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
----------------------------------------------------------
*******************************************
Details of these events are available when you scroll past the index
******
———
Index
———
******
———————————
Tuesday, September 3
———————————
6:30pm The Last Sacred Place of Poetry Film Screening and Discussion with Olivia Huang and Doug Holder
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
———————————
Thursday, September 5
———————————
12pm The Elephant in the Room: Talking about Climate Change
6pm Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts Networking Event
6pm Resonant Energy Office Warming Party!
6pm LASER Boston: Data x Sound
7pm The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age
7pm Free Anthropological Film Screening in Boston: J.C. Abbey, Ghana's Puppeteer
——————————
Friday, September 6
——————————
9am Buildings and Energy Roundtable: Net Zero Stretch Code Support Mobilization
12pm Futurity Island Installation
3pm Shadow Archives: The Lifecycles of African American Literature
4:30pm Millennials Rising: Nonprofit POC Leaders-Fierce Urgency of Now!
5pm Open Mic at Herter Park, Charles River
5pm Presidential Town Hall with Senator Michael Bennet
5:30pm GreenRoots 25th Celebration & 4th Annual Evening on the Chelsea Creek Fundraiser
7pm Justice on the Ropes: Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Fred W. Hogan, John Artis and the Wrongful Conviction Movement
——————————————————————
Saturday, September 7 - Sunday, September 8
——————————————————————
Sunrise Movement Northeast Region Summit
———————————
Saturday, September 7
———————————
12pm Annual fall plant swap
12pm Futurity Island: Amphibian Pedagogies and Submerged Perspectives
12pm XR NVDA training
3:30pm Legacies of 1619: Recognition and Resilience
—--—————————-
Sunday, September 8
———————————
9:30am Slow Food Boston's 7th Tour de Farms
10am Build your own cold frame
12pm Boston Hassle presents: Green Market Flea!
3pm What You Need to Know to Help your Nonprofit Go Solar
3pm International Solidarity Rebel Ride for action on the climate emergency
7pm Hivemind: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World
7pm A Multinational Coming to the Rescue of Africa: Too Good to be True?
———————————
Monday, September 9
———————————
9am Broad Institute Next Generation in Biomedicine Symposium
10am The Next Evolution Of LEED: V4.1
12pm Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium - Speaker: Clara Deser
12:30pm Rising Power Alliances/Coalitions and U.S. Global Leadership
12:30pm Harvard Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellows Talks
4pm HubWeek Open Doors: Dudley Square
4:30pm Rally at Cambridge City Hall for Municipal Broadband
7pm The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir
7pm Nationalism: a Short History
7pm Long-term Loonshots: The Science of Phase Transitions and World History
————————————
Tuesday, September 10
————————————
9:45am Soundwalk
12pm Building a Better City: A Conversation with Mayor Steve Benjamin
12pm Technology, the First Amendment and Resisting Government Regulation
12pm The Sounds of Boston & Beyond: Hearing the Sonic Dimension of Cities
12:30pm Harvard Graduate School of Design Loeb Fellows Talks
4pm Book Talk: Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law
5pm Northern Ireland and Globalism: What does Brexit mean for the future of Northern Ireland
5:30pm Into a Daybreak: Eve Ewing and Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot on thinking and writing through black feminism
5:30pm Stone Social Impact Forum with Geoffrey Canada
6pm Authors@MIT | Leah Plunkett: Sharenthood Book Launch
6pm Brexit: What's Next?
6pm Beyond ROI: Ways to Measure Impact on Society
6pm Commercializing your Idea: Tales from the Front Lines
6pm Be Heard! Great Ways to Take Effective Action
6:30pm Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America Meeting
7pm Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have
7pm Tim Desmond - "How to Stay Human in a F*cked-Up World”
7pm Diversity is not Just the Differences You Like, A Talk by Eboo Patel
*******************************************
My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
Unto This Last
*******************************************
———————————
Tuesday, September 3
———————————
The Last Sacred Place of Poetry Film Screening and Discussion with Olivia Huang and Doug Holder
Tuesday, September 3
6:30pm–8:00pm
Main Lecture Hall , Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, CambridgeReply
Join us for the screening of the documentary, Grolier Poetry Book Shop: The Last Sacred Place of Poetry. The film explores the unique place in literary and Cambridge history that Grolier Poetry Book Shop occupies from its small, one-room location in Harvard Square. Following the screening, the filmmaker Olivia Huang will be in conversation with poet, publisher, and editor Doug Holder as they discuss the film and “the Grolier.”
Free Open to Public
Snacks and refreshments will be served
——————————————
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.
———————————————
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.
———————————————
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.
———————————
Thursday, September 5
———————————
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.
———————————————
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!
———————————————
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!
——————————————
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.
——————————————
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.
——————————————
Free Anthropological Film Screening in Boston: J.C. Abbey, Ghana's Puppeteer
Thursday, September 5
7-9pm
Great Hall, Codman Square, 6 Norfolk Street, Dorchester
We will be showing J.C. Abbey, Ghana's Puppeteer a film by Steven Field. This engaging film profiles the work of Ghana's master puppeteer. From Accra's streets to Ghana's villages to international TV, Abbey's marionettes perform ethnic songs, highlife, Afrojazz, Afro-rock, and reggae, reflecting Ghanaian music since Independence. Viewers gain insight into intertwined ethnic, traditional, national, and global musical styles in Ghana today.
After the film we will hold a discussion with a guest African ethnomusicologist. This event is presented by the Clemente Course in the Humanities and Documentary Educational Resources.
——————————
Friday, September 6
——————————
Buildings and Energy Roundtable: Net Zero Stretch Code Support Mobilization
Friday, September 6
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM EDT
Room Windrose, 5th Floor, 50 Milk Street, Boston
Cost: $50
This roundtable will focus on mobilizing our community to show support for the Net Zero Stretch Code being brought before the legislature.
The Buildings and Energy Roundtable will enable like-minded professionals to gather and explore specific issues, define actions, develop strategies and explore solutions related to energy in the green building industry. This roundtable will focus on mobilizing our community to show support for the Net Zero Stretch Code being brought before the legislature. Join us in moving the needle towards a net positive environment, society, and economy.
This roundtable is free for members.
————————————
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.
——————————————
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.
——————————————
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.
———————————————
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.
———————————————
Presidential Town Hall with Senator Michael Bennet
Friday, September 6
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM EDT
Democracy Brewing, 35 Temple Place, Boston
Tickets are required to attend. $10 minimum per person.
Senator Michael Bennet and The Next Fifty at a Presidential Town Hall in Boston.
Once you've received your ticket:
Check out Michael's website and come prepared with questions for him www.michaelbennet.com
Check out the "Now This" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjVK3YF1vTQ
Share this invitation with others who may want to attend
Michael Bennet has represented Colorado in the United States Senate since 2009. Widely recognized as a pragmatic and independent thinker, he is driven by a deep-seated obligation to create more opportunity for the next generation. Michael has built a reputation of taking on Washington dysfunction and working with Republicans and Democrats to address our nation’s greatest challenges – including education, climate change, immigration, health care, and national security.
Want to learn more about this event and future candidate events? Join the Meet the Candidate Boston community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Next50Boston
———————————————
GreenRoots 25th Celebration & 4th Annual Evening on the Chelsea Creek Fundraiser
Friday, September 6
5:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
GreenRoots, Inc., 227 Marginal Street, Suite 1, Chelsea
Cost: $25
This year, we celebrate 25 years of work, fighting for environmental justice and public health in Chelsea and neighboring communities. Many of you have been fighting alongside us, some for all 25 years, others as new supporters this year. For that, we are profoundly grateful. None of our victories could happen without your involvement.
As many of you know, in 1994, we began as a Members Committee dedicated to preserving and developing park space. Under the umbrella of the Chelsea Collaborative, our committee grew quickly and began to take on more substantial and life-affecting campaigns. In 2016, GreenRoots became a stand-alone organization in order to delve even deeper into the environmental challenges facing our communities on both sides of Chelsea Creek. Together, we have achieved 25 years of amazing victories.
Join us in Celebrating 25 years of Fighting for Social and Environmental Justice and our 4th Annual Evening on the Chelsea Creek Fundraiser with music, food and lots of dancing.
Friday, September 6th at 5:30 pm at our Chelsea Creek Headquarters where we will celebrate all our accomplishments.
Tickets: $25 (cash bar)
GreenRoots is a resident-led organization that works to engage the most vulnerable residents and to empower them to become vocal and strong leaders. Together, we implement innovative campaigns through which residents can see a tangible difference in our health, quality of life and environment.
———————————————
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.
——————————————————————
Saturday, September 7 - Sunday, September 8
——————————————————————
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!
———————————
Saturday, September 7
———————————
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
—————————————
Futurity Island: Amphibian Pedagogies and Submerged Perspectives
Saturday, September 7
12:00 PM – 5:30 PM EDT
MIT, ACT Cube (E15-001), Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Sound Performance, LP Launch, and Discursive Event on the Amphibian Pedagogies and Submerged Perspectives
The MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology and the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga, are co-presenting the Futurity Island, an infrastructure for interspecies communication. A network of water/sewer pipes, Futurity Island is assembled into an artificial skeleton that channels the sounds of “nature.” As an instrument used to drain swamps, the pipe is a metaphor for human-centered ecology and environmental domination, and a prime symbol of the Anthropocene. Futurity Island appropriates the pipe to bring humans and non-humans into a more symmetrical, collaborative relationship, aimed at listening to and hearing the silenced voices of our planet.
If basic and applied science can offer a general research framework addressing the water environment and climate change, artistic research and practice can merge critical thinking with out-of-the box approaches to existing knowledge, foster experimental learning environments, and invent new strategies for engagement with the public.
Inspired by discussions on radical imagination, Indigenous thought, collective intelligence, and plural ecology, this event invites participants to discuss and develop new habits of thought for the era of environmental collapse. The Futurity Island will provide participants a space to speculate on interspecies ecologies and probe the usefulness of the concept “sympoiesis” toward imagining and working together in radical inter-disciplinarity toward desirable futures.
—————————————
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.
———————————————
Legacies of 1619: Recognition and Resilience
Saturday, September 7
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM EDT
Museum of African American History, 46 Joy Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legacies-of-1619-recognition-and-resilience-tickets-69944111721
In 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived in English North America. To mark the 400th anniversary of this historic event, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Museum of African American History, and Roxbury Community College offer four programs to discuss the history of Africans and African Americans in the American past. Each program features leading scholars who will elaborate on a theme from the perspective of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
Program 1: Recognition & Resilience
Saturday, 7 September
3:30 PM reception | 4:00 PM panel
Location: Museum of African American History, 46 Joy Street
Panelists: Kerri Greenidge, Tufts University; David Krugler, University of Wisconsin—Platteville; and Peter Wirzbicki, Princeton University
Moderator: Robert Bellinger, Suffolk University
The institution of slavery in English North America began in 1619 with the arrival of roughly 20 Africans in the settlement of Jamestown. What has followed has been 400 years of exploitation and discrimination in many different forms. However, telling this story is not complete without an exploration of how African American communities have created culture and institutions that have survived despite these challenges. This program will explore both structures of exploitation and forms of resistance.
