Berkeley Talks

Sal Levinson, who works on native propagation at the UC Botanical Garden, led a tour on July 9, 2019, about the plants people have used to heal pain, cause pain, bring pleasure, celebrate the sacred and symbolize faith. From the Cycad, a poisonous plant that the dinosaurs ate and some people have learned how to eat, to California native rye, a type of grass that gets a fungus called ergot that has been used to treat migraine headaches.

"Ergot is effective for stopping bleeding," Levinson tells a group of 20 on the tour. "The wise women in ancient times would commonly use it after childbirth. Some women would start bleeding out after childbirth, and if they used this drug, they could stop the bleeding and save the women."

This walk was hosted in conjunction with the current exhibit on view at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Pleasure, Poison, Prescription, Prayer: The Worlds of Mind-Altering Substances.

Listen to the talk and read the transcript on Berkeley News.

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In the "Science of Happiness" podcast episode, "Finding awe in every step," musician and activist Diana Gameros talks about how she moved to the U.S. from Mexico at 13, and the heartbreak that came with it. She spent years writing about longing to go home to Juarez, Mexico, and the experience of undocumented immigrants in America.

"When I moved to the United States, I found inspiration or I found this motivation to write about the things that I was feeling about being away and I think, you know, I was inspired by folk music to create these songs," Gameros tells host Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor and co-director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

"For me, it’s very humbling to know that some of the stories and the messages I give, or that I sing about, are resonating with other people whose stories are similar to mine," Gameros continues. "And I began to notice that they became a source of inspiration and of empowerment to them. And so I also see it as a as a responsibility to use my platform. I have a microphone. I have an audience. I have a stage. And so, for me it’s a way to give voice to those who don’t have a means to express it."

In each episode of "Science of Happiness," a guest chooses a practice from the Science of Happiness free online course from the Greater Good Science Center that's been shown to increase happiness, connection and kindness. Gameros chose the Awe Walk, which she did both in California and Mexico, where she recently visited for the first time in 16 years.

Listen to more episodes of "Science of Happiness" at https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/podcasts.

(Artwork by Whitney Anderson)

Read a transcript on Berkeley News.

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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 Homo economicus be the behavioral assumption that underpins public policy. Samuel Bowles, a research professor and director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, explains why this is so, using evidence from behavioral experiments mechanism design and other sources, and proposes an alternative paradigm for policy making.

Sponsored by UC Berkeley's Graduate Division, Bowles gave this lecture on Feb. 25, 2019, as part of the Barbara Weinstock Lectures on the Morals of Trade.

(Santa Fe Institute photo)

Read a transcript on Berkeley News.

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In his book Rock ’n’ Film: Cinema’s Dance with Popular Music, music historian David James explores how rock’s capacity for cultural empowerment and its usefulness as a driver of commerce and profit have been reproduced in various kinds of cinema: independent documentaries and concert films including Monterey Pop and Gimme Shelter; narrative films, such as King Creole and Privilege; and the experimental cinema of artists, like Kenneth Anger.

In a June 22, 2019, lecture at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), James explored the rich legacy of cinema’s dance with popular music. Illustrating his talk with clips from classic rock films like Blackboard Jungle, A Hard Day’s Night, and many others, James shared with his BAMPFA audience how rock music was distinctive from other cultural developments of its era because of its multiracial appeal, anticipating and helping to precipitate the utopian ideals of the civil rights era and other left-wing movements.

These transformative energies, James said, were channeled into a growing body of films that became important to the development of rock music — not just as delivery mechanisms of the new sound, but as engines for its production. Marquee musicians like Elvis and the Beatles found themselves able to experiment with new forms of creative expression in films that captured the exciting and transgressive spirit of their musical moment.

James’ lecture was delivered in conjunction with an ongoing film series at BAMPFA inspired by his work, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, which runs through Aug. 31. For more information, visit bampfa.org/program/its-only-rock-n-roll.

Read the transcript on Berkeley News.

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As of 2017, there were more than 273 million smartphones in use in the country and 5 billion subscriber connections worldwide.

“This is a big, big business,” says Joel Moskowitz, the director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health at the School of Public Health. “This is an industry that’s probably been unparalleled by any other industry in the world, in terms of reach.”

Moskowitz gave a talk last spring called “Cell Phones, Cell Towers and Wireless Safety” for Be Well at Work, a University Health Services program at UC Berkeley.

Moskowitz, who has conducted research on disease prevention programs and policies for more than 30 years, says that with the influx of smartphones has come hundreds of thousands of cell towers. These towers receive and transmit radio frequencies called microwaves — the same waves used in microwave ovens.

In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization classified radio frequency radiation as possibly carcinogenic to humans, based on studies of cell phone radiation and brain tumor risk in humans.

