors at 6:30)
First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Cost: $8.00 - $32.00 (book included)
Harvard Book Store welcomes SAMANTHA POWER—Harvard professor, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations—for a discussion of her new memoir, The Education of an Idealist.
About The Education of an Idealist
What can one person do? At a time of upheaval and division, Samantha Power offers an urgent response to this question—and a call for a clearer eye, a kinder heart, and a more open and civil hand in our politics and daily lives.
The Education of an Idealist brings a unique blend of suspenseful storytelling, vivid character portraits, and shrewd political insight. It traces Power’s distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official. In 2005, her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of newly elected senator Barack Obama, who invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign.
After Obama was elected president, Power went from being an activist outsider to a government insider, navigating the halls of power while trying to put her ideals into practice. She served for four years as Obama’s human rights adviser, and in 2013, he named her US Ambassador to the United Nations, the youngest American to assume the role.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, Power transports us from her childhood in Dublin to the streets of war-torn Bosnia to the White House Situation Room and the world of high-stakes diplomacy. Humorous and deeply honest, The Education of an Idealist lays bare the searing battles and defining moments of her life and shows how she juggled the demands of a 24/7 national security job with the challenge of raising two young children. Along the way, she illuminates the intricacies of politics and geopolitics, reminding us how the United States can lead in the world, and why we each have the opportunity to advance the cause of human dignity.
Power’s memoir is an unforgettable account of the power of idealism—and of one person’s fierce determination to make a difference.
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Nationalism: a Short History
Monday, September 9
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
“We need a nation,” declared a certain Grouvelle in the revolutionary year of 1789, “and the Nation will be born.”-from Nationalism
Nationalism, often the scourge, always the basis of modern world politics, is spreading. In a way, all nations are willed into being. But a simple declaration, such as Grouvelle’s, is not enough. As historian Liah Greenfeld shows in her new book, a sense of nation—nationalism—is the product of the complex distillation of ideas and beliefs, and the struggles over them. Greenfeld takes the reader on an intellectual journey through the origins of the concept “nation” and how national consciousness has changed over the centuries. From its emergence in sixteenth century England, nationalism has been behind nearly every significant development in world affairs over succeeding centuries, including the American and French revolutions of the late eighteenth centuries and the authoritarian communism and fascism of the twentieth century. Now it has arrived as a mass phenomenon in China as well as gaining new life in the United States and much of Europe in the guise of populism.
About the Author: Called "one of the most original thinkers of the current period" and "the great historian of Nationalism," Liah Greenfeld is University Professor and Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Anthropology at Boston University, and Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She is the author of "Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience" (Harvard University Press, 2013) and other books about modern society and culture, including the ground-breaking "Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity" (Harvard University Press, 1992) and "The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth" (Harvard University Press, 2001; Donald Kagan Best Book in European History Prize). Greenfeld has been a recipient of the UAB Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Award, fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, Israel, and grants from Mellon, Olin, Earhart, The National Council for Soviet & East European Research, and The German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 2004, she delivered the Gellner Lecture at the London School of Economics on the subject of "Nationalism and the Mind," launching the research connecting her previous work on modern culture to a new perspective on mental illness.
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Long-term Loonshots: The Science of Phase Transitions and World History
Monday, September 9
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
The Venture Cafe at the Cambridge Innovation Center, One Broadway, 5th Floor, Kendall Square, Cambridge
RSVP at https://loonshots.eventbrite.com
Cost: $15.00
Doors open @ 6pm -- Come early and meet other Long Now thinkers
Presentations start @ 7pm
A Long Now Boston Conversation with Safi Bahcall, Author of Loonshots (2019).
Cool a fluid the right amount and very interesting things begin happening in the phase transition between liquid and solid. Structures begin to proliferate yet energy and information continues to flow, sometimes with far greater efficiency. The same concept applies to human institutions. In the best, creative inspiration flows quickly and innovations proliferate, unimpeded by rigid hierarchies and processes. Yet when a winning innovation appears, the institution draws on those strengths and quickly drives innovations to scale.
Safi refers to these two phases as Loonshot and Franchise, and he argues that both are essential, yet the tension between them is remarkably difficult to sustain. The most momentous transformations in history were loonshots that almost failed.
The most advanced global empires coming into the second millennium - China, Islam, and India - were well positioned for, but completely missed, the scientific revolution that swept through post-feudal Europe. Why? Because Europe was in a liquid phase and served as home to a succession of loonshot nurseries that would never have survived under imperial hegemony.