—--—————————-
Sunday, September 8
———————————
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.
——————————————
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.
——————————————
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/
————————————————
What You Need to Know to Help your Nonprofit Go Solar
Sunday, September 8
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT
Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callender Street, Cambridge
Wondering why your nonprofit is the only building on the block without solar panels? Join us with Green Flea Market for a 45 minute workshop to learn about the options, best practices, and first steps to help your nonprofit explore solar panels. We'll cover the following topics:
Options for no-cost installation and affordable solar
What makes a good roof
Expected savings
First step and analysis
RSVP here or email Cody@resonant.energy can't attend but would like more information!
————————————————
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.
————————————————
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.
——————————————
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.
———————————
Monday, September 9
———————————
Broad Institute Next Generation in Biomedicine Symposium
Monday, September 9
9:00am - 5:00pm
Broad Institute Auditorium, 415 Main Street, Cambridge
The Broad Institute Next Generation in Biomedicine is a unique effort to bring together emerging talent at the intersection of biomedical disciplines. Eighteen early-career investigators from around the world will share their research and discuss exciting new directions.
Program:
8:30 - 9:00 AM Breakfast
9:10- 9:20 AM Opening Remarks
9:20 – 11:20 AM First Session
11:20-12:30 PM Lunch Break
12:30-2:30 PM Second Session
2:30-3:00 PM Afternoon Break
3:00-5:00 PM Third Session
5:00-5:10 PM Closing Remarks | Aviv Regev
2019 Symposium Presenters:
Steven M. Banik, PhD; Burroughs Wellcome Fund CASI Postdoctoral Fellow, Carolyn Bertozzi lab, Stanford University
Hijacking the lysosome for targeted degradation of extracellular and membrane proteins
John F. Brooks II, PhD; HHMI Hanna H. Gray Fellow, Postdoctoral Fellow, Lora Hooper lab, University of Texas Southwestern
The microbiota programs diurnal oscillations in intestinal antimicrobial protein expression
Pau Castel, PhD; Jane Coffin Childs Fund Postdoctoral Fellow, Frank McCormick lab, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California San Francisco
Studying human oncoproteins beyond cancer
Yvette Fisher, PhD; HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow, Rachel Wilson lab, Harvard Medical School
How visual landmarks update a heading direction circuit in Drosophila
Viktória Lázár, PhD; Postdoctoral Researcher, Roy Kishony lab, Israel Institute of Technology
Antibiotic persistence in multi-drug treatment
Ben Lengerich; PhD candidate, Eric Xing lab, Carnegie Mellon University
Personalized Machine Learning for Precision Medicine
Cécile Mathieu, PhD; Research Associate, J. Paul Taylor lab, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital
A conformational switch regulates G3BP-RNA phase separation and biological condensate formation in cells
Alexander Meeske, PhD; Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow, Luciano Marraffini lab, Rockefeller University
CRISPR-Cas13 cleaves host and phage RNA to suppress evolution of escape mutants
Eugene Oh, PhD; Postdoctoral Fellow, Michael Rape lab, University of California Berkeley
Anaphase-promoting complex-dependent control of cell identity
John Salogiannis, PhD; Postdoctoral Fellow, Samara Reck-Peterson lab, University of California San Diego
A structural and mechanistic model for LRRK2’s association with microtubules
Francisco J. Sánchez-Rivera, PhD; HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow, Scott Lowe lab, Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dissecting the biological impact of mutational heterogeneity using mouse models and genome engineering
Olga T. Schubert, PhD; Postdoctoral Scholar, Leonid Kruglyak lab, University of California Los Angeles
High-resolution CRISPR screening for the genetic regulation of protein abundance
Manoshi Sen Datta, PhD; Human Frontier Science Program Postdoctoral Fellow, Roy Kishony lab, Israel Institute of Technology
Towards “ecology guided” treatments for infectious disease
Matthew Shurtleff, PhD; Postdoctoral Research Associate, Jonathan Weissman lab, University of California San Francisco
Unraveling host-microbiome interactions using phenotype-rich screening approaches
Ekaterina (Katya) Vinogradova, PhD; Research Associate, Benjamin Cravatt lab, The Scripps Research Institute
A function-guided map of electrophile-cysteine interactions in primary human immune cells
Haohan Wang; PhD candidate, Research Assistant, Eric Xing lab, Carnegie Mellon University
Dealing with confounding factors in deep neural networks
Autumn York, PhD; HHMI Hanna H. Gray Postdoctoral Fellow, Richard Flavell lab, Yale University
Decoding the Immunological Lipidome
Xiaoyu Zhang, PhD; Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Benjamin Cravatt lab, The Scripps Research Institute
Discovery of small molecule-mediated protein degradation pathways
——————————————
The Next Evolution Of LEED: V4.1
Monday, September 9
10:00 AM – 1:00 PM EDT
Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress Street, 2ND Floor Fort Point Room, Boston
Cost: $69 – $99
This workshop will provide participants with a look into LEED v4.1 BD+C, ID+C, O+M and the information needed to pursue certification. The focus will be on understanding the goals and outcomes of the LEED v4.1 beta. The newest update to the LEED rating systems, LEED v4.1, addresses lessons learned from LEED v4 project teams, updates performance thresholds and reference standards to ensure LEED remains a global leadership standard, and expands the marketplace for LEED.
In a world that is constantly evolving, one of the hallmarks of LEED is “continuous improvement.” With each new version, LEED raises the bar on the green building industry. The latest version of LEED, LEED v4.1 is the next generation standard for green building design, construction, operations and performance.
During this half-day workshop, USGBC’s technical staff will walk participants through LEED v4.1 BD+C and ID+C credits including a restructured Materials and Resources section, the addition of a greenhouse gas emissions metric and updated thresholds. The workshop will also touch on the full life cycle of the building, by reviewing LEED Operations and Maintenance and recertification options available to projects and how BD+C and ID+C credits are structured to support ongoing performance.
Course Objectives:
Articulate the main goals of LEED v4.1 technical development
List the requirements of key LEED v4.1 BD+C and ID+C prerequisites and credits for success
Identify how LEED v4.1 for BD+C and ID+C increases accessibility throughout the rating system and positions LEED to continue to drive market transformation
Identify opportunities for continued building performance through LEED for Operations + Maintenance
Learn about LEED Recertification
Presenter: Kat Wagenschutz, Director Technical Solutions, U.S. Green Building Council
Credential Maintenance: This workshop qualifies for 3 LEED Specific BD+C, ID+C, and O+M GBCI Continuing Education Credits.
Registration: USGBC Individual Members: $69
Non-Members: $99
Note: Non-individual members or non-current individual members who select the member ticket will be invoiced.
———————————————
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.
——————————————
Rising Power Alliances/Coalitions and U.S. Global Leadership
Monday, September 9,
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm
Tuft, Crowe Room (Goddard 310), 160 Packard Avenue, Medford
Dr. Mihaela Papa and Dr. Zhen Han
Co-Investigator, Rising Power Alliances project and Adjunct Assistant Professor at The Fletcher School & Postdoctoral Scholar, Rising Power Alliances project
Are rising powers engaging in alliances/coalitions that challenge the U.S. role in global governance and if so, how? While some argue that China and Russia’s policies are converging and that a new Cold War is on the horizon, others assert that rising power coalitions such as the BRICS group are a temporary fad. During this talk, we will discuss rising powers’ own understanding of alliances/coalitions and introduce empirical approaches to assessing their collaboration on foreign, environmental, defense, and economic policies across multiple international arrangements. This research is a part of the 3-year Minerva Research Initiative-funded project on Rising Power Alliances. We are now hiring four research assistants so please come if you are interested in working with us.
Light refreshments will be served. Please contact Sara Rosales (sara.rosales@tufts.edu) if you have any questions.
Mihaela Papa is a Co-Investigator on the Rising Power Alliances project and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Sustainable Development and Global Governance at Fletcher. She specializes in actor strategies, coalitional behavior and complex negotiations, especially in the context of environmental regulation and rising power diplomacy. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Law School, she examined India, China and Brazil in international dispute settlement, spent six months in China as a visiting researcher at Fudan’s Center for BRICS Studies and embarked on a BRICS-focused research agenda. Mihaela has published on rising powers and sustainable development diplomacy in Global Environmental Politics, Global Environmental Change, Chinese Journal of International Politics and many other journals. She is an active practitioner with a lot of experience advising institutions on global strategies and managing international collaborations. In this capacity she has worked at MIT and at the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as consulted for the U.S. government, the European Commission, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Originally a trade economist, she completed her MALD and PhD at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Zhen (Arc) Han is a Postdoctoral Scholar at CIERP at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. His research interests focus on international economic cooperation, state behaviours of rising powers and the links between international economy and security. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Political Science Department of McGill University. His dissertation “Interdependence, State Decentralization and International Relations: The China Case” uses subnational unit of analysis from the contemporary China case and argues the pacifying effects of economic interdependence are conditioned on the domestic structure of state decentralization. He received his M.A. degree from the University of British Columbia, where he wrote a thesis on “Capitalist Peace Revisited: Can Financial Openness Lead to Peace in the Post-Cold War Era”. He published this article in China’s World Economy and Politics Journal. He also coauthored a book chapter on China-India relations. He also holds a B.A. degree in Political Science and a B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering.
——————————————
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.
——————————————
HubWeek Open Doors: Dudley Square
Monday, September 9
4:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Dudley Square, Roxbury
Home to shops, restaurants, and the newly revamped Hibernian Hall, Dudley Square is at the heart of the city and the commercial hub of Roxbury. Join us as we celebrate this economic and cultural hotspot and learn about how its community members are working to revitalize the neighborhood while staying true to its roots.
Open Doors, presented by BNY Mellon, is a monthly event series that allows you to experience the innovation happening in different corners of Boston. It’s an opportunity for you to learn and find inspiration in neighborhoods across this vibrant, buzzing city that can sometimes be tricky to navigate.
Connect with other curious, passionate, and creative people – learn about what they’re pursuing and share what you’re working on, too — and leave with solid takeaways to help you pursue your passion. And maybe most importantly, help us strengthen and nurture this unique community so we can build a better future – together.
