Curated Video
Chinese Censorship
Chinese scholar and literary translator Michael Berry (UCLA) discusses censorship and self-censorship in the contemporary Chinese cultural industry.
Curated Video
Changing Cultural Values
Andrew Hoffman, Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, discusses how to get people to start being more environmentally sensitive.
Curated Video
Biology and Criminality
Nita Farahany, Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke University, discusses the future of criminality in light of the evolving science of human behaviour.
Curated Video
Begging the Question
Political scientist Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley) describes how, in politics, the explanation of a crisis often points to a solution.
Curated Video
Anti-Science?
Award-winning violinmaker and acoustician Joseph Curtin describes the anti-scientific attitude that some music experts hold.
Curated Video
A Matter of Character
Chinese scholar and literary translator Michael Berry (UCLA) describes differences between simplified and traditional Chinese characters and the politics associated with both.
Curated Video
Editorial Bias
UCLA Chinese cultural studies expert Michael Berry describes how the editor plays a key, and often overlooked role, in the process of bringing a translated work of literature to the public.
Curated Video
Capacity and Informed Consent
Elyn Saks, Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at USC, describes her own instrument for informed consent and how it differs from the MacArthur instrument.
Curated Video
Asian Values?
Author and independent scholar author Pankaj Mishra gives his views on whether the East and the West have a fundamentally different set of values.
Curated Video
Adopting an Anti-Rhetoric
Historian Nile Green (UCLA) describes how using a sometimes provocative new language to describe what we think we already know forces us to broaden our understanding.
Curated Video
A Sense of Crisis
Award-winning author Pankaj Mishra describes how his outlook to life has been irrevocably affected by a deep sense of crisis that is common to many people who grow up in Asia.
Curated Video
Innate Fairness
Primatologist Frans de Waal (Emory) discusses how a wealth of primate studies suggest that our sense of fairness does not derive from logical reflection or reason, but is a product of evolution.
Curated Video
Humour in Sign Languages
Linguist Carol Padden (UC San Diego), describes unique aspects of humor that American Sign Language enables.
Curated Video
Frozen Languages
Linguist Carol Padden (UC San Diego) explains how sign languages evolve just like any other language.
Curated Video
Freedom and Social Justice
Intellectual historian Quentin Skinner (QMUL) describes how egalitarian principles in Scandinavian societies might be said to provide greater freedom to their people .
Curated Video
Finding Your Niche
MacArthur Fellowship-winning luthier and acoustical researcher Joseph Curtin describes how he became a violinmaker.
Curated Video
Elite Capture and Societal Inequality
Classicist and political theorist Josiah Ober (Stanford) describes two concerns that were as important in ancient Athens are they are today: elite capture and political inequality.
Curated Video
Culture and Meaning
Poet and independent scholar Jennifer Michael Hecht argues that meaning is naturally shaped by our culture.
Curated Video
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Legal scholar Nita Farahany (Duke) describes an unexpected area where neuroscience is having an impact in legal proceedings.
Curated Video
Inadvertent Impact
Ben Nelson (Minerva) describes how one of his greatest accomplishments as CEO of the tech company Snapfish turned out to be completely accidental.
Curated Video
Historical Context
Author and independent scholar Pankaj Mishra warns us not to essentialize, urging us to place the notion of "Asian Values" in historical context.
Curated Video
Historical Ambiguities
Karl Gerth, Professor of History and Hsiu Chair in Chinese Studies at UC San Diego, muses on the question, When did “Modern China” begin?’
Curated Video
Grounding and Anchoring
Philosopher Brian Epstein (Tufts University) explains how his grounding and anchoring model of social ontology works.
Curated Video
Global Morality
Political scientist Mark Bevir (UC Berkeley) describes the inevitable moral questions that arise when taking global governance seriously.