The Director's Notes

Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk

Post by Mark Gonnerman

Check out this TED Talk by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who had a stroke and lived to tell her story. To see this riveting 18 minute presentation on the mind, brain, and how we are connected to the world and one another, please click here.

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The Spotlight: the latest

+Transcript of "On the Pursuit of Happiness: An Evening with Robert Thurman and Pico Iyer" (24 April 2008)

+Stanford on iTunes Audio File for "On the Pursuit of Happiness: An Evening with Robert Thurman and Pico Iyer" (24 April 2008)

+Amartya Sen's Martin Luther King Lecture Manuscript (April 5, 2008), "Global Poverty and Human Rights"

+Transcript Posted for "Against Ignorance," our Conversation with Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss (9 March 2008)

+Transcript and Audio on iTunes for "The Beatles on the Brain," our Conversation with Daniel Levitan, Nick Bromell, and Jonathan Berger (21 February 2008)

+Transcript of IRAQ: REFRAME interview with Dahr Jamail (4 February 2008)

+Audio (RealAudio & iTunes), Video, and Transcript Posted for "An Evening with Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass" (8 October 2007)

+"Clean, Secure, and Efficient Energy: Can We Have it All?" our Conversation with Amy Goodman (moderator), Sally Benson, Paul Ehrlich, Fred Krupp, George Shultz, and J.B. Straubel (5 September 2007)

+Wade Davis' "We Need a Global Declaration of Interdependence"

+Explore the Aurora Forum Archive

+Link to Us

Aurora Forum History

The Aurora Forum at Stanford University is part of a history of free public programs that goes back to the University's founding. Leland Stanford Junior University opened in October 1891, and by December of that year President David Starr Jordan—an educator who believed that "the final end of education is not learning or official position, but service to humanity"—launched a fortnightly public lecture forum intended "to share the fine specialists on this campus and their knowledge with the community."

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Featured Event

LIFE: A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY THROUGH TIME
With Frans Lanting and Christine Eckstrom

Sunday, July 13, 2008
8:00 - 9:30

The Aurora Forum joins with Stanford Publishing Courses to present nature photographer Frans Lanting and his LIFE Project, a photographic essay set to a Philip Glass soundtrack that tells the story of our planet from its eruptive beginnings to its present, prolific diversity.  He will be joined by his wife and partner, Christine Eckstrom, a writer, producer, and videographer on staff at National Geographic for 15 years.  For more than a decade, Frans and Chris have collaborated on fieldwork and publishing projects that have have increased awareness of endangered ecological treasures in far corners of the earth.

Upcoming Events

A Conversation with Naomi Klein:
Disaster Capitalism and the Rise of Democratic Reconstruction

Thursday, October 16, 2008
7:30 - 9:00

 _____________

We will resume our ongoing series of public conversations featuring people who turn vision into action for positive social change at start of the 2008-09 academic year.

Please enter your address in the “Join the Forum” box on the left side panel of our home page so that you are sure to receive a postcard and email announcements of upcoming events.

Please explore the Aurora Forum archive until we convene again.

Aurora Archive

ON THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS:
AN EVENING WITH ROBERT THURMAN AND PICO IYER

April 24, 2008

Novelist and travel writer Pico Iyer joins Robert Thurman, Columbia University professor and founder of Tibet House in New York City, for a conversation on the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, education, life on the road, and things that contribute to...

Global Solidarity, Human Rights, and the End of Poverty

April 5, 2008

To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), the Aurora Forum joins with Stanford’s King Institute to host a day-long conference on the struggle for economic...

IRAQ: REFRAME (5): Filmmaking in Iraq
Fifth of Five-Part Series
with Montalvo Arts Center

March 17, 2008

We join three Iraqi artists to discuss the challenges of filmmaking in present-day Iraq.  Maysoon Pachachi and Kasim Abid, who set up the Independent Film & Television College in Baghdad in 2004,...