UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures (Video)
The University of California, Berkeley presents the Graduate Lectures, a series of seven endowed lectureships that have brought distinguished visitors to campus since 1909. Each lecture covers a wide range of topics, from philosophy to the sciences, reflecting the diverse expertise of the speakers.
Episodes
The Constitutional Right to Transition: Reconstruction and the Political History of Transphobia
Award-winning historian Jules Gill-Peterson examines transgender identity and politics through the lens of American liberalism, arguing that anti-transgender politics cannot be understood by analyzing conservatism alone. She traces the emergence of transgender identity from middle-class cross-dressing cultures, the development of transgender medicine, and the class tensions surrounding transition.
Is This Your Only Life?
Embodiment affects how we understand personhood, moral status, and whether this life is our only life. Mark Johnston, Henry Putnam University Professor, Princeton University, explains how competing theories of mind and matter shape the question of whether a will could have an embodiment other than its present one. Johnston examines the failures of functionalism, reductive and non-reductive materia
Three Ages and Three Intelligences: Exploit Explore Empower with Alison Gopnik
A common model of AI suggests that there is a single measure of intelligence, often called AGI, and that AI systems are agents who can possess more or less of this intelligence. Cognitive science, in contrast, suggests that there are multiple forms of intelligence and that these intelligences trade-off against each other and have a distinctive developmental profile and evolutionary history. Exploi
Can a Liberal Polity Survive the Politics of Grievance?
Contemporary populism is almost everywhere; a right wing phenomena that focuses on a politics of white working class grievance. A set of grievances that are to be addressed, when in power, with policies of expulsion, exclusion, and domination. Attempts by liberal states to deal with such movements paradoxically rely on a similar politics of exclusion, such as building so-called firewalls against t
The Squiggly Line with Katelyn Jetelina
How do you navigate a nonlinear, “squiggly line” career in science and public health? Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and scientific communicator, explores challenges of science communication within academia—from cultural resistance to misaligned incentives—and why so much vital research never reaches the public. Joined by Dr. John Schwartzberg, Professor Emeritus, School of Public Health
The Soul – Spirit is My Altar with Marta Moreno Vega
Espiritismo traces its roots to the sacred knowledge of West and Central African peoples carried into the Americas by enslaved ancestors between the 15th and 19th centuries. Marta Moreno Vega, Ph.D., scholar and co-founder of Corredor Afro, explores how these traditions—sustained in Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, Puerto Rico, other Caribbean islands, and U.S. urban centers—function as systems of memory, sur
Public Health: How to Make the Invisible Visible with Katelyn Jetelina
Public health often works behind the scenes—preventing illness, protecting communities, and generating research that too often stays hidden behind paywalls. In a world of eroding trust and rising falsehoods, Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and scientific communicator, explores how we can make the value of public health visible: by telling better stories with data, making science more acces
Evolution and Animal Minds with Peter Godfrey-Smith
Peter Godfrey-Smith, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney, explores the evolutionary roots of consciousness by surveying animal evolution and the emergence of felt experience in several lineages. He examines two central philosophical questions: how such experience might arise gradually, existing in partial forms, and whether it represents a single unified feat
The Times of Possibility
Legal scholar Annabel Brett explores the idea of “moral possibility”—the boundary between what laws demand and what people can realistically or ethically be expected to do. Drawing from early modern thinkers like Aquinas, Suarez, and Hobbes, Brett shows how moral impossibility has long shaped debates about legal obligation, resistance, and political agency. Commentators Melissa Lane and David Dyze
Times of Change: Possibility Virtue and a Democratic Politics of Time
Political theorist Annabel Brett of Cambridge University explores how the concept of “moral possibility” shapes law, politics, and public obligation. She explains that laws must be realistic for people to follow—what is morally possible varies by individual, culture, time, and circumstance. Drawing on early modern Catholic legal theory, Brett discusses how extreme demands (like enduring war or pla
Seas the Day: A New Narrative for the Ocean
It's time for a new narrative for the ocean, one that reflects current scientific knowledge and acknowledges innovative new partnerships and solutions that center the ocean in our future. In this program, Jane Lubchenco, Professor of Marine Biology at Oregon State University and with expertise in the ocean, climate change, and interactions between the environment and human well-being, talks about
Science in the White House: Integrating Solutions to the Triple Crises of Climate Change Loss of Biodiversity and Inequality/Inequity
Three major global challenges – climate change, loss of biodiversity and its benefits, and inequality and inequity among people – are typically tackled within three separate silos. However, scientific knowledge tells us that the three are inextricably linked. If the problems are not considered together, solutions to one may undermine solutions to the others. Moreover, more holistic, integrated sol