“Currently, we have considerably more evidence that would work a stronger classification,” says Moskowitz, an adviser to the International EMF Scientist Appeal signed by more than 240 scientists who publish peer-reviewed research on electromagnetic radiation. “Many scientists today feel that it’s time for IARC to re-review the literature given all the research that’s been published since 2011 to upgrade this to at least probably carcinogenic to humans, if not actually carcinogenic.”

Read the transcript on Berkeley News.

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California's agriculture has been impacted by dwindling bee populations. In this episode of Just Food, a podcast from the Berkeley Food Institute at UC Berkeley, experts discuss what farms can do in response — not only to protect honeybees, but also to restore native pollinator species.This episode was originally published in September 2017.

This episode features:

• Colin Muller, a beekeeper at Muller Ranch
• Claire Kremen, professor of environmental science in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley
• Paul Muller, part owner of Full Belly Farm

This podcast was produced by the Berkeley Food Institute in partnership with the UC Berkeley Advanced Media Institute at the Graduate School of Journalism.

See photos and listen to more episodes of the Just Food podcast.

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Writer, speaker and activist Virgie Tovar speaks with Savala Trepczynski, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, about the process of divesting from diet and body image culture and investing in rehumanization, community building and a new vision for our lives.

"I do experience fat phobia in an interpersonal and social sense," Tovar tells Trepczynski. "Meaning that I've had the lifelong effects of, you know, constantly having my body policed by others. Every time I leave my house, I'm deeply aware that someone might say something to me that's really dehumanizing and stultifying. Because we're just in that environment where people feel the right to police and speak out violently against fat women, in particular."

"One thing that’s really important to me is to allow yourself to be angry. Anger is a really sacred practice and I think, for women, anger is one of the least feminine behaviors that we can do and so there’s a big taboo around anger. And this goes back to the idea that oftentimes, we will metabolize anger and we’ll turn it into shame and that’s just internally directed anger. And, I think it’s really important for women to actually be able to feel anger and express anger."

This interview was recorded for a 2017 summer podcast series, Be the Change, produced by the Berkeley Advanced Media Institute.

Read the transcript on Berkeley News.

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On Wednesday, June 19, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) celebrated Juneteenth — a national commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States — with a visit by Mildred Howard, a widely acclaimed artist and longtime Berkeley resident whose family has deep roots in the Bay Area’s African American community. Howard appeared at BAMPFA for a screening of the new documentary, Welcome to the Neighborhood, which highlights her own family’s history in South Berkeley and the neighborhood’s transformation over the past 50 years.

Following the screening of the 30-minute film, Howard was joined in conversation by Leigh Raiford, UC Berkeley associate professor of African American studies, and Lawrence Rinder, BAMPFA’s director and chief curator. Their discussion touched on a range of topics, from South Berkeley’s ongoing struggles with gentrification, to the role of the university in supporting diverse communities, to Howard’s own work as an artist. Some of her works are on display in BAMPFA’s exhibition, About Things Loved: Blackness and Belonging, which was curated by a UC Berkeley class co-taught by professor Raiford, and runs through July 21.

Directed by filmmaker Pam Uzzell, Welcome to the Neighborhood tells the story of Howard’s mother, Mabel Howard, who moved to the Bay Area during World War II and became an influential civic leader in South Berkeley’s African American community. Mildred Howard recalled her mother’s prominent role in fighting to preserve the fabric of her community, including her success in preventing BART from dividing the city with an above-ground rail line. This legacy continues to inspire a new generation of activists fighting for equality in Berkeley and beyond; as Howard put it, “as a black woman in the United States, social activism is in my DNA.”

Learn more about BAMPFA exhibition, About Things Loved: Blackness and Belonging.

Read the transcript and listen to the talk on Berkeley News.

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Dean Baquet is the executive editor of the New York Times and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. In February 2019, he sat down with Edward Wasserman, dean of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, to discuss the 2016 elections and the future of fact-based journalism.

"I don't want to be a leader of the opposition to Donald Trump," he told Wasserman. "This is perhaps the hardest thing about navigating this era. A big percentage of my readers, and I hear from them a lot, want me to lead the opposition of Donald Trump. They don't quite say it that way, but what they say is, 'Why quote his tweets? Why go to his press conferences? Why not? Why not just call him a liar every day? Why not essentially just take him out and beat him up? What are you waiting for?' I think that would be the road to ruin, for a bunch of reasons. But, to me, the most powerful one is if you become the leader of the opposition, eventually the people who you're aligned with come to power, right?"

This conversation is featured on On Mic, a podcast by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. It was produced by Luis Hernandez. For more conversations with writers, journalists and documentarians, check out other On Mic episodes. Technical facilities for On Mic are underwritten by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.

Read a transcript on Berkeley News.

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