A New Politics of the Common Good

in Current Affairs, Philosophy, Politics | June 9th, 2009

A quick heads up: The BBC is fea­tur­ing a series of lec­tures with Michael Sandel (Har­vard Pro­fes­sor of Gov­ern­ment) that will col­lec­tive­ly talk about “the prospects of a new pol­i­tics of the com­mon good.” Sandel is a very pop­u­lar pro­fes­sor at Har­vard. Some 15,000 stu­dents have tak­en his cours­es over 30 years. In the first lec­ture, Sandel takes a look at the moral­i­ty of the mar­kets (a time­ly top­ic, to be sure) and “con­sid­ers the expan­sion of mar­kets and how we deter­mine their moral lim­its.” You can lis­ten here.

Also, note that you can find anoth­er mini-course by Sandel on the Har­vard web­site.  Jus­tice: A Jour­ney in Moral Rea­son­ing (Video) is one of the very few cours­es that Har­vard has pro­duced and made avail­able to the pub­lic. You can find it oth­er­wise list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Uni­ver­si­ty Cours­es.

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Free Presidential Biographies on iTunes: FDR and Beyond

in History, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | September 16th, 2008

Thanks to PBS, you can now down­load from iTunes a four-hour defin­i­tive biog­ra­phy of Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt. FDR guid­ed the US through the Great Depres­sion, then World War II, serv­ing as pres­i­dent for an unprece­dent­ed four terms. The video pod­cast run a good four hours, and it’s part of a series called Amer­i­can Expe­ri­ence: The Pres­i­dents. Oth­er pres­i­dents fea­tured in this series include Har­ry Tru­man, Lyn­don John­son, Richard Nixon, Jim­my Carter, and Ronald Rea­gan. You can watch more videos from The Amer­i­can Expe­ri­ence series online by click­ing here.

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Download Michael Moore’s New Film For Free

in Current Affairs, Film, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | September 5th, 2008

Michael Moore is get­ting wise to the virtues of free/open cul­ture. Start­ing Sep­tem­ber 23, you can down­load his new film — Slack­er Upris­ing — via the web for free. The unfor­tu­nate rub is that this down­load will only be avail­able to US and Cana­di­an res­i­dents, and it will remain free via the web for three weeks. You can get more info and sign up to down­load the film here. Below, you can also pre­view the film, which (sur­prise, sur­prise) ties into the Amer­i­can elec­tion.

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When Comedy Keeps American Politics Honest

in Comedy, Politics | September 4th, 2008

A rather sad com­men­tary on the integri­ty, depth and sin­cer­i­ty of the Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. But, it’s fun­ny and it’s Fri­day, so here it goes. Take it away John Stew­art (and thanks for the tip Lar­ry):

PS Check out this WSJ arti­cle, The Biol­o­gy of Ide­ol­o­gy, which sug­gests that our polit­i­cal choic­es may be shaped by genet­ics.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jon Stewart’s “Dai­ly Show” Now Online: 1999 — Present

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The Future of Tibet: Does It Have One?

in Current Affairs, Politics | March 20th, 2008

In response to Chi­na’s vig­or­ous crack­down on Tibet (see this pho­to­jour­nal­ism account), a group of experts were con­vened to dis­cuss Tibet and its future. The pan­elists includ­ed Robert Thur­man (famed Bud­dhism schol­ar at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty), John Ken­neth Knaus (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty), John Tkacik (Senior Research Fel­low at The Her­itage Foun­da­tion), and Amit A. Pandya (Hen­ry L. Stim­son Cen­ter). You can lis­ten in on the dis­cus­sion here — MP3 — iTunes — Web Site.

On a relat­ed note, Chi­na shut down YouTube dur­ing its Tibetan crack­down, offer­ing proof of a sim­ple point made in MIT’s Tech­nol­o­gy Review: “Web 2.0 tools can seem at times like vehi­cles for the self-absorbed, but the fear that they inspire in oppres­sive gov­ern­ments is a pow­er­ful demon­stra­tion of how use­ful and vital they can be.”

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History, Power and our Global Society

in History, Politics, Stanford | March 12th, 2008

Here’s a new, free course from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. Taught by James Shee­han, the His­to­ry of the Inter­na­tion­al Sys­tem (iTunes) offers a his­tor­i­cal view of inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics in the 20th cen­tu­ry, explor­ing how inter­na­tion­al play­ers have attempt­ed to project their will and pro­tect their inter­ests, all while nego­ti­at­ing flu­id and not always man­age­able exter­nal forces. The course looks back at com­mu­nism, fas­cism and lib­er­al­ism, then moves through the Cold War to the present day, and ends with cur­rent events in Iraq. An impor­tant his­to­ri­an and one of Stan­ford’s finest lec­tur­ers, Shee­han was recent­ly Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can His­tor­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion. So far four lec­tures have been post­ed (see here), and there will be more to come.

NOTE: This course has been added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es, where you can find about 120 top-notch cours­es.

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David Mamet on Politics

in Politics | March 12th, 2008

His essay appear­ing in The Vil­lage Voice: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Lib­er­al’

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Samantha Power & the Obama Controversy

in Current Affairs, Politics | March 11th, 2008

It’s rare that pro­fes­sors find them­selves at the cen­ter of a polit­i­cal firestorm. But that’s where Saman­tha Pow­er, Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice of Glob­al Lead­er­ship and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy at Har­vard, found her­self last week when, dur­ing an off-the-record con­ver­sa­tion with a reporter, she referred to Hillary Clin­ton as a “mon­ster” and then had to resign as senior for­eign pol­i­cy to advis­er to Barack Oba­ma.

Until then, Pow­er had been rid­ing a big wave of suc­cess. Only 37 years old, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her first book, A Prob­lem from Hell: Amer­i­ca and the Age of Geno­cide. She’s also now pro­mot­ing her sec­ond book, Chas­ing the Flame: Ser­gio Vieira de Mel­lo and the Fight to Save the World. (Watch a clip from the book tour here). And until this high pro­file slip-up, she was clear­ly help­ing shape Oba­ma’s for­eign pol­i­cy. You can hear Pow­er’s influ­ence in how Oba­ma answered the high­ly pub­li­cized ques­tion last sum­mer — would you, as pres­i­dent, nego­ti­ate direct­ly with Iran’s Ahmadine­jad? (He said yes.) Pow­er’s think­ing on inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy gets artic­u­lat­ed fair­ly well in this lengthy inter­view. Below, we’ve also post­ed a clip (from FORA.tv) of Pow­er speak­ing about Oba­ma and the ques­tion of nego­ti­at­ing with ene­mies. (Get the full talk here.)

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