UC Berkeley (Audio)

Award-winning historian Jules Gill-Peterson examines transgender identity and politics through the lens of American liberalism, arguing that anti-transgender politics cannot be understood by analyzing conservatism alone. She traces the emergence of transgender identity from middle-class cross-dressing cultures, the development of transgender medicine, and the class tensions surrounding transition. Gill-Peterson connects this history to U.S. v. Skrmetti, the vulnerability of transition-related health care, and what she describes as liberal discomfort with dysphoria and changing sex. She calls for a politics centered on defending transsexual people and a right to transition. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 41447]

Three major global challenges – climate change, loss of biodiversity and its benefits, and inequality and inequity among people – are typically tackled within three separate silos. However, scientific knowledge tells us that the three are inextricably linked. If the problems are not considered together, solutions to one may undermine solutions to the others. Moreover, more holistic, integrated solutions can deliver multiple co-benefits. Success requires integrated solutions. Jane Lubchenco, Professor of Marine Biology at Oregon State University, talks about the historically ambitious, innovative policies implemented by the Biden-Harris Administration to achieve this integration. Lubchenco is a marine ecologist with expertise in the ocean, climate change, and interactions between the environment and human well-being. From 2021-2025, she served as Deputy Director for Climate and Environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 40426]

The "energy transition" is actually a shift from relying on fossil fuels (like coal, oil, and gas) to using metals to generate energy. However, extracting metals has always been a significant environmental and political issue, especially for cities. This problem has been around for centuries, even ancient Roman writers wrote about it. In this program, Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University, talks about the historic use of fossil fuels and its economic, social and environmental impacts to the transition today to extracting metals for energy, dominated by China. Thompson points out that extracting resources will always have environmental and social costs. To mitigate these risks, she says we need to find ways to reduce international competition and ecological damage. This requires acknowledging that the idea of endless progress, which was fueled by fossil fuels, has its limits. And she says we must prioritize sustainability and responsible resource management to create a better future. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 40428]

We are at a critical moment in our society. While we advance efforts to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis, across the globe, millions are experiencing issues of energy affordability, reliability and equitable access to modern energy technologies. In this program, Tony Reames, Professor of Environmental Justice at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, explores the intricate intersection of energy, class, race and place, shedding light on inequities in access to and the distribution of energy resources. Reames discusses how various factors, including socio-economic conditions, policy landscapes and environmental characteristics contribute to energy inequities. The talk underscores the importance of understanding and addressing these issues in the pursuit of energy justice, emphasizing the need for inclusive scholarship, policies and funding that empower marginalized communities. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 40223]

This program explores the decolonizing potential of Indian aesthetic-social philosophy by challenging two entrenched colonial prejudices: the supposed radical dissimilarity and inferiority of pre-modern Indian traditions compared to modern social theory. Through an analysis of the Upanishads and Vaisnava theology and poetry, Sudipta Kaviraj, professor of Indian Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, examines conceptions of paradise as a life without suffering, arguing that divergent ideas of paradise have shaped Indian aesthetic thought. Central to this philosophy is the interdependence of cognitive curiosity and aesthetic enjoyment, seen as essential for fully accessing and understanding the universe. Kaviraj suggests that these traditions offer valuable insights for modern secular thinkers reflecting on the human condition. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40222]

Oil and gas are the most traded commodities on the planet; they are also the chief causes of the most grievous harm our species has yet faced, the burgeoning climate crisis. Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He examines how the export of hydrocarbons, in particular, has become an enormous threat to efforts to rein in greenhouse gasses. It explores the role that America – the world’s biggest exporter of gas – plays in this ongoing catastrophe. And it looks at the role that non-tradeable commodities – sunshine and wind – play in easing this crisis. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 40220]

This program aims to recover Plato’s idea of craft or art, Greek technê, in the expansive sense which includes not only the handicrafts but skilled practices from housebuilding to navigation. Rachel Barney, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, examines Plato and other Greek thinkers who were fascinated by the craft model: the idea that both the moral virtue of the good person and the political widom of the expert ruler are — or could be made into — skilled practices as reliable as shoemaking or carpentry. Similar ideas appear in classical Chinese philosophy, developed in very different ways by Daoist and Confucian thinkers. In our time, craft is in a bad way: marginalized in theory and everywhere endangered in practice. Ancient thinkers can help us to see what remains valuable and urgent about craft today, and what a reinvigorated understanding of it might contribute to our ethical and political thought. Crafts to be considered include carpentry, medicine, drawing, film editing, the ‘multicraft’ of the restaurant, tennis, and traditional Polynesian navigation. Philosophical points of reference, in addition to Plato, Aristotle, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi, include Murdoch, MacIntyre, Korsgaard, and the Hart-Fuller debate, as well as literary reflections from Kazuo Ishiguro and Cormac McCarthy. Barney is joined by Adam Gopnik, Rachana Kamtekar, Christine Korsgaard, and Alexander Nehamas to discuss the topic of craft. Series: "Tanner Lectures on Human Values" [Humanities] [Business] [Show ID: 39865]

What is a craft? For Plato, paradigmatic craft-practitioners include the doctor, carpenter and navigator; an updated, more generous conception should include the dancer, coder, waitress, painter, chef, professional athlete, and firefighter. Rachel Barney, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, discusses how each of these skilled practices is oriented to the achievement of a distinctive end, the goodness of which is independent of the self-interest or inclinations of the practitioner. This Platonic conception of craft as involving disinterested teleological rationality can explain how craft sets objective norms for correct action, and for the excellence of the practitioner. And it shows that to master a craft is not merely to acquire knowledge or skills but to take on the ‘internal standpoint’ definitive of the craft, internalizing its values and treating its reasons for action as authoritative. Barney is joined by Adam Gopnik and Rachana Kamtekar for commentary on the topic of craft. Series: "Tanner Lectures on Human Values" [Humanities] [Business] [Show ID: 39863]