Subjects and Citizens: The Possibility Condition Law and Democracy
There's a powerful idea in the history of European legal and political thought: that laws must be possible for people to follow. Annabel Brett, professor of Political Thought and History at Cambridge University, describes how from ancient times through the Renaissance, thinkers believed that demanding the impossible—whether physically or psychologically—was a hallmark of tyranny. A classic example
The Moral Economy of Resource Extraction and the Future of Industrialization
The "energy transition" is actually a shift from relying on fossil fuels (like coal, oil, and gas) to using metals to generate energy. However, extracting metals has always been a significant environmental and political issue, especially for cities. This problem has been around for centuries, even ancient Roman writers wrote about it. In this program, Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Econom
Forging a New Political System 2024 and Beyond
Historian and political commentator Heather Cox Richardson joins UC Berkeley professor of law and history Dylan Penningroth in a timely conversation about the reshaping of the United States’ two major political parties. A professor of 19th century American history at Boston College, Richardson provides an incisive perspective on current politics to the more than three million readers of her nightl
The Arc of Energy Justice: A Pursuit to Ensure Affordable Reliable and Clean Energy for All
We are at a critical moment in our society. While we advance efforts to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis, across the globe, millions are experiencing issues of energy affordability, reliability and equitable access to modern energy technologies. In this program, Tony Reames, Professor of Environmental Justice at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, explores
Do Cash Transfers Save Lives?
Does giving cash up front improve the health and wellbeing of people in poor communities? In this program, Edward (Ted) Miguel, professor of economics and co-director of the Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley, talks about his work in Kenya on the impact of cash transfers on infant mortality, leveraging a unique large-scale census of local households’ birth histories. The findings p
The Search for Paradise
This program explores the decolonizing potential of Indian aesthetic-social philosophy by challenging two entrenched colonial prejudices: the supposed radical dissimilarity and inferiority of pre-modern Indian traditions compared to modern social theory. Through an analysis of the Upanishads and Vaisnava theology and poetry, Sudipta Kaviraj, professor of Indian Politics and Intellectual History at
Character and Agency
What defines a person’s character, and how does it shape who they are? In this lecture, Susan Wolf, emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, challenges traditional ideas about character. She argues that character is more than just a set of traits or values an individual endorses—it can include aspects of ourselves we may not even recognize or approve of. Wolf explores
The Deadly Trade in Oil and Gas
Oil and gas are the most traded commodities on the planet; they are also the chief causes of the most grievous harm our species has yet faced, the burgeoning climate crisis. Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He examines how the export of hydrocarbons,
American Thanatocracy vs Abolition Democracy: On Cops Capitalism and the War on Black Life
In this program, Robin D. G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA, examines how police in the neoliberal era–in tandem with other state and corporate entities—have become engines of capital accumulation, government revenue, gentrification, the municipal bond market, the tech and private security industry—in a phrase, the profits of death. Kelley a
Minority Rule in the United States
Placing the U.S. in comparative perspective, Daniel Ziblatt, professor of government at Harvard University, discusses uniquely American counter-majoritarian institutions.
Ziblatt is also director of the Transformations of Democracy group at Berlin’s WZB Social Science Center. He is the author of four books, including "How Democracies Die," co-authored with Steve Levitsky, a New York Times best-se
U.S. Majorities vs. U.S. Institutions
America’s contemporary democratic predicament is rooted in its historically incomplete democratization. Born in a pre-democratic era, the constitution’s balancing of majority rule and minority rights created still-unresolved dilemmas. Placing the U.S. in comparative perspective, Daniel Ziblatt, professor of government at Harvard University, discusses the relationship between U.S. political institu
American Democracy and the Crisis of Majority Rule
America’s contemporary democratic predicament is rooted in its historically incomplete democratization. Born in a pre-democratic era, the constitution’s balancing of majority rule and minority rights created still-unresolved dilemmas. Placing the U.S. in comparative perspective, Daniel Ziblatt, professor of government at Harvard University, offers new perspectives on what should be “beyond the rea
'I' and Self-Consciousness
What does it mean when we use the first-person pronoun ‘I’? And how does it relate to self-consciousness? In this program, Béatrice Longuenesse, professor of philosophy emerita at New York University, compares the analysis of philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe and Jean-Paul Sartre on consciousness, self-consciousness and the use of 'I'.