So what do our institutions, including governments, businesses, non-profits --- even our nascent Long Now organizations --- need to do to sustain this loonshot capacity? Are the hugely successful capitalist franchises and dominant global superpowers still fluid enough to continue promoting loonshot nurseries?
Come join the conversation with Safi Bahcall, author of Loonshots, and other Long Now Boston enthusiasts. Be a part of the solution.
NOTE: Loonshots will be available for sale before and after the presentation and Safi will be happy to sign them. https://www.bahcall.com/book/
Among the questions the speaker will address:
Why did modern science ignite in 17th-century Western Europe when China, Islam, and India had been so much more advanced for 1,000 years?
How does understanding the behavior we see in a glass of water help us understand the fate of companies and empires?
How can we use these insights to help our institutions shape the next 1,000 or 10,000 years?
Join the conversation and be part of the solution.
$15 in advance // $20 at the door. Students w/ID admitted free.
Audience participation is encouraged.
If Eventbrite tickets sell out, seating for walk-ups will unlikely be available due to room size.
About the speaker:
Safi Bahcall is a second-generation physicist (the son of two astrophysicists) and a biotech entrepreneur. He received his BA summa cum laude from Harvard and his PhD in physics from Stanford. After working for three years as a consultant for McKinsey, Safi co-founded a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer. He led its IPO and served as its CEO for 13 years. In 2008, he was named E&Y New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama’s council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of national research. He lives with his wife and two children in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
We’re proud and excited to welcome Safi to the Long Now Boston community.
Cambridge Innovation Center is an in-kind sponsor of this Long
Now Boston conversation. We are very grateful for their support.
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Tuesday, September 10
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Technology, the First Amendment and Resisting Government Regulation
Tuesday, September 10
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Northeastern, 120 Knowles Conference Room, 416 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Featuring Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Professor Alan Rozenshtein joined University of Minnesota Law School in 2017 as a visiting professor and in summer 2019 continued as an Associate Professor of Law. He is a member of the Scholars Strategy Network and from 2018-2019 was an affiliate with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. From October 2014 to April 2017, he served as an attorney advisor in the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the US Department of Justice, where his work focused on operational, legal and policy issues relating to cybersecurity and foreign intelligence. From October 2016 to April 2017, he served as a special assistant United States attorney for the District of Maryland. During this time he taught cybersecurity at Georgetown Law.
Light refreshments will be served
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Harvard Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellows Talks
Tuesday, September 10
12:30 - 2pm
Harvard, Gund Hall-112, Stubbins Room, 42-48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Editorial Comment: The Loeb Fellows are always a great collection of practitioners doing interesting things around the world. These talks are short introductions each gives about their work and what they intend to do with their fellowships.
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Into a Daybreak: Eve Ewing and Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot on thinking and writing through black feminism
WHEN Tuesday, Sep. 10, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Haarvard, Longfellow Hall, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge
TYPE OF EVENT Forum
PROGRAM/DEPARTMENT Askwith Forum
BUILDING/ROOM Askwith Hall
CONTACT NAME Donor and Alumni Relations
CONTACT EMAIL askwith_forums@gse.harvard.edu
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION/DEPARTMENT Harvard Graduate School of Education
REGISTRATION REQUIRED No
ADMISSION FEE This event is free and open to the public.
FEATURED EVENT Askwith Forums
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education
DETAILS Speaker: Eve Ewing, Ed.M. '13, Ed.D. '16, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.
Discussant: Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Ed.D.’72, Emily Hargroves Fisher Research Professor of Education, HGSE
Writer and sociologist Eve L. Ewing creates work in multiple genres and forms: academic writing and scholarship, teaching, cultural organizing, poetry, comic books, and fiction. But one thing that unites all of her works is the underlying thread of black feminism. In this forum, Ewing and her former doctoral advisor, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, discuss the influence of black feminist ideas on Ewing’s work in multiple arenas and consider the ways all of us might learn, grow, care for ourselves and each other, and challenge systems of power through the radical potential of these ideas.
We invite you to attend the Ed School’s signature public lecture series which highlights leaders in the field, shares new knowledge, generates spirited conversation, and offers insight into the highest priority challenges facing education.
**Seating is first come, first seated.
To receive the Askwith Forums e-newsletter for up-to-date information,
please sign up at gse.harvard.edu/askwith
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Authors@MIT | Leah Plunkett: Sharenthood Book Launch
Tuesday, September 10
6:00pm to 7:00pm
MIT Press Bookstore, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Please join the MIT Press Bookstore in celebrating author Leah Plunkett's book launch for Sharenthood: Why We Should Think before We Talk about Our Kids Online.
