National Conference of Black Political Scientists
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The lecture first concludes the discussion of the First Continental Congress, which met in 1774. Ultimately, although its delegates represented a range of opinions, the voices of the political radicals in the Congress were the loudest. In October 1774, the Continental Congress passed both the radical Suffolk Resolves and the Declaration and Resolves, which laid out the colonists' grievances with Parliament. The Congress also sent a petitio...more
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Asiatic cholera was the most dreaded disease of the nineteenth century. While its demographic impact could not compare to that of the bubonic plague, it nonetheless held a tremendous purchase on the European social imagination. One reason for the intense fear provoked by the disease was its symptoms: not only did cholera exact a degrading and painful toll on the human body, it also struck suddenly, and was capable of reducing the seemingly...more
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The sanitary movement was an approach to public health first developed in England in the 1830s and '40s. With increasing industrialization and urbanization, the removal of filth from towns and cities became a major focus in the struggle against infectious diseases. As pioneered by Edwin Chadwick, the sanitary movement also embraced an explicit political objective, according to which urban cleansing took on a figurative as well as a literal...more
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Part 1 - Arguing Affirmative Action: Sandel describes the 1996 court case of a white woman named Cheryl Hopwood who was denied admission to a Texas law school, even though she had higher grades and test scores than some of the minority applicants who were admitted. Hopwood took her case to court, arguing the school’s affirmative action program violated her rights. Students discuss the pros and cons of affirmative action. Part 2 - What'...more
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Smith explains that a theory of change in the social sector is roughly equivalent to a combination of the business model and strategy in the for-profit world. You need to identify a change and have a hypothesis about how to make it happen, she says. This is more complex in the social sector because, in additional to market forces, you have to deal with regulatory forces, emotional forces, social forces, and political forces, she adds. A se...more
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Professor Blight lectures on the military history of the early part of the war. Beginning with events in the West, Blight describes the Union victories at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, introduces Union General Ulysses S. Grant, and narrates the horrific battle of Shiloh, fought in April of 1862. Moving back East, the lecture describes the Union General George McClellan's abortive 1862 Peninsula campaign, which introduced the world to Confe...more
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A special event to mark the publication of Professor Barrow's new book, 'The Book of Universes'. This is a book about universes, a story that revolves around a single unusual and unappreciated fact: that Einstein’s famous theory of relativity describe universes – entire universes. Not many solutions of Einstein’s tantalizing universe equations have ever been found, but those that have are all very remarkable. Some of them describe universe...more
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The cultural transition from the romantic era of consumption to the era of tuberculosis derived not only from the germ theory of disease and the triumph of contagionism over anticontagionism, but also from political considerations. Worries over population decline and growing working-class militancy were aggravated by what now appeared to be a social disease, or a disease of poverty. One of the strategies deployed against the disease was th...more
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Although the harm principle as introduced in the last lecture seems straightforward at first glance, today Professor Shapiro discusses its ambiguities. If it "must be calculated to produce evil to someone else," who will be doing the calculations? Second, what does "calculated" mean? Does committing harm imply mens rea, or should strict liability be observed? The class discusses such issues as prostitution, free trade, same-sex marriage, s...more
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The disintegration of the Soviet Union resulted from a number of different factors. Three important ones are nationalism among Soviet satellite states, democratic opposition movements, and economic crisis. Along with these elements, the role of Mikhail Gorbachev should not be discounted. Although his attempt to reform communism was rejected, his reformist positions as Soviet premier helped open the way for full-fledged political dissidence...more
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Professor Blight continues his march through the political events of the 1850s. Blight continues his description of the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, describing the guerilla war that reigned in the territory of Kansas for much of 1856. The lecture continues, describing the caning of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the US Senate and the birth of the Republican party. The lecture concludes with the near-victory of Repu...more
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Dr. Margaret Craven discusses HIV/AIDS from the perspective of a front-line clinician. AIDS is unprecedented in both the speed with which it spread across the globe and in the mobilization of efforts to control it. It is a disease of modernity. Along with the relative ease and velocity of modern transportation methods, other background conditions include Western medicine, with hypodermic needles and bloodbanking, intravenous drug use, and ...more