Languenesse's current work spans the history of philosophy, esp
Policies to Restore the American Dream with Raj Chetty
Where did the American Dream of hard work equals upward mobility go? And what will it take to bring it back? In this talk, Raj Chetty, director of Opportunity Insights and professor of public economics at Harvard University, focuses on three policy levers to increase upward mobility: reducing racial and economic segregation through more effective affordable housing programs, investing in place-ba
The Science of Economic Opportunity: New Insights from Big Data with Raj Chetty
Children’s chances of earning more than their parents have fallen from 90% to 50% over the past half century in America. How can we restore the American Dream of upward mobility for all children? In this talk, Raj Chetty, director of Opportunity Insights and professor of public economics at Harvard University, shows how big data from varied sources ranging from anonymized tax records to Facebook s
A Conversation with Ezra Klein about Liberalism
California’s deepest problems — the skyrocketing cost of housing, the lagging development of clean energy, the traffic choking the state — reflect an inability of Democratic governments to build real things in the real world quickly and affordably. The result is liberal governance that routinely fails to achieve liberal outcomes. New York Times opinion columnist and podcast host Ezra Klein talks w
How Modern Slavery Touches Everyone
Modern slavery, which encompasses 45 million people around the world, is intricately linked to the economy, politics, violence and war, gender and the environment. In this panel discussion, Kevin Bales, professor of contemporary slavery and research director of the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham, talks about the impact of contemporary slavery with three UC Berkeley professors, Arlie H
How Modern Slavery Impacts the Environment with Kevin Bales
There are 45 million enslaved people in the world today. The links between slavery, conflict, environmental destruction, economics and consumption began to strengthen and evolve in the 20th century. The availability of people who might be enslaved dramatically increased in line with population growth. According to Kevin Bales, professor of contemporary slavery and research director of the Rights L
Constructing a Republican Executive with Michael McConnell
As the delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia in 1789, there was no experience, anywhere in the world, of a successful republican executive over an extensive nation — one with sufficient authority and independence to make things work on a national scale, but without the risk of becoming a monarch. This Jefferson Memorial Lecture shows how the delegates, and especially
21st Century Global Health Priorities with Christopher Murray
The world has lived through 2+ years of the COVID-19 pandemic, heightening the awareness of the links between health and other aspects of life including education and the economy. Future pandemics are a real risk but there are a number of other threats to human health and well-being as well. These include climate change, the rise of obesity, inverted population pyramids, inter-state conflict, risi
The Social Safety Net as an Investment in Children with Hilary Hoynes
A hallmark of every developed nation is the provision of a social safety net – a collection of public programs that deliver aid to the poor. Because of their higher rates of poverty, children are often a major beneficiary of safety net programs. Compared to other countries, the U.S. spends less on antipoverty programs and, consequently, has higher child poverty rates. Professor Hilary Hoynes disc
The Status Quo Loves To Say No: Disability Rights and the Battle Against Structures of Exclusion with Judith Heumann
Disability rights activist Judy Heumann has been fighting for inclusion for over six decades, in ways that transformed legal and societal understandings of equality. Her life-long experience has included co-founding the organization Disabled in Action, working on Capitol Hill to shape landmark disability rights laws, co-organizing the extraordinary protest and advocacy efforts that spurred the imp
Metrics in Action: Lessons Learned from 30 Years of the Global Burden of Disease Study with Christopher Murray
The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) began in 1991 sponsored by the World Bank and the World Health Organization to fill a critical gap in global health information. It has grown steadily to become an active collaboration of more than 8,000 scientists, researchers and policy-makers from 156 countries working together to quantify health at the national and subnational level. In this program,
The Demarcation Problem for Philosophy
Philosophy almost alone among disciplines appears to lack a distinctive subject matter. The world has chemical, biological and political aspects, but no philosophical aspects. If subject matter does have a role to play here, it’s to do less with the field’s descriptive ambitions than the genealogy of philosophical problems. MIT's professor of philosophy's Stephen Yablo’s interests are wide-ranging