Our children's first digital footprints are made before they can walk—even before they are born—as parents use fertility apps to aid conception, post ultrasound images, and share their baby's hospital mug shot. Then, in rapid succession come terabytes of baby pictures stored in the cloud, digital baby monitors with built-in artificial intelligence, and real-time updates from daycare. When school starts, there are cafeteria cards that catalog food purchases, bus passes that track when kids are on and off the bus, electronic health records in the nurse's office, and a school surveillance system that has eyes everywhere. Unwittingly, parents, teachers, and other trusted adults are compiling digital dossiers for children that could be available to everyone—friends, employers, law enforcement—forever. In this incisive book, Leah Plunkett examines the implications of “sharenthood”—adults' excessive digital sharing of children's data. She outlines the mistakes adults make with kids' private information, the risks that result, and the legal system that enables “sharenting.”
Plunkett describes various modes of sharenting—including “commercial sharenting,” efforts by parents to use their families' private experiences to make money—and unpacks the faulty assumptions made by our legal system about children, parents, and privacy. She proposes a “thought compass” to guide adults in their decision making about children's digital data: play, forget, connect, and respect. Enshrining every false step and bad choice, Plunkett argues, can rob children of their chance to explore and learn lessons. The Internet needs to forget. We need to remember.
Leah Plunkett is Associate Dean for Administration, Associate Professor of Legal Skills, and Director of Academic Success at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. She is Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
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Commercializing your Idea: Tales from the Front Lines
Tuesday, September 10
6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Pepper Hamilton, 125 High Street, 19th Floor, Boston
RSVP at https://www.mitforumcambridge.org/event/commercializing-your-idea-tales-from-the-front-lines/
Start; pivot; stop; re-start… exit? Sound familiar? The path from idea to commercialization and beyond is rarely a straight one.
You will come away from this event with a greater understanding of the following:
Strategies for making your business idea a reality
Expecting the unexpected obstacles
Factors that drive decisions for technology licensing, raising capital and exit events
Timing considerations for partnering and patenting
Please join us for a panel discussion featuring three remarkable entrepreneurs who will share some of the lessons that they learned as they took their ideas from concept to market.
Moderator
Dan Sieck, Associate, Pepper Hamilton LLP
Panelists
Dr. Jill S. Becker, CEO, Kebotix
Manish Bhardwaj, CEO, Innovators In Health
Andrew Gordon, CEO, DealerScience (acquired by TrueCar)
Agenda
6:00-6:30pm Registration
6:30-7:30pm Panel Discussion
7:30-8:30pm Networking with refreshments
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Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have
Tuesday, September 10
7pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes journalist and former New York Times Science Writer TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG for a discussion of her debut book, Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have.
About Inconspicuous Consumption
With urgency and wit, Tatiana Schlossberg explains that far from being only a distant problem of the natural world created by the fossil fuel industry, climate change is all around us, all the time, lurking everywhere in our convenience-driven society, all without our realizing it.
By examining the unseen and unconscious environmental impacts in four areas—the Internet and technology, food, fashion, and fuel—Schlossberg helps readers better understand why climate change is such a complicated issue, and how it connects all of us: how streaming a movie on Netflix in New York burns coal in Virginia; how eating a hamburger in California might contribute to pollution in the Gulf of Mexico; how buying an inexpensive cashmere sweater in Chicago expands the Mongolian desert; how destroying forests from North Carolina is necessary to generate electricity in England.
Cataloging the complexities and frustrations of our carbon-intensive society with a dry sense of humor, Schlossberg makes the climate crisis and its solutions interesting and relevant to everyone who cares, even a little, about the planet. She empowers readers to think about their stuff and the environment in a new way, helping them make more informed choices when it comes to the future of our world.
Most importantly, this is a book about the power we have as voters and consumers to make sure that the fight against climate change includes all of us and all of our stuff, not just industry groups and politicians. If we have any hope of solving the problem, we all have to do it together.
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Tim Desmond - "How to Stay Human in a F*cked-Up World"
Tuesday, September 10
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tim-desmond-how-to-stay-human-in-a-fcked-up-world-tickets-67496859925
HOW CAN WE BE MORE MINDFUL WHEN THE WORLD IS THIS F*CKED UP
Tim Desmond--an esteemed Buddhist philosopher who has lectured on psychology at Yale and leads a mental health project at Google--offers a path to self-growth, connection, and joy like we've never seen before.