Building a Culturally Conscious Innovation Economy
4:00 - 5:30 PM | Panel | Black Market, Dudley Square, 2136 Washington Street, Roxbury, MA
What does it mean to innovate consciously? How can we foster economic development while preserving what’s unique and special about a community? What are some ways to create a competitive future for businesses and entrepreneurs while keeping an eye on the past and present? Join panelists and a moderator in a tough discussion that’s relevant to many of Boston’s neighborhoods and communities. There will also be some newly-created recipes from the soon-to-be reopened Haley House for you to try out.
Panelists:
Dan Vidaña, Acting Director, Roxbury Innovation Center
Joelle Jean-Fontaine, Co-Owner & Designer, I am Kreyol, Asst. Director, Fairmount Innovation Lab
Kim Napoli, Director of Diversity, New England Treatment Access, LLC
Nia Evans, Director, Boston Ujima Project
Cierra Peters, Arts & Cultural Organizing Fellow, Boston Ujima Project
Moderated by: Natalia Urturbey, Director of Small Business, Executive Director, Imagine Boston 2030, City of Boston
Time to Read
4:00 - 6:00 PM | Frugal Bookstore | 57 Warren Street, Roxbury, MA
Head on over to the Frugal Bookstore on your way to our reception and pickup a free copy of Boston Book Festival's One City, One Story for you to pick up while you shop and explore locally owned bookshop.
Speed Mentoring
6:15 - 7:15 PM | Mentoring | Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, 3rd Floor, Roxbury, MA
Got questions? Speed Mentoring is back and our mentors have the answers! During one-on-one lightning chats, let top entrepreneurs answer you burning questions about innovative and creative business ideas. Space is limited. Registrants will sign up for individual slots upon arrival.
Mentors:
Brigette Wallace, Founder, G|CODE House
Kaidi Grant, Co-Founder, Black Market
Chris Grant, Co-Founder, Black Market
Leonard Egerton, Co-Owner, Frugal Bookstore
Clarrissa Cropper, Co-Owner, Frugal Bookstore
More mentors to be announced soon!
Eat, Drink, & Get Connected
6:00 - 7:30 PM | Gathering | Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, 3rd Floor, Roxbury, MA
Get a special chance to enjoy the newly revamped historic dance hall. Once an Irish-American cultural center, now a gorgeous event space revitalized by the Madison Park Development Corporation, Hibernian Hall is a hip spot for our evening’s entertainment.
Enjoy complimentary snacks (including empanadas from Fresh Food Generation!), refreshments, and performances curated by Olawumi Akinwumi including Dashawn Borden and theatrical star Lovely Hoffman.
——————————————
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.
More information at https://upgradecambridge.org
———————————————
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.
———————————————
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.
———————————————
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.
————————————
Tuesday, September 10
————————————
Soundwalk
Tuesday, September 10
9:45 am-11:45 am
BU, 75 Bay State Road, Boston
RSVP at http:/bit.ly/soundwalk-boston
A bonus event! Daniel Steele will host a soundwalk on the morning of the seminar, September 10. It will depart from Symphony Hall and end at the Initiative on Cities in time for the seminar. The soundwalk is primarily an active listening activity. During our sound walk, we will use the NoiseScore Research App*, which will allow you to measure sound levels, rate your perception of them, and visualize your results in real-time.
No expertise in sound is required to participate in this event. The walk will be approximately 2 miles outdoors. Please wear appropriate attire. Please make sure to inform us of any special accommodations you may require
Lunch provided
——————————————
Building a Better City: A Conversation with Mayor Steve Benjamin
WHEN Tuesday, Sep. 10, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE The Leadership Studio, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Voices in Leadership, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SPEAKER(S) Steve Benjamin, Mayor, Columbia, South Carolina
Jeffrey Sanchez, Former Massachusetts state representative; former Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK RSVP to ATTEND: https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9NB78NxAAw31g1L
CONTACT INFO voices@hsph.harvard.edu
DETAILS Live webcast will be streamed on this page on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019 at 12 p.m. ET.
No registration is required to watch the live stream online. An on-demand video will be posted here after the event.
Members of the Harvard community may attend in person. If you wish to attend, RSVP to the lottery. Harvard ID or Harvard-affiliate ID required to attend.
———————————————
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
———————————————
The Sounds of Boston & Beyond: Hearing the Sonic Dimension of Cities
Tuesday, September 10
12 pm-1:30 pm
BU, 75 Bay State Road, Boston
RSVP at http://bit.ly/sounds-of-boston
How does the urban sound environment influence how we use and understand cities? Noise can negatively impact our mental and physical health, but can sound also promote our sense of well-being? And what efforts have been done to shape and manage the future of urban sound?
Speakers:
Erica Walker, Boston University
Edda Bild, University of Amsterdam
Daniel Steele, McGill University
Lunch provided
———————————————
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.
——————————————
Book Talk: Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law
WHEN Tuesday, Sep. 10, 2019, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Law
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School
SPEAKER(S) Dov Fox, Herzog Endowed Scholar; Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law; Director of the Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics, University of San Diego School of Law
I. Glenn Cohen, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Faculty Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School
Louise P. King, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School
Katherine L. Kraschel, Lecturer in Law, Clinical Lecturer in Law, Research Scholar in Law, Yale Law School; executive director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy, Yale Law School
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07egaw096ha8e15308&oseq=&c=&ch=
CONTACT INFO Kaitlyn Dowling
DETAILS Join author Dov Fox and an expert panel as they discuss his new book "Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law" (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Panelists will explore the ways in which the book seeks to lift the curtain on reproductive negligence, give voice to the lives it upends, and vindicate the interests that advances in medicine and technology bring to full expression. They will also examine the book's effort to force citizens and courts to rethink the reproductive controversies of our time, and to equip us to meet the new challenges — from womb transplants to gene editing — that lie just over the horizon.
——————————————
Northern Ireland and Globalism: What does Brexit mean for the future of Northern Ireland
Tuesday, September 10
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT
2125 Commonwealth Avenue, Creagh Library, Boston
Join us as we host a fireside chat with Dr. Andrew McCormick, Director General, International Relations, Northern Ireland Civil Service, and a small delegation from the Northern Ireland Bureau.
Dr. McCormick has worked in the Northern Ireland Civil Service since 1980. Having served in the Departments of Education, Finance, Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Dr. McCormick was appointed in February 2018 to led the Northern Ireland Civil Service contributions to the Brexit negotiations.
Reception begins at 5:00pm with light refreshments prior to the fireside chat from 5:30-6:30.
——————————————
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
————————————————
Stone Social Impact Forum with Geoffrey Canada
Tuesday, September 10
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM EDT
Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Columbia Point, Boston
Innovative education leader Geoffrey Canada, president and founder of Harlem Children’s Zone, is the inaugural speaker for the Stone Social Impact Forum, a new signature series highlighting civic change agents who advance social change and innovatively address areas of inequality in our society.
Geoffrey Canada will share the journey of Harlem Children’s Zone and discuss how equal access to a quality education is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Canada will also participate in a conversation around his theory of change, the importance of youth engagement, and his vision for how each person can positively contribute to their communities and civic life.
Geoffrey Canada is the President and Founder of Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc. Under his visionary leadership and 20+ years with the organization, Harlem Children’s Zone has become a national model that The New York Times called “one of the most ambitious social-policy experiments of our time.” Canada was driven to help children who, like himself, were disadvantaged by their neighborhoods and felt that helping them find inspiration in education would make all the difference in their lives. His work has received significant media attention and he is the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees. He is also the author of two books, including Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in Americaand Reaching Up for Manhood: Transforming the Lives of Boys in America.
————————————————
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.
————————————
Brexit: What's Next?
Tuesday, September 10
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point, Boston
Panelists including Gerard Baker, editor at large at The Wall Street Journal, Ambassador (Ret.) Nicholas Burns, Harvard professor of diplomacy and international relations, and Karen Donfried, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, discuss current developments in the Brexit process.
————————————
Beyond ROI: Ways to Measure Impact on Society
Tuesday, September 10
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
CIC Boston, 50 Milk Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-roi-ways-to-measure-impact-on-society-registration-69930168015
What exactly is your business investing in?
Beyond just measuring impact, this panel will explore different ways to measure the consequences of business initiatives - both the intentional and the unintentional, the intended, good contributions to society and the negative, adverse consequences that one should be aware of. We'll focus on narratives from panelists with actual tangible ideas for how to look beyond just ROI and value more diverse metrics and ethics.
Located in Meridian, on Floor Five of CIC Boston
Sponsored by Impact Hub Boston
Learn more about us at zephyr.business
————————————
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
——————————————
Be Heard! Great Ways to Take Effective Action
Tuesday, September 10
6:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
The Venture Cafe - Cambridge Innovation Center, 5th Floor, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
Cost: $8 – $12
At our May BASG event, we came together as a community to group brainstorm shovel-ready ideas for Massachusetts to implement the Green New Deal. Now it's time to tap into your inner activist and find your way toward taking action. In September, we bring together several organizations that are very effective at getting things done to share different ways to get heard - to champion forward your ideas or the great work of others.
EXTINCTION REBELLION Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a socio-political movement with the stated aim of using civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse. In his book Falter, Bill McKibben calls non-violent resistent one of the two key technologies critical in addressing the climate crisis. We welcome the Boston chapter to tell us how we can engage in civil disobedience.
MOTHERS OUT FRONT has made great headway on many fronts. For this event they'll focus on "Reaching Beyond the Choir - Engaging Neighbors and Friends in Climate Advocacy". One of the things they take pride in -- and the reason for their existence -- is to build an ever-widening constituency of "regular moms" who are willing to take action and hold our decision makers accountable. They do this by knocking on doors, holding house parties, discussion circles, one-to-one meetings over coffee, movie screenings, Green Living Tours and more.
BETTER FUTURE PROJECT and 350 MASSACHUSETTS are active on many fronts. Joining us will be Larry Rosenberg, active in 350 MA and Elders Climate Action. He helps coordinate a letters-to-the-editor team. Larry will tell us how to write effective letters to the editor and why they matter.
Claire Mueller of TOXICS ACTION CENTER will talk about how to be active in our local communities to drive policy change. Claire is the Lead Community Organizer and Climate Justice Director at Toxics Action Center. In that role, Claire provides organizing support, facilitation and training to more than thirty grassroots groups teaching community leaders to plan winning campaigns, hone their message and materials, build their group, fundraise, garner media attention and more. Claire is a founder and co-coordinator of the statewide coalition of more than 150 groups working to further climate justice policy and foster local clean energy campaigns.
We've invited others to talk to us about how to run for office, how to get the attention of policy-makers, and what highly-effective protesting tactics look like.