A New Measure: The Revolutionary Quantum Reform of the Modern Metric System
The International System of Units (the SI), the modern metric system, has recently undergone its most revolutionary change since its origins during the French Revolution. The nature of this revolution is that all of the base units of the SI are now defined by fixing values of natural constants. Our measurement system is now, both philosophically and practically, strongly quantum. Nobel Prize reci
Time Einstein and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe
At the beginning of the 20th century, Einstein changed the way we think about time. Now, early in the 21st century, the measurement of time is being revolutionized by the ability to cool a gas of atoms to temperatures millions of times lower than any naturally occurring temperature in the universe. Nobel Prize recipient William Phillips, Ph.D., a Distinguished University and College Park Profess
Counterfactuals Compatibilism and Rational Choice
There is a puzzle about counterfactuals that parallels a more familiar puzzle about free will. The familiar puzzle is the apparent incompatibility between free will and determinism. Robert Stalnaker, Professor of Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues, first, that the general puzzle gives us reason to look more closely at the details of the semantics for counterfactuals, and s
Weaponizing Narratives: Why America Wants Gun Control But Doesn’t Have It
If having a gun really made you safer, then America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It's not. Gary Younge (Manchester University) explains that while Americans consistently favor more gun control, gun laws have generally become more lax. That is partly due to the material resources of the gun lobby. But it is also about the central role of the gun, what it represents in the Amer
Deep Soul: Twentieth-Century African American Freedom Struggles and the Making of the Modern World with Waldo Martin
Twentieth-Century African American Freedom Struggles transformed both US and World History. These seminal liberation struggles include the important yet relatively unknown series of early twentieth-century southern African American streetcar boycotts as well as the iconic Civil Rights-Black Power Insurgency (1935-75). First, Waldo Martin examines why and how these foundational freedom struggles pr
On Uncertainty: Wittgenstein: Habits of Thought and Thoughts of Habit
This lecture by South African writer, playwright and academic Jane Taylor considers Ludwig Wittgenstein’s paper, “On Certainty” in which the philosopher engages with the taken-for-granted in everyday thought. Taylor notes, “In our contemporary context of the precarious, on one hand, and the political vehemence of conviction, on the other, it seems timely to pay attention to the faltering and tenta
Prison Abolition and a Mule with Paul Butler
By virtually any measure, prisons have not worked. They are sites of cruelty, dehumanization, and violence, as well as subordination by race, class, and gender. Prisons traumatize virtually all who come into contact with them. Abolition of prison could be the ultimate reform. Georgetown Law Professor Paul Bulter explores what would replace prisons, how people who cause harm could be dealt with in
The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives are No Substitute for Good Citizens
It is widely held today on grounds of prudence if not realism that in designing public policy and legal systems, we should assume that people are entirely self-interested and amoral. But it is anything but prudent to let "Economic Man" be the behavioral assumption that underpins public policy. Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute) supports his position using evidence from behavioral experiments mecha
Progress in the Sciences and in the Arts
The view that the sciences make progress, while the arts do not, is extremely common. Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, challenges it. Scientific progress has social dimensions. A socially embedded notion of scientific progress then allows for a parallel concept of progress applicable to the arts. Kitcher specializes in the areas of pragmatism (especially D
Shaping a 21st Century Workforce – Is AI Friend or Foe?
Jennifer Granholm, former Governor of Michigan, identifies some of the most interesting policy ideas to address the problems of displaced workers, the skills gap and resulting inequality in an age of robots and artificial intelligence. Granholm teaches Public Policy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School and is the chair of the American Jobs Project, a multi-state research initiative on creating industri
Evolution and Creationism as Science and Myth
Myths symbolize ideas, values, history and other issues that are important to a people. They may be true or false, mundane or fantastic; their significance is their meaning, not their narrative content. Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. Its conclusions tentatively may be true or false, but its significance is its explanatory power: one has confidence in the process of science, e
Why Do People Reject Good Science?