Despite an absent father, childhood homelessness, and losing a wife to cancer, Desmond has emerged with not only inner strength and joyful resilience, but also a deep understanding of human suffering necessary to advocate for those hurting all over the world. Through his work, Desmond realized the truth: we don't need a mindfulness practice for productivity or sleep, and it shouldn't come from religion, philosophy, or hypothetical situations. Instead, mindfulness should be rooted in the pain, sadness, loneliness, and trauma of the here and now, because it is the only true antidote for this sometimes-miserable world we call home.
About the Author: TIMOTHY AMBROSE DESMOND is a Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Antioch University, teaching professional psychology rooted in self-compassion. He currently co-leads a team at Google working to offer affordable, accessible emotional support to individuals around the world. After a troubled youth, Desmond was exposed to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and eventually studied at Plum Village. Desmond was also a co-organizer of Occupy Wall Street.
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Solar bills on Beacon Hill: The Climate Minute Podcast
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"Hugs For the Planet" in support of the Green New Deal -- will take place late June or early July -- depending on when I can raise the money. I may be able to cover a small shortfall myself but, like many people, I struggle to cover my own needs for the most part.
I'm looking at a Saturday or Sunday, 1pm, one hour.
Our idea is to position ourselves at the Park Street T exit on Boston Common and give out free "Hugs for the Planet." The goal is to raise awareness of the climate change crisis and garner support for the Green New Deal -- the only blueprint to date that offers a comprehensive plan that reflects the urgency needed to, literally, save the planet for our kids and grandkids.
There is no party or group affiliation. I am a career journalist/writer/editor/activist of some standing, working independently, to contribute to building a critical mass of support for the Green New Deal.
I plan to hire (probably six) promotional/event models to give out free hugs and hand out leaflets with some basic info, a call to action, and Congressional phone numbers on them.
OUR SECONDARY GOAL IS TO GET SOME MEDIA COVERAGE. (I have worked in the media, as well as in the capacity of Press Officer and Communications Director.) I will also contact the mayor's office.
You can support Hugs for the Planet at https://www.gofundme.com/quothugs-for-the-planetquot-for-the-green-new-deal
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Envision Cambridge citywide plan
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Climate Resilience Workbook
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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!
Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch. No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.
For more information checkout.
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Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide
SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!
To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha@sbnboston.org
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Boston Food System
"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships, programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."
The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food, farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health, environment, arts, social services and other arenas. Hundreds of organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let everyone know about these activities. Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of subscribers. Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and other posting guidelines will be provided as well.
It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs
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The Boston Network for International Development (BNID) maintains a website (BNID.org) that serves as a clearing-house for information on organizations, events, and jobs related to international development in the Boston area. BNID has played an important auxiliary role in fostering international development activities in the Boston area, as witnessed by the expanding content of the site and a significant growth in the number of users.
The website contains:
A calendar of Boston area events and volunteer opportunities related to International Development - http://www.bnid.org/events
A jobs board that includes both internships and full time positions related to International Development that is updated daily - http://www.bnid.org/jobs
A directory and descriptions of more than 250 Boston-area organizations - http://www.bnid.org/organizations
Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter (we promise only one email per week) to get the most up-to-date information on new job and internship opportunities -www.bnid.org/sign-up
The website is completely free for students and our goal is to help connect students who are interested in international development with many of the worthwhile organizations in the area.
Please feel free to email our organization at info@bnid.org if you have any questions!
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Boston Maker Spaces - 41 (up from 27 in 2016) and counting: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zGHnt9r2pQx8.kfw9evrHsKjA&hl=en
Solidarity Network Economy: https://ussolidarityeconomy.wordpress.com
Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston: http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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Links to events at over 50 colleges and universities at Hubevents: http://hubevents.blogspot.com
Thanks to
MIT Events: http://calendar.mit.edu
Harvard Events: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/
Harvard Environment: http://environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
Sustainability at Harvard: http://green.harvard.edu/events
Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/
Eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/
Startup and Entrepreneurial Events: http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/
Cambridge Civic Journal: http://www.rwinters.com
Cambridge Happenings: http://cambridgehappenings.org
Cambridge Community Calendar: https://www.cctvcambridge.org/calendar
Adam Gaffin’s Universal Hub: https://www.universalhub.com/
Mission-Based Massachusetts is an online discussion group for people who are interested in nonprofit, philanthropic, educational, community-based, grassroots, and other mission-based organizations in the Bay State. This is a moderated, flame-free email list that is open to anyone who is interested in the topic and willing to adhere to the principles of civil discourse. To subscribe email
If you have an event you would like to see here, the submission deadline is 11 AM on Sundays, as Energy (and Other) Events is sent out Sunday afternoons.
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