Join us for another great BASG line-up! Carol, Holly, Tilly, Eric & Amy
——————————————
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America Meeting
Tuesday, September 10
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/moms-demand-action-for-gun-sense-in-america-meeting-tickets-70505749595
Join us to take action to prevent gun violence! Learn about what you can do to make a difference and help end gun violence.
————————————
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.
————————————
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.
——————————————
Diversity is not Just the Differences You Like, A Talk by Eboo Patel
Tuesday, September 10
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
40 Leon Street, Cabral Center, Boston
All are welcome for this Keynote Address and Book Signing, followed by Refreshments.
Diversity is not Just the Differences You Like: Multicultural Leadership in a Global Age
We live in an era where people choose sides and prepare for battle. What would it look like to be a leader who sought the well-being of the whole – both people you identify with, and people you don’t; people you agree with, and people you don’t; people on this side of the line, and people on the other side. What would it mean to engage in multicultural and interfaith work with the recognition that diversity is not just the differences you like? In this talk, Eboo Patel, Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core, will draw on inspiring examples from American history and religious traditions to show how we can build a country where all people thrive. The best symbol for this is not a melting pot, but a potluck dinner. After all, a diverse democracy does not benefit from endless sameness, but upon the various gifts that its diverse people bring. If people don’t contribute, the nation doesn’t feast. The task of the leader is to inspire participation.
*****************
----------------------
Upcoming Events
----------------------
*****************
—————————————
Wednesday, September 11
—————————————
Individual freedom versus the hidden persuaders
Wednesday, September 11
10AM – 6PM
BU, Hillel Center, 213 Bay State Road, Boston
Many policy experts support socially engineered nudging, that is, have governments use a set subtle behavior reward algorithms to control people’s behavior for socially desirable outcomes. Yet the utilitarian attractiveness of such an undertaking obscures the implications for individual freedom and human choice. Cultivated among others by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, the idea of nudging is often seen as a way to produce positive social outcomes without the reliance on formal regulations and policing. Yet the fact that the process is often below the level of clear observability by the people being nudged raises important questions about the role of manipulation and, even more, potentially morally compromised governmental authority. Beyond the immediate philosophical and free will implications are the questions concerning what would happen when these techniques are taken to an extreme. There are many questions about the cost of dissent in today’s society as measured in ruined lives of those who fell out with social media activists. We must ask what it means to allow oneself to be “nudged” “for one’s own good”, i.e., how one is allowing oneself to be shaped by “soft” governmental and other programs. The implications for democratic practices, not to mention individual choices, are obvious.
We don’t necessarily need to speculate about this question as the government of the People’s Republic of China is already going about implementing such a program, with few limits. If practically all dimensions of one’s life becomes a universal Skinner Box, which seems to be the ambition of elements within China’s government and their “visionary” counterparts the US and elsewhere, what can we say about free choice and individualism (and even personal character and a sense of community) under these circumstances?
The intersection of these practices, increasingly on a global scale, is an algorithmically guided experiment in human behavior and social control without precedent in human history. It places us squarely at a crossroad. The direction that we as a civilization take has grave implications for intellectual inquiry across the humanities and beyond, reaching into the realms of computer science, political equality, privacy, ecology, and individual rights and autonomy.
———————————
Sustainability/Bike/Light Fair
Wednesday, September 11
11:00am to 2:00pm
Northeastern, Snell Library Quad, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston
10th annual Sustainability/Bike/Light Fair event! Please join us! Did you know Northeastern has a Sustainability Office and full program underway? Stop by for sustainability/bike safety/energy efficient lamp giveaways. Bring up to 10 old incandescent or halogen lamps and get a FREE LED! Minor bike repairs and registration, bike safety giveaways, multiple campus offices and student groups will provide sustainability-related information. Bring your own bottle! Grab some delicious snacks.
RAIN DATE: SEPT. 26, 2019.
———————————
It's Coming from Inside the House: The Greatest Challenges to America's National Security is Happening at Home, Not Over There
Wednesday, September 11
12:00pm to 1:30pm
MIT, Building E40-496 (Pye Room), 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Michael Cohen (Boston Globe)
Today, the world is safer, freer, wealthier, better educated, and healthier than any point in human history. Meanwhile, the greatest threat to Americans, to our our quality of life, and to the nation's long-term economic competitiveness is coming from issues that rarely figure into national security debates: access to health care, crumbling infrastructure, gun violence, the opioid epidemic, and political paralysis. On September 11th, Michael Cohen will discuss his new book Clear and Present Safety, which highlights America's misplaced attention on improbable foreign threats and calls for a re-orientiaton of U.S. grand strategy to focus on the actual and preventable domestic challenges that are not only harming Americans at home but eroding U.S power from the inside.
Security Studies Program Wednesday Seminar
———————————————
Greenland in a Changing Arctic
WHEN Wednesday, Sep. 11, 2019, 12:15 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Belfer Center Library, Littauer-369
Harvard Kennedy School, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Arctic Initiative
SPEAKER(S) Ane Lone Bagger, Minister of Education, Culture, Church, and Foreign Affairs, Greenland
CONTACT INFO brittany_janis@hks.harvard.edu
DETAILS Lunch provided.
RSVP to brittany_janis@hks.harvard.edu by 4 p.m. Sept. 6.
Open to Harvard faculty, fellows, staff, and students
Greenland, the world's biggest island, has long held a strategic geographic and political position in global affairs. It has made headlines recently, after President Donald Trump stated he wanted to buy the island, because of its strategic location in the Arctic and its wealth of natural resources. Greenland's foreign minister, Ane Lone Bagger, had told Reuters: "We are open for business, but we’re not for sale."
Join the Arctic Initiative for an insightful lunch with Greenland's Minister of Education, Culture, Church and Foreign Affairs, Ane Lone Bagger, about how Greenland is responding to the shifting dynamics in the Arctic as climate change is transforming the island and the waters surrounding it, opening up the region to the outside world.
———————————————
xTalk: Taylor Freeman on "Platform Shifts: From the Internet, to Mobile, to Immersive"
Wednesday, September 11
3:00pm to 4:00pm
MIT, Building 3-133 33 Massachusetts Avenue (rear), Cambridge
Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about the coming wave of immersive learning. Like the internet, personal computing and mobile, immersive devices like virtual and augmented reality are poised to yet again transform the way our world learns. Imagine being able to teleport to the colosseum in Rome to learn history, to the scale of an atom to learn chemistry, or simply to a virtual theater to watch a presentation from the best professors at MIT... all from anywhere in the world. With virtual reality, this becomes possible.
In this xTalk we will cover a brief history of the technology platform shifts that have driven the evolution of distance learning, review the current state of immersive technology, explore some ideas around where things might head in the future and ponder some of the philosophical and practical questions we will need to ask on the journey to get there.
Taylor Freeman is the Founder & CEO of Axon Park, a virtual campus where students from around the world can learn together in VR. He has been working at the intersection of VR and education over the last five years during which time he established two incubation spaces in LA and San Francisco housing over 150 AR and AI startups, hosted over 500 events focused around VR and AR, oversaw the training of nearly 1,000 students in-person on VR development, consulted with companies like NASA, Stanford Medical, Google, and IDEO and built a news media platform focused on VR that reaches millions of people per month. Taylor was awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017 for his work building the industry and he taught the first remote in-VR class with the MIT media lab in October 2018. He is deeply passionate about using VR to unlock new levels of human cognition and overcome the challenges many students face in the classroom around geographical limitations, student and teacher bias, and overall accessibility.
———————————————
Panel Discussion: The Future of Computational Materials Science and Engineering
Wednesday, September 11
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 1-190, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
This discussion is part of a 3-day mini-summit through DMSE. Please join us on Sept. 10 and 12 for more events!
Computational research has been an established component of science and engineering fields for decades now, and with computing technology in a constant state of evolution it’s important to take a step back to gain perspective. Where is computation taking our research, our innovation, our technology, and our materials? What might the future of computational materials research look like?
This panel discussion will create an open dialogue between leading computational materials scientists to identify current and future trends and provide a broad view of the vast possibilities computation presents materials researchers.
The Panel: Professor David Srolovitz from University of Pennsylvania, Professor Alain Karma from Northeastern Universit, Professor Adrian Sutton from Imperial College London
Moderated by DMSE’s Professor W. Craig Carter.
———————————————
Work of the Future Book Series: Mary Gray, Author of "Ghost Work"
Wednesday, September 11
4:30pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building E25-111, 45 Carleton Street, Cambridge
RSVP here: https://bit.ly/33wmcb7
In the first event in the Work of the Future Book Series, Mary Gray (Microsoft Research, Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society) will talk with David Autor (Ford Professor of Economics Associate Head, Department of Economics Co-chair, MIT Work of the Future Task Force) about her book Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass.
In Ghost Work, Gray and co-author Siddharth Suri examine how services delivered by major companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, "invisible" human labor force—comprising people doing "ghost work." An estimated 8% of Americans have worked at least once in this “ghost economy,” and that number is growing. Gray and Suri look at how ghost workers, employers, and society at large can ensure that this new kind of work creates opportunity for those who do it.
——————————————
More or less than zero: Can electricity markets survive deep decarbonization?
Wednesday, September 11
5:15pm to 6:15pm
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
James Bushnell, Professor, UC Davis; and Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
As parts of the U.S. pursue increasingly aggressive policies for decarbonizing their electricity sectors, fault lines have continued to grow over the proper design and organization of electricity markets. While renewable generation continues to expand rapidly, operators of legacy power plants—particularly those fueled by coal and nuclear energy—are experiencing increasing financial distress. Across the U.S., a range of policy proposals and ad-hoc arrangements have been floated to maintain the economic viability of conventional generation. This talk draws upon research at the wholesale and retail level to contrast differing regional approaches to the economic challenges to integrating renewable electricity into electric systems.
About the speaker:
James Bushnell is a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining UC Davis, he was the research director at the UC Energy Institute and Cargill Chair in Energy Economics at Iowa State University. He holds a PhD in operations research from UC Berkeley.
Since 2002, Bushnell has served as a member of the Market Surveillance Committee (MSC) of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). He has also advised the California Air Resources Board in several capacities, and has consulted on the design and performance of electricity markets around the U.S. and Internationally.
Please note that we will open our doors to unregistered participants 15 minutes before the event start time. To guarantee your seat, we recommend you register and arrive at least 15 minutes early.
If you are not able to attend, note there will be a high-quality recording of this seminar made available on our YouTube channel ( about a week following the event.
——————————————
CHINESE DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: the new Long March
Wednesday, September 11
7 pm
Meeting House First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
In light of the escalating developments in Hong Kong with Pro-Democracy demonstrators becoming increasingly galvanized in response to the Chinese government's crackdown, we examine the current situation both inside and outside mainland China with regard to human rights.