Scientists are often puzzled when members of the public reject what we consider to be well-founded explanations. They can’t understand why the presentation of scientific data and theory doesn’t suffice to convince others of the validity of “controversial” topics like evolution and climate change. Eugenie Scott, Founding Executive Director, National Center for Science Education, highlights the impo
Texting Etiquette Varies by Generation
Deborah Tannen discusses how interacting via text messaging services challenges relationships. Tannen is on the faculty of Georgetown Universitys Department of Linguistics. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34069]
Souls in Other Selves and the Immortality of the Body
Sometimes the soul seems a more precise concept than the body. In this lecture Marilyn Strathern, goes to a place and time where all kinds of beings (including food plants) have souls and where the bodily basis of life is immortalized through cloning. She comments on the way present-day anthropology brings fresh illumination to what we thought we knew. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Hum
Defending Liberty in the Age of Trump: Lessons from the Front
The ACLU is committed to civil rights and civil liberties issue. David Cole, National Legal Director of the ACLU and Georgetown law professor, explores what Trump's first year as president tells us about about constitutional law and the future of civil liberties and civil rights in the United States. David Cole was named Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union in 2016. He oversees app
American Identity in the Age of Trump with George Packer
The Trump Presidency is a symptom of the fracturing in American society that goes deeper than economics and politics to the meaning of being an American. George Packer, Staff Writer for the New Yorker, argues that none of the currently available narratives of national identity point a way out of our failure and asks if there is another way to think of ourselves as Americans. George Packer is a con
The Language of Friendship: The Role of Talk in an Understudied Relationship
Deborah Tannen draws on her interviews with eighty women, ranging in age from 9 to 97, and on years of research examining how ways of talking affect relationships, to explore the role of talk among friends, with particular focus on women’s friendships, how they compare to men’s, and the consequences of such differences. Tannen is on the faculty of Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics
Conversations on the Small Screen: Talking over Social Media
Deborah Tannen discusses how interacting over social media is changing and challenging relationships, amplifying both the risks and the gifts of voice-to-voice conversations. Tannen is on the faculty of Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 32999]
Strangers in Their Own Land: Challenges Climbing the Empathy Wall
Arlie Hochschild describes her journey from Berkeley, her own liberal cultural enclave, to Louisiana, a conservative one. She explores her choice of research site, her effort to remove her own political alarm system, and during five years of research, to climb over what she calls an “empathy wall.” She focuses on her concept of the “deep story” – a version of which underlies all political belief,
Hello Food Industry Meet Food Activists
Large and growing food movements in the United States seek policy changes to promote healthier and more environmentally sound food choices. Marion Nestle reflects on recent progress. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Health and Medicine] [Agriculture] [Show ID: 32980]
Cicero’s De Officiis – Stoic Ethics for Non-Stoics
Gisela Striker shows how the Stoic philosopher Panaetius, on whose work Cicero based his own treatise, actually presented what might be seen as a complete version of Stoic ethics without the theological and cosmological elements for which Cicero and other Stoics are sometimes criticized. Striker is Professor of Philosophy and of the Classics, Emerita, at Harvard University. Series: "UC Berkeley Gr
Food Politics and the Twenty-First Century Food Movement with Marion Nestle
The paradox of today’s global food system is that food insecurity or obesity threaten the health and welfare of half the world’s population. Underlying these problems is an overabundant and overly competitive food system in which companies are forced to expand market channels to meet corporate growth targets. The contradiction between the goals of public health and food corporations has led to a l
The Cost of Color: The Health and Social Consequences of Skin Color for People Today
Nina Jablonski explores the nature and sequence of changes in human skin through prehistory, and the consequences of these changes for the lives of people today. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 32130]
The Real 'Skin in the Game': The History of Naked Sweaty and Colorful Skin in the Human Lineage
Skin is the primary interface between ourselves and our environment. Nina Jablonski, Pennsylvania State University, looks at what makes our skin unique and, perhaps, more important than we realize. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 32129]
Can We Create Good Institutions?
Ann Swidler first inquires as to what makes institutions good before questioning how such institutions might be achieved given our current political, social, and economic conditions. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31680]
Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination
Thomas Jefferson had a vision for the United States of America but race and slavery complicated his views of what kind of society was possible on the American continent. One of the foremost scholars on Jefferson, Pulitzer prize winner Annette Gordon-Reed is a professor of American Legal History at Harvard University.
Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31530]
Embodied Souls - Lessons from Neurology with V.S. Ramachandran
There are two questions pertaining to the self – the metaphysical and empirical - that are often confounded. The latter is best approached through neurology as V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at UC San Diego, illustrates in this fascinating lecture at UC Berkeley.
Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30558]
The Intrigue of Wine Gold and California Today with Frances Dinkelspiel
Power, money, gold and wine in the making of California. All that, and what it’s like to write best-selling books and operate Berkleyside, the respected local online news site. Award-winning author and journalist Frances Dinkelspiel is in conversation with Deirdre English of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30
Why We Have Effective Agreements to Protect the Ozone Layer But Not to Stabilize Climate
The Montreal Protocol has limited global uses of chemicals that deplete stratospheric ozone. Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences, compares its features and success with unsuccessful (to date) efforts to stabilize global climate by limiting greenhouse gas concentrations such as carbon dioxide. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 30
Contemporary Climate Change as Seen Through Measurements
Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences,reviews up-to-date data on temperatures of air and water, rates of ice losses and of sea-level rise and illustrate the driving forces of greenhouse gases in an energy-balance model of Earth. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 30556]
Immortality - An Egyptian Dream
The Egyptians believed Pharaoh to be a god on earth who after his death would fly up to heaven and unite with the sun, his father. After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, this idea of royal immortality became accessible for non-royal persons but dependent on justification before a divine tribunal, the judgment of the dead. Immortality became a question, not of royalty but of morals. Jan Assmann, Pr
Imagine America without Los Angeles: Applying Science to Understand the Vulnerability of Modern Society to Natural Disasters
Although many recent advances, such as building codes and construction techniques, have reduced some aspects of risk to natural disasters, other features of modern society— including population density and the networking of transportation, power facilities, and communications systems—have led to increased vulnerability in California and beyond. Lucy Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction, U.S.
The Challenges of Science Communication: What Does Storytelling Have to do with Climate Change?
A fundamental of scientific analysis is the rejection of stories. Anecdotes can mislead you and solid analysis of the data is needed to ensure that coincidence is not mistaken for correlation. But one of the fundamentals of communication is the human need for stories to make an emotional connection to the information provided. Lucy Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction, U.S. Geological Survey,
The Switch: Reinventing American Freedom with John Fabian Witt
John Witt explores the subject of how American constitutional law was “reinvented,” as he proposes, during the early twentieth century. Taking up a small cast of characters who self-consciously aimed to disrupt the ideological structures of American law, Witt tells a story of social experiment and constitutional transformation that explains our constitutional past and offers powerful, if sometimes
The Creative City: Can Cities Remain the Catalysts of Creativity?
Paul Goldberger holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City. In this follow-up to his previous lecture (The Generic City), he discusses whether, despite their similarities, cities are catalysts for creativity and why. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29298]
The Generic City: Can the 21st Century Ever Build Special Places?
Architecture critic and The New School professor Paul Goldberger looks at whether cities are becoming more and more the same, and why, and what the implications for this are. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29297]
Federalism Localism and the Shape of Constitutional Conflict
Daniel B. Rodriguez, Dean of Northwestern University Law School, considers the dynamic relationship between structures of constitutional governance within the United States through an exploration of federalism (national/state relations) and localism (state/municipality relations). Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 29296]
Women's Work in the World Economy: A Personal and Political Perspective from Laura Tyson
Economic growth around the world is influenced by who is in the workforce and what they are paid. Women’s participation and compensation are shifting under the influence of social and economic trends at the national level and on a global scale. UC Berkeley Professor Laura Tyson shares some of her own experiences, observations, and analysis as she makes a case for greater gender parity for economi
The Philosophy of As If with Kwame Anthony Appiah
A leading moral and political philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. He explores the ideas of the philosopher Hans Vahinger, who argued that our theories of the world involved understanding things “as if” what is in fact false were true. He uses Vahinger’s ideas to discuss a contemporary philosophical proposal, due to Dan Dennett, that says tha
The Children of the Revolution
UC Berkeley Professor Yuri Slezkine is an innovative historian whose work focuses on the early years of the Soviet Union. In this lecture, he focuses on the private lives of Bolshevik government officials: their wives, maids, lovers, children, and other comrades. The argument is that revolutions devour their parents and that they begin as tragedy and end at home. By centering the cultural and poli
Were the Framers Right About Constitutional Design? The US Constitution in Comparative Perspective
The founding fathers were political theorists of the highest order, and founded the modern era of constitutional design. But how have their propositions fared over the course of the subsequent two centuries, in which over 900 constitutions have been written? Tom Ginsburg, Professor of International Law, and Deputy Dean, University of Chicago Law School, summarizes empirical work on constitutions r
A Neanderthal Perspective on Human Origins - 2014
The Neanderthals are the closest extinct relatives of all present-day human and the Neanderthal genome sequence provides unique insights into modern humans origins. Svante Pääbo, a biologist and evolutionary anthropologist, describe the current understanding of the genetic contributions of Neanderthals to present-day humans and to extinct human groups. He also describes preliminary analyses of gen
The Theoretical Impulse in Plato and Aristotle
Sarah Broadie, a specialist in classical philosophy and professor at the University of St. Andrews, explores the human being as theoretical adventurer, through the eyes of Plato and Aristotle. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28101]
The First U.S. ‘War on Terror’: The 1798 Sedition Act and Constitutional Politics in the Age of Jefferson
University of Virginia’s Charles McCurdy explores how the Founding Fathers dealt with the unanticipated emergence of hotly contested, increasingly political interpretations of the Constitution during the first decade of the Early Republic and also how they responded to fact that constitutional change had occurred through interpretation rather than through constitutional amendment. Series: "UC Berk
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