Past Events

Are there simple steps we can all take in our everyday lives to promote empathy, overcome difference and forge lasting connections? Yes, says Stanford Psychologist Geoffrey L. Cohen, whose scientific research offers proof that concrete solutions exist and work. Cambridge Forum invites you to join the discussion on whether we can learn how to build bridges to belonging.

We all yearn to belong but most of us don't fully appreciate that need in others. Sometimes, inadvertently, we threaten others' sense of belonging. Yet even small acts can establish connection, brief activities such as reflecting on our core values and practices that Cohen terms " situation-crafting" have been shown to lessen political polarization, improve motivation, combat racism and enhance health and wellbeing in ourselves and others.

Cohen's work examines the processes that shape people's sense of belonging and self, and implications for social problems. He studies the big and small threats to belonging and self-integrity that people encounter in school, work, and health care settings, and strategies to create more inclusive spaces for people from all walks of life. He says he's inspired by Kurt Lewin, "The best way to try to understand something is to try to change it."

Our planet is subjected to more than 50 earthquakes a day. Fortunately, most do not cause significant damage. But some earthquakes are extremely destructive (as recent events in Turkey and Afghanistan demonstrate) The complexity of these tectonic plates shifts make prediction very challenging but fascinating work. Dr. Meade explains the importance of better prediction of earthquakes and the huge challenge of developing better prediction tools.

Do you know what triggers migration? How do birds find their way to warmer climates? David Allen Sibley, author and illustrator of the The Sibley Guide to Birds will be joining us for a fascinating conversation about birding migration and how our feathered friends heed nature’s call.

David Allen Sibley is the author and illustrator of the series of successful guides to nature that bear his name, including The Sibley Guide to Birds. He has contributed to Smithsonian, Science, The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, Birding, BirdWatching and North American Birds and The New York Times. He is the recipient of the Roger Tory Peterson Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Birding Association and the Linnaean Society of New York's Eisenmann Medal. He lives and birds in Massachusetts.

GBH News reporter Craig LeMoult will be our host and moderator for this event.

Photo credit: David Allen Sibley

At Ask The Expert, get access to experts specializing in a wide variety of topics, learn something new about a subject you are passionate about or discover a new interest. GBH invites you to drive the conversation by asking questions during the live event directly with our expert. It’s always interesting, and it’s always free!

Fintan O’Toole, one of Ireland’s leading public intellectuals, is a columnist for The Irish Times and Leonard L. Milberg ’53 visiting lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University. He also contributes to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Granta, The Guardian, The Observer, and other international publications. His books on theater include works on William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Thomas Murphy. His books on politics include the bestsellers We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland; Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain; Ship of Fools; and Enough is Enough. In 2011, The Observer named O’Toole one of “Britain’s top 300 intellectuals.” He has received the A.T. Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism, the Millennium Social Inclusion Award, the Journalist of the Year award from TV3 Studios in 2010, the Orwell Prize, the European Press Prize, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the spring of 2023. In 2021, he published the #1 bestseller We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland, which won the Book of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and was selected for the New York Times's “10 Best Books of 2022.” O’Toole’s History of Ireland in 100 Objects, which covers 100 highly charged artifacts from the last 10,000 years, is currently the basis for Ireland’s postage stamps. He has recently been appointed official biographer of Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney.

This Lowell lecture will herald the opening of Seamus Heaney’s Afterlives, Boston College’s international symposium marking the tenth anniversary of the poet’s death.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Irish Studies Program and with the support of an ILA Major Grant.

We are here every Thursday bringing you local musicians to make noise at the library! The Nick Grondin Group has been actively performing in the Boston jazz community since 2008, as well as performances in New York City, France, and Italy. Their album, A View of Earth was featured in Down Beat Magazine and the Italian, Guitar Club Magazine. They believe in bringing together diverse musicians to play creative music that is accessible to new jazz listeners, with the goal of creating new audiences for jazz of the Twenty- First Century. Informed by the jazz tradition, they mix in the sounds of blues, folk, rock and funk, with familiar songs and sounds from popular music to create innovative arrangements in a jazz setting. They blend the sounds of guitar, vocals, saxophones, keyboards, bass and drums into a melodic tapestry, which also features the players unique improvisational voices. Nick Grondin has been an active educator in the Boston area since 2008, first at ZUMIX in East Boston, and later at Harvard, Berklee and the New England Conservatory, where he also completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Jazz Performance in May 2023. Join us for an evening of music, wine, and food. Registration is encouraged for this free event.

The USDA defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life.

This month many of us will turn our thoughts toward the holidays and gathering loved ones together around a dinner table to be thankful. However, a growing number of people in our state lack the food they need every day. A report by Feed America names Massachusetts as the state with the greatest percentage increase in food insecurity in the country (up 59%) due to the pandemic.

In this gratitude-packed episode of Java with Jimmy @ GBH, Jimmy speaks with Rev. Mariama White Hammond Chief of Environment, Energy, and Open Space for the city of Boston, along with Jarvis Adams, owner of LobzterKing, and Emmanual Mervil, CEO of Everybody Gotta Eat.

Together they will address ways they are tackling hunger and access to healthy food in Boston, and share ways that you can help or get the help you need.

Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Cambridge Forum’s OUT OF SIGHT accompanies two men, Mark Erelli a musician and Andrew Leland a writer, on their separate journeys from the world of sightedness to one of blindness. Mark Erelli was performing in 2020, when he looked down at his guitar and couldn’t see his fingers on the frets. A subsequent diagnosis of RP (retinitis pigmentosa) provided some answers, but many new questions. Does diminished eyesight decrease one’s insight? What does it mean to be ‘fully seen’ by oneself and others?

These questions, along with Erelli’s drive to regain his creative agency, formed the basis for “Lay Your Darkness Down.” In THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND: a memoir at the end of sight, Andrew Leland is suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be blind. Midway through his life with RP, he now sees the world as if through a narrow tube. Soon - he doesn’t know when – he will lose his sight. Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of blindness including his changing relationships with his wife, son, and self. His book represents his determination not to merely survive the transition but to grow from it – a state of being few of us know much about but from which we have much to learn.

The major ocean currents strongly influence regional climate stability. Today’s rapidly warming oceans will ultimately alter major currents such as the AMOC, with huge consequences for global climate. In order to predict when and where these climate shifts will occur, oceanographers gather data over a long period of time and compare that data with historical variations in ocean temperature and currents. Hali Kilbourne’s focus on 2000 years of the relationship between oceans and climate provides important data for accurate climate models.
In this discussion Dr. Kilbourne describes how scientists collect and analyze the data, and what oceanographers can predict regarding sea level changes, stability of major currents and the coming impact on global climate.

GBH Music welcomes Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing for the next installment in our music series, playing Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, and icy music from her new album, "Arctic."

A platform that connects big ideas and solutions for planetary health with a community of the world’s leading doers at in-person events and via worldwide media distribution to help ensure our planet and species will thrive long into the future.

Join GBH and NOVA producers and content creators in screening and discussing NOVA films: Chasing Carbon Zero and Weathering the Future.