Teng Biao, is a human rights lawyer currently attached to the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, at NYU and he will be joined by Uyghur-American Salih Hudayar and activist Kyle Olbert, who will discuss the challenges facing both the Chinese Communist party and the ethnic minorities who resist the Chinese policy of oppression which they say is being carried out under the guise of "counter-terrorism".
Come join us for the exchange.
Free and welcoming to all who want to participate in civil and respectful discussion.
——————————————
Scan Artist: How Evelyn Wood Convinced the World That Speed-Reading Worked
Wednesday, September 11
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
The best-known educator of the 20th century was a scammer in cashmere. “The most famous reading teacher in the world,” as television hosts introduced her, Evelyn Wood had little classroom experience, no degrees in reading instruction, and a background that included cooperation with the Third Reich. Nevertheless, a nation spooked by Sputnik and panicked by paperwork eagerly embraced her promises of a speed-reading revolution. Journalists, lawmakers, and two US presidents lent credibility to Wood’s claims of turbocharging reading speeds. A royal-born Wood grad said she’d polished off Moby Dick in three hours; a senator swore he finished one book per lunchtime. Fudging test results and squelching critics, Wood maintained her popularity even as science proved that her system taught only skimming, with disastrous effects on comprehension. As apps and online courses attempt to spark a speed-reading revival, this engaging look at Wood’s rise from missionary to marketer exposes the pitfalls of wishful thinking.
About the author: Marcia Biederman has contributed more than 150 articles to the New York Times. She was a staff reporter for Crain’s New York Business and her work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, and Newsday. She is also the author of Popovers and Candlelight: Patricia Murphy and the Rise and Fall of a Restaurant Empire. She lives in New York.
————————————
Thursday, September 12
————————————
Offshore Wind and the Transition to Renewables
Thursday, September 12
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Multi-Purpose, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford
Eric Hines
Over the next 30 years, the US must expand and modernize its power grid while retiring half of its existing power plants and transitioning to a low-carbon energy system. Along the nation’s coastlines, offshore wind will play a major role in this transition. The U.S. offshore wind energy resource offers capacity that exceeds our nation’s demand several times over. Currently, things are moving so fast that drastic shifts can be observed on the timescale of just one or two years. This introduction to and update on U.S. offshore wind energy will help attendees navigate and interpret what they are hearing in the popular press related to energy in New England, the U.S. and abroad.
Eric M. Hines, Ph.D., P.E., F.SEI has over 20 years of experience as a structural engineer designing innovative infrastructure and large-scale testing programs. Dr. Hines designed the Wind Technology Testing Center in Charlestown, MA and advised the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center on the development of the New Bedford Marine
Commerce Terminal. As a Professor of Practice at Tufts University, he has led the POWER-US convening initiative and directs the Tufts University Offshore Wind Engineering Graduate Program. Formerly a partner of LeMessurier Consultants in Boston, Dr. Hines has over 70 publications and numerous awards related to systems design, industry-driven research and higher education. Dr. Hines completed
his Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego after studying the relationship between engineering and public policy as an undergraduate at Princeton University and as a Fulbright Fellow in Germany.
——————————————
THE MEASLES OUTBREAK: Why Vaccines Matter
WHEN Thursday, Sep. 12, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE The Leadership Studio, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Forum at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SPEAKER(S) Barry Bloom, Research professor of public health and former dean, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Jesse Hackell, Practicing pediatrician and founding member, Pomona Pediatrics
Howard Koh, Professor of the practice of public health leadership, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and 14th assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Gillian Steel Fisher, Senior research scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and deputy director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program
Moderator: Elana Gordon
Health care journalist and Producer at PRI’s The World
COST Free webcast
TICKET WEB LINK https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_080vV441KcAmTsx
CONTACT INFO theforum@hsph.harvard.edu
DETAILS
The U.S. officially eliminated measles nearly 20 years ago. Yet, this year, more than 1,100 cases have been reported, despite being preventable by vaccine. The CDC says the majority of cases are among those who were not vaccinated.
This Forum looks at the drivers of the 2019 outbreaks and, more generally, the challenges of vaccine acceptance. Why do some parents delay or decline vaccinating their children? How might their concerns be addressed? What about exemptions? Why does the global picture matter? And what can be done once an outbreak begins? New polling data will frame this discussion, providing a uniquely current picture of vaccine acceptance in the U.S.
——————————————
Transform climate talk into climate roadmaps
Thursday, September 12
1pm
Online
You are invited to Climate Action News September 12!
Solving the climate crisis means a radical transformation on all levels of society. Which requires a clear overview of how to reduce emissions. Meet the people who transform climate talk into roadmaps for the climate. Special guests Paul Dickinson (CDP), Kate Garvey (Project everyone), Tomer Shalit (Climate View) and Nuria Albet (Renovable in La Palma island, Canary Islands) show how to enable all stakeholders to collaborate towards ambitious emission targets.
Also in the show: The Amazonas on fire, the upcoming climate summit in New York and the massive climate manifestations planned by the youth climate movement. Meet Nick Nuttall (Director Strategic Communications Earth Day Network), Jill Kubit (Co-Founder of Our kids' Climate), Alexandria Villaseñor co-founder of US Youth Climate Strike and founder of Earth Uprising and Ingmar Rentzhog (CEO We Don't Have Time).
We invite you to tune in, watch, listen and participate actively by commenting live during and after the broadcast. Register and we will send you instructions how to participate and a reminder before the event begins.
——————————————
Lunch & Learn Speaker Series featuring Andrew Droste ’15
Thursday, September 12
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Northeastern, 120 Knowles Conference Room, 416 Huntington Avenue, Boston
RSVP to Gianina Chua at g.chua@northeastern.edu
Focus: Environmental, Social Corporate Governance (ESG)
Andrew Droste ’15, Board Advisory Specialist, Russell Reynolds Associates (Seattle, Washington)
Andrew Droste ’15 is a board advisory specialist at Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) within the firm's Board and CEO Advisory Partners practice. Prior to RRA, Andrew led Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) engagement, research and risk analyses for BNY Mellon’s Proxy Voting and Governance Committee. Andrew began his career as an ESG analyst at Nuveen on their Responsible Investing Team. He is also treasurer and member of the board at Speak For The Trees, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve the size and health of the urban tree canopy in the greater Boston area.
Lunch provided
——————————————
Starr Forum: The Global Rise of Populism
Thursday, September 12
4:30pm to 6:00pm
MI, Building E15-070 Bartos, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speakers: Suzanne Berger is MIT’s inaugural John M Deutch Institute Professor. Her current research focuses on politics and globalization. She recently co-chaired the MIT Production in the Innovation Economy project and is author most recently of Making in America: From Innovation to Market.
Jan-Werner Mueller is professor of politics at Princeton University, where he also directs the Project in the History of Political Thought. He is author of several books including What is populism? He contributes regularly to London Review of Books, the Guardian, and the New York Review of Books.
Moderator: Richard Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the MIT Center for International Studies. He is author of multiple books, including: Special Duty: A History of Japan’s Intelligence Community, which is forthcoming this fall from Cornell University Press.
Jan-Werner Mueller’s book What is populism? will be signed and sold at the event.
———————————————
"Modernizing Saudi Arabia: The politics of gender" Dr. Hala Aldosari
Thursday, September 12
5:00pm to 6:30pm
MIT, Building 3-133, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Fall 2019 Biannual McMillan-Stewart Lecture on Women in the Developing World:
Dr. Hala Aldosari Robert E. Wilhelm fellow at MIT Center for International Studies, former Washington Post Jamal Khashoggi Fellow
Dr. Hala Aldosari is a scholar-activist from Saudi Arabia, now based in the United States. Her PhD research, writings and research explore social determinants of women’s health, violence against women, legal restrictions and reforms of women’s rights and human rights across the Arab Gulf States. She is currently a fellow at MIT Center for International Studies. She serves as an advisory board member for Human Rights Watch for the Middle East and North Africa, the Gulf Center for Human Rights and “Every Woman” global initiative to prevent violence against women and girls. She has previously worked as a scientist, consultant for health administration in Saudi Arabia and a visiting scholar in different think tanks and universities. She is the recipient of several awards for her activism, the 2018 Alison Des Forge award from human rights watch and the 2016 Freedom award from Freedom House. She is also an op-ed writer and her writings were featured in prominent media outlets. In 2019, she became the inaugural fellow for the Washington Post Khashoggi fellowship.
———————————————
Christopher Weaver, “Amplius Ludo, Beyond the Horizon”
Thursday, September 12
5:00pm to 6:30pm
MIT, Building 56-114, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
While the appeal of games may be universal and satisfy our innate desire to play, the powerful dynamics that govern our behavior within games is even more interesting than the play itself. Can we broaden our understanding of play mechanisms by applying the subliminal mechanics of play beyond games? Join Christopher Weaver, Founder of Bethesda Softworks, who teaches engineering and computational media respectively at MIT and Wesleyan, as he explores these important issues in a lecture entitled “Amplius Ludo, Beyond the Horizon”. Prof. Weaver will discuss how games work and why they are such potent tools in areas as disparate as military simulation, childhood education, and medicine.
Christopher Weaver is Research Scientist and Lecturer, MIT Comparative Media Studies, Visiting Scientist and Lecturer, MIT Microphotonics Center and Distinguished Professor of Computational Media at Wesleyan University.
Weaver received his SM from MIT and was the initial Daltry Scholar at Wesleyan University, where he earned dual Masters Degrees in Japanese and Computer Science and a CAS Doctoral Degree in Japanese and Physics. The former Director of Technology Forecasting for ABC and Chief Engineer to the Subcommittee on Communications for the US Congress, Weaver founded Bethesda Softworks, and developed a physics-based, realtime sports engine used to create the original John Madden Football for Electronic Arts. Bethesda is well known for The Elder Scrolls role-playing series of which Skyrim was the latest major installment. An adviser to both government and industry, Weaver holds patents in interactive media, security, and telecommunications engineering.
———————————————
Discussion of The Uninhabitable Earth
Thursday, September 12
5:30 PM to 7:00 PM
245 Main Street · Cambridge
Take the elevator to CIC located on the 2nd floor of 245 Main Street. Please bring a government issued photo ID to present to concierge upon your arrival. If you arrive early you will be able to relax in the lounge adjacent to the concierge.
A discussion of "The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming" by David Wallace-Wells. The room opens at 5:30pm and discussion starts at 5:45pm.
