Social entrepreneur, investor, and author Jessica Jackley explores what it took for her to pursue a career that fit her passions. She explains that studying the humanities gave her the perspective that allowed her to navigate the world of non-profit global entrepreneurism. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Business] [Education] [Show ID: 33468]
2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman is the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize. A human rights activist, journalist and politician, she was dubbed the “Mother of the Revolution” for her key role in the Arab Spring, during which she was imprisoned numerous times. An advocate for education, social equality and responsible investment as means to counteract poverty and oppression, Karman offers hopeful solutions to uphold the democratic spi...
Today’s dominant political refrain is that America is in a state of decline. But to James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, nothing could further be from the truth. Over the course of a three-year, 54,000-mile journey across the country, he discovered many surprising points of reinvention, in every region of the country—and enough to refresh the bleak national conversation to reflect a positive truth. Fallows reports on the wide range of civic projects underway that are rebuildin...
Christina Bellantoni, the assistant managing editor of politics at the Los Angeles Times, discusses her experience in journalism, mainly covering politics, in her current position and as a reporter in Washington, D.C., for more than a decade. She argues that ethical journalism is more important than ever because a strong democracy depends on a free press. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 32212]
We are a country in which a majority of people who voted for one candidate in 2016 don’t know anybody who voted for the other. We have a president who divided the country in a way that lost him the popular vote but gave him an electoral college victory. At the same time, many different kinds of Americans feel shortchanged by an economy that treats different groups in different regions very differently. Are we becoming a nation in which some of us find it impossible to empathize with others among...
For 15 years, Edina Lekovic has served as a leading voice on American Muslims and an inter-community builder between diverse faith traditions. She explores the negative portrayal of American Muslims in the Media. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 32401]
For 15 years, Edina Lekovic has served as a leading voice on American Muslims and an inter-community builder between diverse faith traditions. She explores the way in which the treatment of American Muslims under the Trump administration could serve as an advanced warning of danger to our very democracy. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 32099]
Anna Lappé looks at the hidden cost of our food system: the climate crisis. Our web of global food production and distribution is connected to as much as one third of total greenhouse-gas emissions. She offers a vision of a food system that can be part of healing the planet. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Science] [Agriculture] [Show ID: 31713]
Robert Jones, Director of the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington, D.C., is a well-known commentator on religion and politics. He discusses the upcoming presidential election. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 31622]
Is free speech threatened on college campuses? One of the nation’s leading constitutional scholars explores the the notion of “hateful” or “hurtful” speech and their relation to the First Amendment. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Education] [Show ID: 31310]
Bringing his expertise, experience and wisdom longtime journalist Bill Moyers looks at the November election and asks if we are in for armageddon, apocalypse, or rapture? Moyers has received 37 Emmy Awards, nine Peabody Awards, the National Academy of Television's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute, among others. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 30876]
Islam is a great religious tradition, the second largest and fastest growing of the World’s Religions, embracing some 57 Muslim countries and is the second or third largest religion in Europe and America. Despite the global achievements of Islam as a faith and civilization, since the Iranian Revolution, Islam has been viewed through the lens violence and the actions of militant terrorists. John Esposito, Professor of Religion and International Affairs and of Islamic Studies at Georgetown, addres...
Powerful new “gene editing” techniques have put the prospect of genetically modified human beings on the foreseeable horizon. Should we use these tools to improve the human species? Are they needed to prevent the transmission of genetic diseases? Would manipulating the genes of future children and generations open the door to new kinds of discrimination, inequality, and eugenics? Marcy Darnovsky unpacks the controversies that have erupted in recent months about how we should — and should not — u...
Scientists describe the climate-havoc wrought on our natural world as the end of ‘stationarity’—a shift of the ecosystem so profound that it is no longer possible to extrapolate into the future from past patterns. Award-winning environmental journalist, Mark Schapiro, takes us on a journey to the tension points where these shifts are vividly underway. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 30274]
Rinaldo S. Brutoco is a successful entrepreneur, executive, author and futurist and the Founding President of the World Business Academy. He looks at the role and responsibility of business in relation to the critical moral, environmental and social concerns of the day especially moving away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 30475]
Legendary civil rights advocate Morris Dees addresses how our commitment to justice for all will determine our nation’s success in the next century as America becomes more diverse and economic disparity widens. Drawing upon past and current cases, he also examines the issue of hate crimes and the need to teach tolerance, love and respect for one another. Dees co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971 to handle lawsuits involving civil rights violations, domestic terrorism, and hate-moti...
Unlike the justice system, California’s institutions of higher learning cannot hold perpetrators of sexual violence criminally liable, but they do have the ability to discipline students through their established student code of conduct and under Title IX provisions. But despite federal and state laws that require specific prevention education, reporting, and response activities, there are critical questions about whether campuses are doing enough to protect students. Over the past year, both Se...
The United States military currently views cyberspace as the “fifth domain” of warfare (alongside land, air, sea, and space), and the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and the CIA all field teams of hackers who can, and do, launch computer virus strikes against enemy targets. Shane Harris delves into the frontlines of America’s new cyber war, investigating the recent revelations that have shown how government agencies are joining with tech giants like Google and Facebook to co...
Anna Lappé discusses how the food system impacts so many different aspects of our lives and how recent and diverse social movements motivated by a profound ethic of food are transforming how we feed ourselves. The choices that we make as individuals — and as a society — about food have ripples that affect every aspect of our lives, from the environment to the climate, from social justice to public health. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Agriculture] [Sh...
UCLA psychologist Paul Abramson argues that if we want a better world, we need to eliminate sexual harm - not just violent rape, but also sexual coercion, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse of children. However, we need to address these issues in a way that preserves the sexual liberties of adults, adolescents and yes, kids, too. Abramson offers his ideas on how to meet both of these goals. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [...
Peter Barnes, entrepreneur and former Newsweek correspondent, discusses his new book “With Liberty and Dividends For All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough.” He argues that because of globalization, automation, and winner-take-all capitalism, there won’t be enough high-paying jobs to sustain America’s middle class in the future. Therefore, he proposes a supplementary source of nonlabor income; that we give every American a share of the wealth we own together, starting with ...
What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? Walter Isaacson's talk is centered around his latest book, The Innovators, and how the creators of Microsoft, Apple, and others came to be the leaders of the current Digital Revolution. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Business] [Show ID: 28925]
More than 2 million people die every year in the United States, almost always in the presence of life-sustaining medical technology. Sometimes the choices posed by medical technology make death the least worst alternative. Yet, choosing death, or letting go, is often a painful and contentious business. Bioethicist Dr. Stuart Youngner, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, explores some of the ways our society and others are coping with this unavoidable dilemma. Series: "Ethics, Rel...
Law professor at Georgetown University’s Law Center, Peter Edelman speaks about the prevalence of poverty in America, focusing on income-level disparities. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 28276]
In “Spying on Democracy,” National Lawyers Guild Executive Director Heidi Boghosian documents the disturbing increase in surveillance of ordinary citizens and the danger it poses to our privacy, our civil liberties, and to the future of democracy itself. Boghosian reveals how technology is being used to categorize and monitor people based on their associations, their movements, their purchases, and their perceived political beliefs. She shows how corporations and government intelligence agencies...
Are all religions simply different ways up the same mountain? Or is the key to religious tolerance found in better understanding differences? In “God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World,” New York Times best-selling author and religion scholar Stephen Prothero argues that persistent attempts to portray all religions as different paths to the same God overlook the distinct problem that each tradition seeks to solve. Delving into the different problems and solutions that Islam...
The International Labour Organization estimates that 20.9 million people around the world are currently held in forced labor and servitude. Human trafficking is constantly in the headlines in the United States, but it can be hard to separate fact form fiction. Martina Vandenberg debunks the myths and examine concrete case studies compiled in her two decades combating trafficking in the US and abroad. Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of The Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center in Wash...
With problems such as the energy crunch, climate change, and dependence on foreign oil, the question reemerges as to whether we need nuclear power — either from new plants, or from relicensing our aging reactors. Rinaldo Brutoco, Founding President of the World Business Academy, discusses the hazards and finances of the nuclear industry from the perspective of a lawyer, business leader, and concerned citizen. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affai...
Performance of the exorcism rite has been on the rise in recent years. Thomas Csordas endeavors to to understand this development on the level of therapeutic process in terms of how it may genuinely relieve affliction, and on the level of culture as a conservative discourse on evil at large in the contemporary world. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 25301]
Every baby born in the United States is screened for more than fifty genetic disorders. Though the early detection of these abnormalities can potentially save lives, the test also has a high percentage of false positives. Some doctors are questioning whether the benefits of these screenings outweigh the stress and pain they sometimes produce. Stefan Timmermans evaluates the consequences and benefits of state-mandated newborn screening—and the larger policy questions they raise about the inherent...
