Climate scientist Richard Somerville completes the “Climate Change at the Crossroads” series presented by the UC San Diego Library with a talk recounting his experiences at the Paris COP 21 conference and his ongoing efforts to widen public understanding of the catastrophic impacts of climate change. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 30489]
Jun 06, 2016•55 min
Renowned climatologist V. Ramanathan from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography makes a moral argument for mitigating climate change, arguing that it is caused by a fraction of the world’s population but is affecting everyone on this planet. He urges scientists and policy makers to reach out to religious leaders, as he has done with the Pope and the Dalai Lama, and ask them to join together in pursuing solutions for the common good. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID...
May 30, 2016•59 min
Writer and artist Charlotte Salomon, the daughter of a highly cultivated Jewish family in Berlin, was deported to Auschwitz and murdered at the age of 26. In her final work “Life? or Theatre?” Salomon envisioned the circumstances surrounding the eight suicides in her family, all but one of them women. Darcy C. Buerkle, an Associate Professor of History at Smith College, explores Salomon’s tragic life as she discusses her remarkable book, “Nothing Happened: Charlotte Salomon and an Archive of Sui...
Apr 19, 2016•1 hr
Climate change policy expert David Victor, a professor of International Relations at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy & Strategy and two of his graduate students provide insights into the process and the outcome of the 2015 COP 21 climate talks in Paris. Victor has been a participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) proceedings since the IPCC’s inception Victor is presented here by the UC San Diego Library Channel. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Scie...
Apr 04, 2016•52 min
Investigative journalist Bob Woodward and former White House aide Alex Butterfield join Michael Bernstein for a conversation about Butterfield’s decision to reveal the existence of tape recordings that eventually led to Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30187]
Jan 04, 2016•58 min
A riveting Q&A session with Bob Woodward and Alex Butterfield as the reporter and source share even more details about the personality and character of Richard Nixon. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30454]
Jan 01, 2016•36 min
An evening of conversation and celebration at the close of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Jonas Salk featuring his sons Jonathan and Peter, author Mary Walshok and Gary Robbins, science editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The panel reflects on how Jonas Salk, his wife Francoise Gilot and his Institute shaped San Diego and its fledgling biomedical community; the interplay between Salk and other leaders in building the civic infrastructure, and other remembrances from the Salk brothe...
Nov 23, 2015•58 min
This extended version of “Back to the Future with the Brave New Library Featuring Sarah Thomas, Vice President for the Harvard University Library - Dinner in the Library 2015” includes remarks from UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, University Librarian Brian E.C. Schottlaender and Jonathan Hill, son of Ken and Dorothy Hill who curated the Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages. Series: "Library Channel" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30107]
Oct 23, 2015•1 hr 8 min
Sarah Thomas draws from her years in the stacks at Oxford, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and now, as the Vice President of the Harvard Library, to describe her vision for the future of libraries at the 2015 Dinner in the Library celebration hosted by the Library at UC San Diego. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Education] [Show ID: 28725]
Oct 12, 2015•37 min
E. Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of the composer Arnold Schoenberg, is an expert in handling cases involving looted art and the recovery of property stolen by the Nazi authorities during the Holocaust. He tells the story here of his most prominent case, “Republic of Austria v. Altmann” which resulted in the successful return of six paintings by Gustav Klimt, including the “Golden Lady,” to their rightful owners. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID:...
Jun 15, 2015•59 min
Eminent earth scientist Walter Munk recounts events and personalities involved in UC San Diego’s formative years as it grew out of an oceanographic field station now known as Scripps Institution of Oceanography, with former UC San Diego Chancellor and University of California President Richard Atkinson. Series: "Library Channel" [Science] [Show ID: 29113]
May 21, 2015•1 hr 43 min
Since the defeat of the Nazis in WWII, Germans have been forced to confront their “unmasterable past.” What was it like to grow up in a divided country burdened with the legacy of genocide? How does one deal with the knowledge of one’s people’s complicity in mass murder, and how does this knowledge affect one’s identity? Primary witnesses of both German and Jewish backgrounds explore answers to these questions. Panelists include Frank Biess, Deborah Hertz, Margrit Frolich and Brian Schottlaender...
May 18, 2015•59 min
Visual Artist Sheldon Brown presents a multimedia tour de force exploring how art and science illuminate the freedom of imagination. Using examples from his extensive body of work, the founding director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for the Human Imagination challenges this audience to think about how developments in computation have reframed our understanding of the world and how new digital methods are affecting the means and modes of culture. Brown’s talk is the final installment of the “Deg...
May 18, 2015•1 hr 20 min
Heavy drinking by teenagers was once considered just a rite of passage with no long-term effects, but modern biotechnology has changed that perspective. Dr. Sandra A. Brown of UC San Diego presents research showing how voluntary choices that are the hallmark of freedom become rigid and compulsory with frequent alcohol or drug use, especially among young people. Dr. Brown’s talk is part of the “Degrees of Freedom” public lecture series sponsored by the Division of Arts and Humanities at UC San Di...
May 04, 2015•57 min
Philosophy scholar Monte Johnson explains how the early Greek concept of freedom -- a state opposite of slavery – evolved into notions of self-sufficiency, liberality, and independence in speech and action. Though the most influential philosophers of that time, Plato and Aristotle, were dubious of democracy, a government centered on the principle of freedom, they contrasted with other lesser-known Greek philosophers who accentuated the importance of freedom, including Democritus, Protagoras, and...
Apr 20, 2015•59 min
What is the best way to help the poor? Giving money to charities and non-governmental organizations that then determine how the money should be allocated? Or giving cash directly to those who need it most and letting them decide how to spend it? Economist Paul Niehaus offers evidence that suggests direct cash transfers are more effective in reducing poverty, and describes GiveDirectly, a program he co-founded that allows donors to select recipients and transfer cash through mobile phones. Niehau...