———————————————
Candidate Forum on Energy & the Environment: Boston District 9
Thursday, September 12
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM (Local Time)
Brighton Allston Congregational Church UCC, 404 Washington Street, Boston
Event Organizers: Jacob Stern jacob.stern@sierraclub.org (617) 423-5775
———————————————
The 29th First Annual Ig® Nobel Prize Ceremony
Thursday, September 12
6:00pm
Harvard, Sanders Theater,
Ticket Prices: Ig Glorious: $150*; Full Price: $75, $65, $55, $35; Discounts: $5 off for students.
*Ig Glorious tickets include TBD.
The 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will introduce ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners. Each has done something that makes people laugh then think. Winners travel to the ceremony, at their own expense, from around the world to receive their prize from a group of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel Laureates, in Harvard's historic and largest theater. Additional info will appear in the Improbable Research blog.
Pre-ceremony concert and ceremony webcast begin at 5:35pm (US Eastern Time). The ceremony proper begins at 6:00pm.
—————————————
How the Brain Lost Its Mind
Thursday September 12
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
A noted neurologist challenges the widespread misunderstanding of brain disease and mental illness. How the Brain Lost Its Mind tells the rich and compelling story of two confounding ailments, syphilis and hysteria, and the extraordinary efforts to confront their effects on mental life. How does the mind work? Where does madness lie, in the brain or in the mind? How should it be treated?
Allan H. Ropper, M.D., is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Raymond D. Adams Master Clinician of the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Ropper is an author of the most widely consulted textbook of neurology, Principles of Neurology, currently in its eleventh edition, and co-author with Brian David Burrell of Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole.
Brian Burrell is a member of the mathematics faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A teacher and writer, he is the author is several books, including Postcards from the Brain Museum, The Words We Live By, and, jointly with Dr. Allan H. Ropper, Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole. He is an authority on brain collections worldwide, and has discussed his work on NBC’s Today Show, C-SPAN’s Booknotes, and NPR’s Morning Edition.
——————————————
Rebooting AI
Thursday, September 12
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
Join Gary Marcus, a leader in the field, to hear is compelling analysis of the current state of the art and reveal the steps we must take to achieve a truly robust artificial intelligence.
Despite the hype surrounding AI, creating an intelligence that rivals or exceeds human levels is far more complicated than we have been led to believe. Professors Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis have spent their careers at the forefront of AI research and have witnessed some of the greatest milestones in the field, but they argue that a computer beating a human in Jeopardy! does not signal that we are on the doorstep of fully autonomous cars or superintelligent machines. The achievements in the field thus far have occurred in closed systems with fixed sets of rules, and these approaches are too narrow to achieve genuine intelligence.
The real world, in contrast, is wildly complex and open-ended. How can we bridge this gap? What will the consequences be when we do? Taking inspiration from the human mind, Marcus and Davis explain what we need to advance AI to the next level, and suggest that if we are wise along the way, we won't need to worry about a future of machine overlords. If we focus on endowing machines with common sense and deep understanding, rather than simply focusing on statistical analysis and gatherine ever larger collections of data, we will be able to create an AI we can trust—in our homes, our cars, and our doctors' offices. Rebooting AI provides a lucid, clear-eyed assessment of the current science and offers an inspiring vision of how a new generation of AI can make our lives better.
Gary Marcus is a scientist, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Robust.AI and was founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, a machine-learning company acquired by Uber in 2016. He is the author of five books, including Kluge, The Birth of the Minday, and the New York Times best seller Guitar Zero.
——————————————
Carrots Don't Grow on Trees
Thursday, September 12
7 PM – 8:30 PM
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
Twelve years after Michael Pollan first opened our eyes to the modern problems of the industrial food complex, organic farmer and successful businessman Robert Turner explores what has changed in our food culture and how the current ‘grow local' and ‘farm to table' movement is now determining where and how we live. In Carrots Don't Grow on Trees an organic farm takes center stage in a new kind of agriculturally-based community where residents gain closer connections healthy food and the farmers who grow it. Turner wasn't trying to build Utopia; the community he envisions is the next logical step for the ‘eat your view' movement that has already changed restaurant menus around the world. Turner takes a no-nonsense business approach to saving small farms and protecting our local farming capacity while preserving the important knowledge of growing food for future generations.
About the Author
Robert Turner is a writer for regional food and lifestyle magazines, an entrepreneur, and the founder of multiple businesses in such diverse industries as manufacturing, licensing, publishing and real estate development. Now owner of an organic farm and the Executive Director of the Creekside Farm Education Center, Turner is a dedicated advocate for small, local farmers and sustainable food production. Mr. Turner is a graduate from Illinois State University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature.
——————————————
The Center Cannot Hold: Addressing Mental Health Stigma through Opera
WHEN Thursday, Sep. 12, 2019, 7 – 9 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Hilles P-02 Performance Hall, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design, Concerts, Health Sciences, Law, Music, Opera, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard and the Harvard Law School Project on Disability
SPEAKER(S) Kenneth Wells, Psychiatrist/Composer, Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at David Geffen School of Medicine and Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior
Elyn Saks, Orrin B. Evans Distinguished Professor of Law, and Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at University of Southern California Gould Scool of Law
CONTACT INFO Juliana_restivo@hms.harvard.edu
DETAILS Celebrating the use of opera and art to address mental health stigma, this event will include a talk by opera composer Kenneth Wells (psychiatrist/composer) and live concert excerpts from the opera "The Center Cannot Hold," based on the memoir by Elyn Saks.The singers accompanying Wells will include Maggie Finnegan, Ryne Cherry, and Wes Hunter.
Saks is the Orrin B. Evans Distinguished Professor of Law, and Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at University of Southern California Gould Scool of Law; Director of the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy and Ethics.
She began having schizophrenic episodes in high school and spiraled into the depths of the illness when she was a student at Yale Law School. Based on her 2007 memoir of the same name, the "Center Cannot Hold" opera follows Saks during a pivotal time at Yale as she ultimately faces her demons and resolves to live her life as fully as she can, whatever it takes.
Saks, who serves as a co-librettist to the opera, will also be present at the event and will speak about the opera and her experience.
—————————————
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know
Thursday, September 12
7:30 PM (Doors at 6:30)
Back Bay Events Center, 180 Berkeley Street, Boston
Cost: $32.00 (book bundled) - On Sale Now
Harvard Book Store welcomes bestselling author and New Yorker staff writer MALCOLM GLADWELL for a discussion of his latest book, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know. He will be joined in conversation by acclaimed writer and Harvard Law professor NOAH FELDMAN.
Please Note: This event does not include a public book signing.
About Talking to Strangers
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true?
Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. He revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, and the death of Sandra Bland—throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt. Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know. And because we don't know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world. In his first book since his #1 bestseller, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell has written a gripping guidebook for troubled times.
——————————
Friday, September 13
——————————
Playing Games in the Prescription Drug Market: Cost Implications and Legal Solutions: A Health Policy and Bioethics Consortium
WHEN Friday, Sep. 13, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Medical School, Countway Library, Minot Room, 10 Shattuck Street, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Health Sciences, Law, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL) at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in collaboration with the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. Support provided by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.
SPEAKER(S) Scott Hemphill, Professor of Law, New York University of Law School
Stacie Dusetzina, Associate Professor of Health Policy, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Michael Sinha, Affiliated Researcher, Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law, Brigham & Women's Hospital
COST Free
CONTACT INFO Kaitlyn Dowling
DETAILS There is substantial debate over whether and how we should screen the general population to detect cancers such as breast, prostate, and colon cancer.
The principle of early detection is attractive and for some patients can be life-saving. Some effective screening programs, like that for cervical cancer, remain under-utilized, particularly in lower-income countries. By contrast, other screening tests (like PSA or thyroid exams) are used despite questionable evidence of benefit, leading to unnecessary procedures and patient stress and morbidity.
We will review the cancer screening quandary, including the roles of regulatory authorities and guideline committees like the USPSTF, and consider policies that could help resolve these debates and enhance implementation of effective cancer screening programs in the U.S. and around the world.
A light lunch will be provided.
Please note that attendees will need to show ID in order to enter the venue. This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited and registration is required.
—————————————
Eco-climatic legacies of a century of Eastern US reforestation
Friday, September 13
2:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory, Building 48-316, 15 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Kimberly A. Novick, Associate Professor, Director, Ph.D. Program in Environmental Science
Environmental Science Seminar Series
—————————————
Our Non-Christian Nation: How Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, and Others Are Demanding Their Rightful Place in Public Life
Friday, September 13
3:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes JAY WEXLER—author, humorist, and professor at the Boston University School of Law—for a discussion of his latest book, Our Non-Christian Nation: How Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, and Others Are Demanding Their Rightful Place in Public Life.
About Our Non-Christian Nation
Less and less Christian demographically, America is now home to an ever-larger number of people who say they identify with no religion at all. These non-Christians have increasingly been demanding their full participation in public life, bringing their arguments all the way to the Supreme Court. The law is on their side, but that doesn't mean that their attempts are not met with suspicion or outright hostility.
In Our Non-Christian Nation, Jay Wexler travels the country to engage the non-Christians who have called on us to maintain our ideals of inclusivity and diversity. With his characteristic sympathy and humor, he introduces us to the Summum and their Seven Aphorisms, a Wiccan priestess who would deck her City Hall with a pagan holiday wreath, and other determined champions of free religious expression. As Wexler reminds us, anyone who cares about pluralism, equality, and fairness should support a public square filled with a variety of religious and nonreligious voices. The stakes are nothing short of long-term social peace.
—————————————
Fentanyl, Inc.
Friday September 13
7:00 pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline
Ben Westhoff in conversation with John Happel
A deeply human story, Fentanyl, Inc. is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and confounding government agencies. Poignantly, Westhoff chronicles the lives of addicted users and dealers, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and underground drug awareness organizers in the U.S. and Europe. Together they represent the shocking and riveting full anatomy of a calamity we are just beginning to understand.
Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative reporter who has covered stories ranging from Los Angeles gangsta rap to Native American tribal disputes to government corruption. He is the author of two previous books: Original Gangstas about the birth of West Coast rap, and Dirty South about the southern rappers who re-invented hip-hop. He has written at length about culture, drugs, and corruption in the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Village Voice, Vice, Oxford American, and elsewhere.
John Happel is a documentary photographer and photographic essayist. He received his B.A. degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University in 2005 and an M.A. degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri in 2017. His work has been honored by College Photographer of the Year, Photographer’s Forum, The Missouri Press Association, and The Society for Professional Journalists.
——————————————
Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food
Friday, September 13
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes writer and historian BENJAMIN ALDES WURGAFT for a discussion of his latest book, Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food.
About Meat Planet
In 2013, a Dutch scientist unveiled the world’s first laboratory-created hamburger. Since then, the idea of producing meat, not from live animals but from carefully cultured tissues, has spread like wildfire through the media. Meanwhile, cultured meat researchers race against population growth and climate change in an effort to make sustainable protein. Meat Planet explores the quest to generate meat in the lab—a substance sometimes called “cultured meat”—and asks what it means to imagine that this is the future of food.
