Berkeley Talks

Longtime venture capitalist Roger McNamee discusses how he, an early Facebook investor and former adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, came to realize the damage caused by the social media giant and others like it, and how he's committed to try to stop them. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (Photo by Alessio Jacona via Flickr) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode 119 of Berkeley Talks, Shane McCrae, a poet born in Portland, Oregon, who was kidnapped by his maternal grandparents at age 3, reads new works about his experience as a child growing up with his captors. The April 1 reading was part of the UC Berkeley Library’s monthly event, Lunch Poems. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Berkeley's associate vice chancellor for research discusses the measures being taken to repatriate Native American ancestral remains and sacred artifacts held by the campus.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we're sharing an episode from 2019:Brown v. Board of Education was hailed as a landmark decision for civil rights. But decades later, many consider school integration a failure. UC Berkeley professor Rucker Johnson's 2019 book, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works, shows the exact opposite is true. The book looks at decades of studies to show that students of all races who attended integrated schools fared better than those who did not. In this January 2019 interview with Goldman School of Public Policy Dean Henry Brady, Johnson explains how he and his team analyzed the impact of not just integration, but school funding policies and the Head Start program.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Bay Area labor lawyer Bill Sokol discusses the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021."What I want to talk about," began Sokol, "is what I think is an incredibly spectacular piece of legislation, perhaps the largest, deepest, broadest piece of social legislation since the New Deal. And certainly, since the LBJ Great Society more than half a century ago."During his May 12 talk, sponsored by UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), Sokol outlined the ways the act builds a bridge towards economic recovery, invests in racial justice and addresses intergenerational inequities that have worsened in the wake of COVID-19.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Berkeley Journalism Dean Geeta Anand and New York Times reporter and UC Berkeley alumnus Edward Wong discuss international reporting on China and the interplay among journalism, public opinion and government policy.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Adewale "Wally" Adeyemo, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and UC Berkeley alumnus, delivers the keynote address at Berkeley's commencement on Saturday, May 15."The Berkeley community is made up of people that show up in all the places where decisions and history tend to be made," said Adeyemo. "In fact, when I received the e-mail with the subject line “Cal Graduation speaker, ” I assumed it was a polite request for me to forward the speaking invitation to my boss, Janet Yellen — Secretary Yellen, the towering economic mind who has helped us weather the economic crises of the past 20 years — and a long-standing member of the UC Berkeley faculty.""I only have one advantage over Secretary Yellen today," he continued, "and that is: I graduated from Cal. I know there is no better place on Earth to get an education."Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Berkeley Talks, British filmmaker and video artist Steven McQueen, best known for his Academy Award-winning film 12 Years a Slave, talks about his first experience at Tate Modern in London as an 8-year-old, how he's never pursued a project for the money and why he thinks experiencing art in the world — and not on a small screen in your hand — is so important.This March 30 talk was part of UC Berkeley's Arts + Design Thursdays, a lecture series on time-based media art that features leading media artists, curators and thinkers. The series was made possible with support from the Kramlich Art Foundation, run by Berkeley alumna Pamela Kramlich.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

California state legislators share their visions of California and the policies needed to achieve that future. The panel discussion, sponsored by UC Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, includes senators Anna Caballero and Nancy Skinner and assemblymembers David Chiu and James Ramos.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Berkeley Law professor Franklin Zimring, author of the 2017 book When Police Kill, discusses why police kill far more citizens in the United States than in other developed countries."About 1,000 times a year in the United States, civilians are shot and killed by local police, and the authorities say that such killings were either necessary or at least justified," began Zimring. "... That's three killings a day, every day. And that's too many violent deaths in a country which already suffers from an excess of violent death."Zimring's March 29 lecture, "Police Killings: An American Tragedy," was part of the 2021 Martin Meyerson Berkeley Faculty Research Lecture series.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.