Apr 06, 2015•50 min
Anthropologist Nancy Postero describes the political rise of indigenous peoples in Latin America, as they called for more recognition from the state and more inclusive forms of citizenship. Where that was impossible, they sought international attention by demanding human rights, especially human rights to culture. Postero explores what kinds of freedom these two frameworks of rights offer and how the struggles of indigenous peoples demonstrate the contradictions and limitations of liberal notion...
Mar 23, 2015•53 min
UC San Diego astrophysicist Brian Keating presents cosmological observations that have revealed a mysterious universe, pointing to the startling possibility that our cosmos might be just the most insignificant speck of what is now called “the Multiverse.” New telescopes such as the BICEP based in Antarctica hint at an infinite universe with the possibility of unimaginable fecundity, yet devoid of life other than here on Earth. Keating explores what this implies about free will in an infinite uni...
Mar 09, 2015•59 min
Eminent California historian Kevin Starr traces the emergence of San Diego’s role in the distinctly Southern California aesthetic of “Mediterranean-ism,” as seen in the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 28611]
Jan 19, 2015•58 min
Award-winning historian Wendy Lower discusses the lives and experience of German women in the Nazi killing fields. Her study chillingly debunks the age-old myth of the German woman as mother and breeder, removed from the big world of politics and war. The women Lower labels “furies” humiliated their victims, plundered their goods, and often killed them, and like many of their male counterparts, they got away with murder. Lower is the John K. Roth professor of history at Claremont McKenna College...
Dec 08, 2014•57 min
This extended version of “Sharing Julia Child’s Appetite for Life” featuring biographer Noel Riley Fitch at the 2014 UC San Diego Dinner in the Library includes remarks from UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, University Librarian Brian E.C. Schottlaender and Dorothy D. Gregor, the 2014 Geisel Citation Recipient for Library Philanthropy. Series: "Library Channel" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28726]
Oct 10, 2014•56 min
Internationally recognized biographer Noel Riley Fitch offers some food for thought in “Sharing Julia Child’s Appetite for Life,” the title of her keynote address to the annual Dinner at the Library at UC San Diego. Fitch gives a revealing look into how Child’s passion for French cuisine made her a culinary icon to generations of Americans. Fitch is the only biographer exclusively authorized by Julia Child; her other subjects include fellow expatriates to Paris Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Beach and...
Oct 06, 2014•28 min
A love of learning and teaching about pirates inspired UC San Diego’s Mark Hanna to tap the world-renowned Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages, housed in Special Collections & Archives at the UC San Diego Library, to bring history to life in his mobile classroom. Hanna’s students discover the authentic Golden Age of Piracy by reading the Hill Collection log books and other original documents, touring the Real Pirates! exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum, and sailing on the Califor...
Aug 11, 2014•13 min
The Holocaust claimed anywhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million Romani lives, a tragedy the Romani people and Sinti refer to as the Porrajmos, or “the Devouring.” Notwithstanding the scope of the catastrophe, the Romani genocide was often ignored or minimized until Ian Hancock and others exposed this misfortune. A Romani-born British citizen, activist, and scholar, Hancock has done more than anyone to raise awareness about the Romani people during World War II. Now a professor at the University o...
Jun 17, 2014•57 min
The UC San Diego Library announces the purchase of the Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, an online archive containing thousands of documents related to the history of the United Farm Workers’ union and related events. A short video on the historic March to Sacramento in 1966 is shown followed by a discussion with two participants in the march: Roberto Bustos and LeRoy Chatfield, key advisors to Cesar Chávez. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Agriculture] [Show ID:...
Jun 03, 2014•51 min
The UC San Diego Library Channel presents a talk by William Lanouette, author of “Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard.” Lanouette explains how Szilard’s fear of German dominance of nuclear research in the 1930’s inspired the Manhattan Project, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb used by the United States in World War II. Szilard could see its potential for mass destruction in the wrong hands and became a strong advocate for nuclear arms control and disarmament. Szilard spe...
Apr 07, 2014•49 min
UC San Diego sociologist Amy Binder explains two prevalent conservative styles that she and her co-author Kate Wood found on today’s college campuses. At “Western Public,” students often engaged in a provocative style, looking to poke fun and enrage liberals, whereas at “Eastern Elite,” conservative students embraced a more civil style, leading to friendlier interactions with other students who disagreed with them. The authors argue that these styles emerge from the cultural and organizational f...
Mar 17, 2014•7 min
Anne Willan, the founder of La Varenne Cooking School, and co-author Amy Friedman share stories, pictures and secret ingredients to a life well-lived as they discuss Willan's autobiography, “One Souffle at a Time: A Memoir of Food and France.” This event is sponsored by the UC San Diego Library. Series: "Library Channel" [Humanities] [Show ID: 25903]
Dec 16, 2013•58 min
Kevin Kinsella of Avalon Ventures, Jim Blair of Domain Associates, Tom Wollaeger of Sanderling Ventures, and Ivor Royston of Forward Ventures discuss the origins of the San Diego biotech community in a panel convened by the UC San Diego Library. Series: "Library Channel" [Business] [Show ID: 25900]
Oct 18, 2013•1 hr 33 min
The San Diego Technology Archive (SDTA)documents the history, formation, and evolution of the companies that formed the San Diego region’s high-tech cluster, beginning in 1965. The SDTA captures the vision, strategic thinking, and recollections of key technology and business founders, entrepreneurs, academics, venture capitalists, early employees, and service providers, many of whom figured prominently in the development of San Diego’s dynamic technology cluster. As these individuals articulate ...
Oct 18, 2013•5 min