Neither an advocate nor a critic of cultured meat, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft spent five years researching the phenomenon. In Meat Planet, he reveals how debates about lab-grown meat reach beyond debates about food, examining the links between appetite, growth, and capitalism. Could satiating the growing appetite for meat actually lead to our undoing? Are we simply using one technology to undo the damage caused by another? Like all problems in our food system, the meat problem is not merely a problem of production. It is intrinsically social and political, and it demands that we examine questions of justice and desirable modes of living in a shared and finite world.
Wurgaft tells a story that could utterly transform the way we think of animals, the way we relate to farmland, the way we use water, and the way we think about population and our fragile ecosystem’s capacity to sustain life. He argues that even if cultured meat does not “succeed,” it functions—much like science fiction—as a crucial mirror that we can hold up to our contemporary fleshy dysfunctions.
————————————
Saturday, September 14
————————————
The MIT Press Bookstore Presents: the Ig Nobel Informal Lectures at MIT
Saturday, September 14
1:00pm to 3:00pm
MIT, Building 10-250, Huntington Hall, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Please join us for some improbably funny, informative, and high-spirited public lectures, in which the new Ig Nobel Prize winners will attempt to explain what they did, and why they did it.
On Thursday, September 12, The Ig Nobel Prize Committee will award ten prizes to people who have done remarkable things, some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise. On the following Saturday, September 14, we invite the winners to MIT and give them five minutes to describe and/or defend their work, then respond to insightful and amusing questions from the audience. Here's your chance to chat with an Ig Nobel Laureate!
All Ig Nobel Prize activities are organized by the Annals of Improbable Research.
The Ig Improbable Lectures are hosted by The MIT Press Bookstore.
For more information about the Lectures, call the MIT Press Bookstore at (617) 253-5249, email books@mit.edu, or visit the Annals of Improbable Research website here.
————————————
Climapalooza at Herter Park
Saturday, September 14
4 p.m.
Herter Park, 1175 Soldiers Field Road, Brighton
Climate themed music and performance, 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 are also looking into how we can participate in the performance. Happy for any and all XR folks to join us. Performance starts at 6 but we’ll be there at 4 to chat with people while they wait. Sign up to get meeting info.
———————————
Sunday, September 15
———————————
10th Annual Boston Local Food Festival
Sunday, September 15
11:00am to 5:00pm
The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, Boston
For one spectacular day each year, SBN transforms the Rose Kennedy Greenway and the City of Boston into the nation's largest local & sustain
Boston Local Food Festival is a FREE outdoor festival that showcases farmers, local
restaurants, food trucks, specialty food producers, fisher folks, and organizations focusing on healthy food and fitness from New England. The festival also features lively chef & DIY demos, a seafood throwdown competition, diverse music and performances, family fun zone and more.
RSVP is not required but allows us to send you important updates about the Boston Local Food Festival! For a list of vendors, sponsors and activities, please visit bostonlocalfoodfestival.com or contact us at 1-617-395-0250.
—————————————
Local Martial Arts Masters Perform
WHEN Sunday, Sep. 15, 2019, 2 – 4 p.m.
WHERE Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Athletic
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard Tai Chi Club
Harvard Wushu Club
Harvard Taekwondo Club & Bu Kung Fu Club
SPEAKER(S) Yon Lee, Harvard's Tai Chi Master
Winchel P.C. Woo, Grandmaster
COST From $10
TICKET WEB LINK https://www.boxoffice.harvard.edu/Online/default.asp
CONTACT INFO yonlee@fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS
As a fourth generation disciple of the Tiger Crane style, Yon Lee, has for decades devoted to lectures, exhibitions, conferences on Tai Chi, Tiger Crane, and Chi Kung. This year, local Martial Arts Masters are kindly invited to give splendid performances for audiences who are interested in health and martial arts.
This event is a fundraiser for BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL.
—————————————
Detox your yard
Sunday, September 15
6 to 9
1 Fayette Park, Cambridge
Laura Stabell is a master gardener, arborist, horticulturist and naturalist whose work has been featured in magazines and on the Garden Conservancy open garden tour.
Laura will discuss general toxicology issues, what toxic substances may be found in your back yard, how they came to be there, and the role plants can play in cleaning the soil. She will talk about how to remove toxins from the garden and the food supply using bio-remediation, and what you can do to prevent toxic yard syndrome.
Questions can be texted beforehand to Laura at 203-313-2828
What to bring
An item of food or drink to share, tending to the healthy and organic.
Important to know
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate is a small non-profit so a $10 donation is requested.
———————————
Monday, September 16
———————————
Bangladesh Rising Conference
WHEN Monday, Sep. 16, 2019, 8:15 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Gutman Conference Center, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Conferences, Education, Health Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute
SPEAKER(S) Kaushik Basu, C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics, Cornell University; Former Chief Economist, World Bank
Abdur Rouf Talukder, Secretary of Finance, Government of Bangladesh
Reshmaan Hussam, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Iqbal Quadir, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Kazi Aminul Islam, Executive Chairman, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority
Gary Bass, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
Shamsul Alam, Senior Secretary, General Economics Division, Bangladesh Planning Commission
Hossain Taufiq Imam, Political Advisor to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Abul Kalam Azad, Principal SDG Coordinator, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh; Former Principal Secretary, Prime Minister of Bangladesh
COST Free
CONTACT INFO Selmon Rafey
DETAILS Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with the third fastest GDP growth rate. Despite its small geographical size, Bangladesh is on its way to becoming an economic and cultural giant. In our upcoming Bangladesh Rising Conference, experts from Harvard and peer institutions, as well as governing bodies and organizations across Bangladesh, will discuss the nation’s economy, history, art and heritage, entrepreneurship, public health, and its actions to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Keynote speakers include Kaushik Basu, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, who will lead a panel on the Bangladesh economy and the nation’s economic resurgence through foreign investment. Abul Kalam Azad, Principal SDG Coordinator with the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh and the former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, will discuss the current efforts toward meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
———————————————
Book Launch: Transparency in Health and Health Care in the United States
WHEN Monday, Sep. 16, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East (2036), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Health Sciences, Law
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.
SPEAKER(S) I. Glenn Cohen, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center
Holly Fernandez Lynch, John Russell Dickson, MD Presidential Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Assistant Faculty Director of Online Education, and Senior Fellow, Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Jennifer Miller, Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine: General Internal Medicine and Program for Biomedical Ethics, Yale School of Medicine
Moderator: Elena Fagotto, Co-investigator, Project on Transparency and Technology for Better Health and former Director of Research, Transparency Policy Project, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
COST Free
CONTACT INFO Kaitlyn Dowling
DETAILS In June 2019, Cambridge University Press published "Transparency in Health and Health Care in the United States." This volume, edited by Holly Fernandez Lynch, I. Glenn Cohen, Carmel Shachar, and Barbara J. Evans, stems from the Petrie-Flom Center’s 2017 annual conference, which brought together leading experts to reach better understandings of this health policy buzzword, recognizing its true limitations, so that transparency can be utilized as a solution to pressing health policy issues.
—————————————
Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC] Colloquium - Speaker: Marianna Linz
Monday, September 16
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54, Room 915 (Ida Green Lounge), 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
——————————————
A Conversation with Don Eigler: Moving Atoms One by One
Monday, September 16
3:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 34-401 (Grier), 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
For the final event in the Perspectives in Nanotechnology seminar series, MIT.nano is delighted to host Don Eigler. Rather than present from behind a podium, Mr. Eigler will sit with a former student and colleague for a wide ranging conversation about his accomplishments and career.
This event is free and open to the public. Registration details to come.
Biography
Don Eigler is a physicist, Kavli Laureate and former IBM Fellow. Don was the founding leader of the Low Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Project at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. While he is most often noted for his 1989 demonstration of the ability to manipulate individual atoms, it was his seminal efforts to take tunneling microscopes to low temperatures that have had the greatest impact. While at IBM, his research was aimed at understanding the physics of nanometer-scale structures and exploring their applications to computation. In 2011 Don left IBM to found The Wetnose Institute for Advanced Pelagic Studies, a private institute devoted to creating opportunities for scientists to conduct studies free from the administrative responsibilities, financial demands and diversionary cacophony that accompany more traditional positions.
Don received both his bachelors and doctorate degrees from the University of California San Diego and was named its Outstanding Alumnus of the year in 1999. He has been recognized for his accomplishments with the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, the Davisson-Germer Prize, the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize, the Grand Award for Science and Technology, the Nanoscience Prize, and numerous honorary lectureships. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Max Planck Society and the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of honorary doctoral degrees from the Technical University of Delft and the University of Warwick.
——————————
Preparing for & Competing with the ‘Tech Titans of China’
Monday, September 16
6:00pm to 8:00pm
MIT Stata Center, 32-123 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Cost: $10 - $58
Last August, the Economist argued that there is a new geography of innovation in a cover story titled, “Peak Valley.” Looming large in this new geography is China. They’ve transformed their economy from that of a low-cost manufacturer to a cutting-edge innovator. With their “9-9-6” de facto weekly work schedule, China’s tech companies are relentless in their pursuit of success, and it shows.
China has now achieved near parity with the US in venture capital investments, something inconceivable even 5 years ago. It’s been reported that the race to lead the future of technology comes down to just $6 billion dollars with China’s venture investments rising to $105 billion in 2018, nearly matching the U.S. at $111 billion.
Google China’s former President, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee now heads China’s largest VC Fund and is aggressively leading their efforts to be the world leader in AI. Further signaling their global ambitions, Chinese technology companies such as Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, and other titans have very active Corporate VC offices in both the US and Israel. They are no longer content to compete in their domestic market.
Spearheaded by Huawei, China’s increasingly dominant presence in the tech sector, especially in the highly strategic 5G wireless market, has spurred endless headlines as the most visible flashpoint in the escalating U.S.-China trade war. Rising tariffs – and tensions- have spooked the capital markets from Wall Street to the City of London to Hong Kong. Investors are prepared for a long period of tension.
It’s clear that the rise of China's tech companies and intense competition from the sector is just beginning and it’s presenting challenges for US companies now and will present increasing challenges well into the future.
In this fireside chat, Rebecca Fannin, an expert on China, journalist, speaker and author of the new book “Tech Titans of China: How China's Tech Sector is challenging the world by innovating faster, working harder, and going global,“ will sit down with serial entrepreneur, professor, innovation consultant, angel investor, board member and startup mentor Mike Grandinetti for a fireside chat to discuss:
The US-China tech race
Which Chinese tech companies are making waves
The Tech sectors that matter most in China's grab for superpower status
What US startup founders can learn from Chinese founders
Join us on September 16th and come ready with your questions for Rebecca, who has the inside scoop on the ammunition venture capitalists, startup founders, and others impacted by -- or interested in -- cashing in on the Chinese tech industry need to prepare and compete.
