Humanities (Audio)

Being okay with solitude improves your relationships. Sherry Turkle discusses identity and relationships with the following idea in mind: if you do not learn how to be alone you will only know how to be lonely. Series: "Excerpts" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 34650]

In The Lion Seeker and The Mandela Plot, two powerful novels full of raw, vividly-drawn characters, Kenneth Bonert has explored the unique and fascinating story of the Jews of South Africa. In this talk he explains why he became a novelist and the inspiration that he drew from growing up in Johannesburg. He talks about the history of his family and of the Jewish community in South Africa and reflect on his literary goals such as capturing the authentic voices of his characters and examining their moral and political struggles. Series: "Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34564]

Refugees and other displaced persons need a safe and secure way to store critical documents. They allow them to get work, go to school and ultimately live within a functioning society, but there hasn't always been a way to securely store and share them. UC Davis human rights professor and director, Keith David Watenpaugh, realized he and his team could fix that problem with Article 26 Backpack. Series: "UCTV Prime" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34582]

Visual storytelling and genre blending are central topics in this wide-ranging discussion between Quiet Place screenwriters Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and Pollock Theater director Matt Ryan. Beck and Woods reflect on and explain their desire to build a monster/sci-fi/horror/silent film that paid homage to classic television and cinema creators like Rod Serling, Alfred Hitchcock, and Charlie Chaplin while fashioning a new experience for contemporary viewers. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34569]

Noted tech venture capitalist Roger McNamee, an early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, woke up to the serious damage Facebook and other social media outlets are doing to our society and set out to try to stop it. McNamee is in conversation with Jeff Light, publisher and editor of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34249]

The ancient Buddhist sources have a great deal to say about what it means to be a biological man or woman, what it means to be gendered male and female, what kinds of desires and sexual practices are considered normative, and what kinds deviate. But this material is scattered throughout hundreds of different texts and is found in no single source. Drawing on decades of research into the classical Indian and Tibetan Buddhist texts - and on the extensive literature on ancient theories of "queerness" - Jose Cabezon traces the life of a man and woman from conception to death, in the process laying bare Buddhist assumptions about what it means to be normal and abnormal and why these issues were so important to ancient authors. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34403]

Undermining widely held beliefs about the black-Jewish alliance, Marc Dollinger, Professor of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, describes a new political consensus, based on identity politics, that drew blacks and Jews together and altered the course of American liberalism. Dollinger’s most recent book takes a new and different look at Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, showing how American Jews leveraged the Black Power movement to increase Jewish ethnic and religious identity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Series: "Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 34566]

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Sherry Turkle, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT for a discussion of her intellectual odyssey. In the conversation topics covered included her formative experiences, her education, and the evolution of her thinking about the impact of the objects of the cyber world--computers, internet, cell phones, and robots--on the essential elements of identity formation--solitude, conversation, and empathy. Series: "Conversations with History" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 34497]

Constructed languages, or conlangs, are well-known in science fiction and fantasy literature as ways of creating an immersive world-building experience. Join us in learning how linguists design the sound systems and grammars to behind some of our favorite conlangs.  With Grant Goodall (Professor and Language Program Director, UC San Diego Linguistics), David J. Peterson (Creator of Dothraki, Game of Thrones), and Paul Frommer (Creator of Na’vi, Avatar). Moderated by Tamara Rhodes (Linguistics Subject Librarian, UC San Diego Library). Series: "Library Channel" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34407]

Historian Yuval Noah Harari has taken the world on a tour through the span of humanity, from apes to rulers of the world. Harari became an international sensation when he argued in his best-selling book Sapiens that humans conquered the world through our ability to believe in collective myths about gods, money and freedom. In this excerpt, Harari discusses the authoritative role of big data and algorithms. Series: "SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind" [Humanities] [Show ID: 34534]