——————————————
Fight Like a Mother: Shannon Watts Book Talk & Signing
Monday, September 16
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
More Than Words Warehouse Bookstore, 242 East Berkley Street, Boston
Meet Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and author of Fight Like a Mother.
ABOUT FIGHT LIKE A MOTHER
Hear the inspiring story of how Shannon Watts went from stay-at-home mom to “the NRA’s worst nightmare.” What started as a simple Facebook group to connect with other frustrated parents in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, grew into Moms Demand Action, a national movement with millions of supporters and a powerful grassroots network of local chapters in all fifty states.
This incredible account of how one mother’s cry for change became the driving force behind gun safety progress will inspire everyone—mothers and fathers, students and teachers, lawmakers, and anyone motivated to enact change—to get to work transforming hearts and minds and passing laws that save lives.
Ticketing Ticket proceeds support More Than Words, empowering system involved youth through job training and mentorship. Set your own ticket price and receive a copy of the book when you give over $26.
———————————————
Boston New Technology FinTech & Blockchain Startup Showcase #BNT105 (21+)
Monday, September 16
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Foley Hoag, LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, Boston
Cost: $0 – $99
See 6 innovative and exciting local FinTech & Blockchain tech demos, presented by startup founders
Network with attendees from the Boston-area startup/tech community
Get your free headshot photo (non-intrusively watermarked) from The Boston Headshot!
Enjoy dinner with beer, wine and more
Each company presents an overview and demonstration of their product within 5 minutes and discusses questions with the audience.
—————————————
Death to Fascism: Louis Adamic's Fight for Democracy Reclaiming the life of a progressive visionary
Monday, September 16
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
Born to Slovenian peasants, Louis Adamic commanded crowds, met with FDR and Truman, and built a prolific career as an author and journalist. Behind the scenes, he played a leading role in a coalition of black intellectuals and writers, working-class militants, ethnic activists, and others that worked for a multi ethnic America and against fascism.
About the Author: John P. Enyeart is professor and chair of the Department of History at Bucknell University. He is the author of The Quest for “Just and Pure Law”: Rocky Mountain Workers and American Social Democracy, 1870–1924.
————————————
Tuesday, September 17
————————————
Speaker Series: Adam Moss
Tuesday, September 17
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Harvard, David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab, Rubenstein Building, Room 414AB, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Adam Moss was the editor-in-chief of New York Magazine from 2004–2019. During his 15-year tenure he oversaw an ambitious digital expansion of parent company New York Media, which included five digital publications in addition to New York: Vulture, The Cut, Intelligencer, The Strategist, and Grub Street, each of which were created from scratch and collectively reach an audience of 50 million visitors each month. Under Moss’s leadership New York and nymag.com won 41 National Magazine Awards. Before joining New York Magazine, Moss was the editor of the New York Times Magazine, as well as assistant managing editor of the paper, overseeing the magazine, Book Review, culture and style. Moss was founding editor of 7 Days, a New York weekly magazine, and before that, he worked at Esquire magazine in a variety of positions. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oberlin College, his alma mater, and is a member of the Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame. While at the Shorenstein Center, Moss will lead a group project that focuses on building a better political media landscape.
—————————————————
Women’s Political Empowerment A Century After the 19th Amendment: Reflections by Women Mayors
Tuesday, September 17
12:00pm to 1:30pm
BU, Rajen Kilachand Center Eichenbaum Colloquium Room (101), 610 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
One hundred years ago, Congress launched the process that was completed in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, stating the right to vote could not be denied or abridged on the basis of sex. One hundred years have passed, and we still have not achieved gender equality in politics. For example, only 21% of the mayors of cities with a population over 30,000 people are women. How much has really changed since then? What experiences are women in political leadership having today?Join the Initiative on Cities to welcome three Massachusetts women mayors who will reflect on these questions in light of their experiences as candidates and political leaders. Our panelists are Mayors Ruthanne Fuller of Newton, Donna Holaday of Newburyport (BU alumna ’79), and Yvonne Spicer of Framingham. Moderated by Virginia Sapiro, Professor of Political Science and Dean Emerita of Arts & Sciences.Lunch served.Co-sponsored by the Howard Thurman Center, Political Science Department, and BU College Democrats.
——————————————
Gutman Library Book Talk: Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty
WHEN Tuesday, Sep. 17, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Gutman Conference Center, E4 & E5, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Gutman Library
SPEAKER(S) Paul Reville, Former Massachusetts secretary of education and Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at HGSE
CONTACT INFO myanne_krivoshey@gse.harvard.edu
DETAILS In "Broader, Bolder, Better," authors Elaine Weiss, of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education campaign, and Paul Reville, former Massachusetts secretary of education, make a compelling case for a fundamental change in the way we view education. The authors argue for a large-scale expansion of community-school partnerships in order to provide holistic, integrated student supports (ISS) from cradle to career, including traditional wraparound services like health, mental health, nutrition, and family supports, as well as expanded access to opportunities such as early childhood education, after school activities, and summer enrichment programs.
———————————————
Farming While Black: African Diasporic Wisdom for Farming and Food Justice
WHEN Tuesday, Sep. 17, 2019, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Religion
SPONSOR Center for the Study of World Religions
CONTACT CSWR, 617.495.4476
DETAILS Soul Fire Farm, cofounded by author, activist, and farmer Leah Penniman, is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system. Penniman’s new, James Beard award-winning book, Farming While Black, offers the first comprehensive manual for African-heritage people ready to reclaim their rightful place of dignified agency in our food system. Join us to learn how you too can be part of the movement for food sovereignty and help build a food system based on justice, dignity, and abundance for all members of our community.
Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol educator, farmer/peyizan, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York. She has been farming since 1996, and co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2011 with the mission to end racism in our food system. She holds an MA in Science Education and a BA in Environmental Science and International Development from Clark University, and is a Manye (Queen Mother) in Vodun.
---------------------------------
"Sensing Human Behavior with Smart Garments", Prof. Trisha Andrew, University of Massachusetts
Tuesday, September 17
3:30pm to 4:30pm
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
The Materials Science and Engineering Seminar Series presents Prof. Trisha Andrew from the University of Massachusetts, who will present her talk "Sensing Human Behavior with Smart Garments". Refreshments will be served. Please join us!
Sensing Human Behavior with Smart Garments
Apparel with embedded self-powered sensors can revolutionize human behavior monitoring by leveraging everyday clothing as the sensing substrate. The key is to inconspicuously integrate sensing elements and portable power sources into garments while maintaining the weight, feel, comfort, function and ruggedness of familiar clothes and fabrics. Prof. Andrew's lab uses reactive vapor coating to transform commonly-available, mass-produced fabrics, threads or premade garments into comfortably-wearable electronic devices by directly coating them with uniform and conformal films of electronically-active conjugated polymers. By carefully choosing the repeat unit structure of the polymer coating, Prof. Andrew's group accesses a number of fiber- or fabric-based circuit components, including resistors, depletion-mode transistors, diodes, thermistors, and pseudocapacitors. Further, vapor-deposited electronic polymer films are notably wash- and wear-stable and withstand mechanically-demanding textile manufacturing routines, enabling us to use sewing, weaving, knitting or embroidery procedures to create self-powered garment sensors. She will describe her efforts in monitoring heartrate, breathing, joint motion/flexibility, gait and sleep posture using loose-fitting garments.
——————————————
Reducing the cost of decarbonization through cutting-edge carbon capture innovation
Tuesday, September 17
5:15pm to 6:20pm
MIT, Building E51, Wong Auditorium, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Brian Anderson, Director, National Energy Technology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy
This talk will highlight state-of-the-art carbon capture R&D and discuss crosscutting scientific and technological initiatives underway at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory to meet some of the nation’s most important energy challenges—delivering reliable, clean, low-cost, and low-carbon energy.
About the speaker:
Brian J. Anderson SM ’04 PhD ’05, is director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In 2011, he was awarded an Honor Achievement Award from the DOE for his role on a team that responded to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He is a recipient of the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Anderson earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at West Virginia University and his master's and doctorate in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Please note that we will open our doors to unregistered participants 15 minutes before the event start time. To guarantee your seat, we recommend you register and arrive at least 15 minutes early.
If you are not able to attend, note there will be a high-quality recording of this seminar made available on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/MITEnergyInitiative) about a week following the event.
——————————————
Environmental Voter Project BUILDING THE ELECTORATE FUNDRAISER
Tuesday, September 17
5:30 - 7:30pm
The Bostonian Hotel, 26 North Street, Boston (near Faneuil Hall)
Cost: $50 - ?
RSVP for the Environmental Voter Project's 'Building the Electorate' Fundraiser on September 17th!
——————————————
Poisoner in Chief
Tuesday, September 17
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
The bestselling author of All the Shah’s Men and The Brothers tells the astonishing story of the man who oversaw the CIA’s secret drug and mind-control experiments of the 1950s and ’60s.
The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA’s master magician and gentlehearted torturer—the agency’s “poisoner in chief.” As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace—including some intended for Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. He paid prostitutes to lure clients to CIA-run bordellos, where they were secretly dosed with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture. For years he was the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.
Stephen Kinzer, author of groundbreaking books about U.S. clandestine operations, draws on new documentary research and original interviews to bring to life one of the most powerful unknown Americans of the twentieth century. Gottlieb’s reckless experiments on “expendable” human subjects destroyed many lives, yet he considered himself deeply spiritual. He lived in a remote cabin without running water, meditated, and rose before dawn to milk his goats.
During his twenty-two years at the CIA, Gottlieb worked in the deepest secrecy. Only since his death has it become possible to piece together his astonishing career at the intersection of extreme science and covert action. Poisoner in Chief reveals him as a clandestine conjurer on an epic scale.
Stephen Kinzer is the author of over ten books, including The True Flag, The Brothers, Overthrow, and All the Shah’s Men. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany, and Turkey. He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and writes a world affairs column for the Boston Globe. He lives in Boston.
*********
------------
Resource
------------
*********
Solar bills on Beacon Hill: The Climate Minute Podcast
————————————
"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
——————————
Envision Cambridge citywide plan
——————————
Climate Resilience Workbook
——————————
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.
——————————
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
————————————
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
———————————
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!
——————————
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/
****************************************
———————————————————————————
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/
Extinction Rebellion: https://xrmass.org/action/
Sunrise Movement: https://www.facebook.com/SunriseBoston/events/
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment