Podcast appearances and mentions of John L Loeb

What does is mean to be an American?  And why do we Americans obsess so much over the question of what it means to be an American?  This nagging question has plagued our nation since its birth and various national “myths” have been advanced to offer some form of national identity and cohesion.  At times one myth has proven stronger than the others, only to be overshadowed as historical events call its sufficiency and truth into question.  So where does that leave us today in an era of collective, existential crisis?   Joining Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to explore these questions is George Washington University associate professor of political science Samuel Goldman.   About Samuel Goldman   Samuel Goldman is an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is also executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program.   Samuel is the Editor of FUSION, an online journal inspired by the belief that Western civilization is defined by intertwined threads of freedom and tradition, innovation and order, rights and duties.  In addition to academic work, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.   His most recent book, After Nationalism: Being American in a Divided Age was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in spring 2021.  His first book God's Country: Christian Zionism in America was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018.  Samuel received his Ph.D. from Harvard and taught at Harvard and Princeton before coming to GW.  You can follow Samuel on Twitter @SWGoldman  

It's hard to think of a more celebrated figure of the 20th century than Martin Luther King Jr.He has a national memorial in Washington, D.C. His birthday is one of just 11 federal holidays. His words and legacy are routinely evoked by politicians of both major parties. I would go as far as to say he should be considered one of America's founding fathers, which is one reason why I wanted to revisit this episode on Independence Day.But the paradox of King's legacy is that while many revere him, very few actually read him. Most of us can cite a handful of his most famous quotes, but King's actual teachings span five books, countless speeches and sermons, and years of detailed correspondence.There's perhaps no scholar working today who studies Dr. King's political philosophy as deeply as Brandon Terry. Terry is the John L. Loeb associate professor of social sciences at Harvard, where he specializes in Black political thought. He is the co-editor of “To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” the editor of “Fifty Years Since MLK,” and the author of numerous popular and academic articles on King's political thought. His work is committed to rescuing the nuances of Dr. King's philosophies and forcing a confrontation with what King actually said and believed, rather than what he's come to represent.In this conversation, taped in January, we follow the commitment that animates much of Terry's work: to take King seriously as a philosopher, rather than as purely a political actor. And it turns out that King understood a lot about politics that we've lost sight of today.We're taping an “Ask Me Anything” episode soon. If you have a question for Ezra, send it to ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com with the subject line, “AMA.”Mentioned:“Imagining the nonviolent state” by Ezra Klein“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” by Martin Luther King Jr.From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by Elizabeth Hinton“Rethinking the Problem of Alliance: Organized Labor and Black Political Life” by Brandon M. Terry and Jason LeeThe Truly Disadvantaged by William Julius WilsonBook recommendations:Where Do We Go From Here by Martin Luther King Jr.The Trumpet of Conscience by Martin Luther King Jr.The Sword and the Shield by Peniel E. JosephA More Beautiful and Terrible History by Jeanne TheoharisDark Ghettos by Tommie ShelbyThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

This episode is an edited version of a live event held at WBUR's Cityspace on May 15, 2023. A full-length video of the event is available here. For decades, studies from around the globe showed that happiness followed a U-shaped curve across the lifespan. For many people, the teens and twenties were some of the happiest and most carefree times of life — a period to be enjoyed before happiness began to drop and hit its low point around 50. BUT, over the past 10 years, a seismic change has taken place. The front end of the happiness curve collapsed, meaning that teens and twenties are now the most unhappy time of life. From the increasing use of social media, to being isolated from friends during the pandemic, to the academic pressures of applying to college, to growing up in a world that feels threatened from climate change, gun violence, and political strife, the reasons for this crisis in mental health are many. The solutions, however, have been few. But there's a growing sense (and data) that when it comes to finding a way through challenging times, looking back at ancient wisdom for strategies on how to thrive — how to find joy, peace, empathy, and meaning — can help. Join Dave and a panel of experts and voices from Gen Z to explore the science behind when and how secular and spiritual practices might help young adults (and really any of us) deal with the stresses and disconnection of modern life, whatever our spiritual beliefs (including none at all). Guests: Dr. Laurie Santos is the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She hosts The Happiness Lab Podcast and created the record-breaking courses “The Science of Wellbeing” (the most popular course at Yale) and “The Science of Wellbeing for Teens.” Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University and at MIT — a role in which he supports the ethical and communal lives of nonreligious students. He's also the author of the New York Times bestseller Good Without God, and recently served as president of Harvard University's 40+ chaplains. Tyler VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he directs the Human Flourishing Program. His work has been internationally recognized for illuminating the factors that underlie health and wellbeing in adolescents and adults.

The following conversation is with Samuel Goldman. Goldman is an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is also executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. His most recent book, After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in spring 2021.  Goldman received his Ph.D. from Harvard, and taught at Harvard and Princeton before coming to GW. In addition to academic work, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.  Rate and subscribe if you enjoy the content and follow 'overcoming_the_divide'  on InstagramTime stamps:30 Intro1:30 America's national identity 4:30 An age of division 7:30 Values at odds11:40 An unifying cause18:15 Politicians and society's temperament 20:30 Principles vs self-interest 29:30 Failures of globalization and the rise of nationalism 37:20 Nationalism compared to patriotism Music: Coma-Media (intro)                 WinkingFoxMusic (outro)Recorded: 12/21/22

It's hard to think of a more celebrated figure of the 20th century than Martin Luther King Jr.He has a national memorial in Washington, D.C. His birthday is one of just 11 federal holidays. And his words and legacy are routinely evoked by politicians of both major parties.But the paradox of King's legacy is that while many revere him, very few actually read him. Most of us can cite a handful of his most famous quotes, but King's actual teachings span five books, countless speeches and sermons, and years of detailed correspondence.There's perhaps no scholar working today who studies Dr. King's political philosophy as deeply as Brandon Terry. Terry is the John L. Loeb associate professor of social sciences at Harvard, where he specializes in Black political thought. He is the co-editor of “To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” the editor of “Fifty Years Since MLK,” and the author of numerous popular and academic articles on King's political thought. His work is committed to rescuing the nuances of Dr. King's philosophies and forcing a confrontation with what King actually said and believed, rather than what he's come to represent.In this conversation, we follow the commitment that animates much of Terry's work: to take King seriously as a philosopher, rather than as purely a political actor. And it turns out that King understood a lot about politics that we've lost sight of today. We discuss why a “romantic narrative” of the civil rights era stops us from taking King seriously as a philosopher; the true radicalism of King's nonviolent philosophy; King's complex views on the relationship between race and class; how King wrestled with the demands of “respectability politics”; King's wide-ranging economic views, including the idea that the economy should be subservient to the community (and not the other way around); King's enthusiasm for tenant unions and welfare rights unions as critical democratic inventions; whether the state should embrace the same nonviolence it often demands of protesters; the roots of King's opposition to the war in Vietnam; whether we've lost the ability to grapple with “virtue” in politics today; and more.Mentioned:“Imagining the nonviolent state” by Ezra Klein“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” by Martin Luther King Jr.From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by Elizabeth Hinton“Rethinking the Problem of Alliance: Organized Labor and Black Political Life” by Brandon M. Terry and Jason LeeThe Truly Disadvantaged by William Julius WilsonBook recommendations:Where Do We Go From Here by Martin Luther King Jr.The Trumpet of Conscience by Martin Luther King Jr.The Sword and the Shield by Peniel E. JosephA More Beautiful and Terrible History by Jeanne TheoharisDark Ghettos by Tommie ShelbyThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

This program was recorded at the annual Veritas Weekend 2022 event in Boston. The original title was, "Is Christianity Good for the Scientific University?" and featured Cullen Buie, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, Karin Öberg, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard, and Tyler VanderWeele, John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. And, if you're interested in more content from Veritas, check out our Beyond the Forum podcast. Visit veritas.org to learn more about the mission of the Veritas Forum and find more resources to explore the ideas that shape our lives.

Which kind of wisdom will people need to master to overcome major negative societal and/or psychological changes after the pandemic? Igor and Charles share and discuss responses from 57 of the world's leading behavioral and social scientists, collected as part of the World After Covid (https://worldaftercovid.info/) project. Each episode, four responses are selected. This time, the conversation covers themes of social support, sympathy & compassion, acknowledging uncertainty, and balancing diverse interests in the midst of the pandemic. Igor points out that humanity has a greater capacity for accepting and managing uncertainty than we might realize, and Charles is intrigued by the often-overlooked benefits of interactions with strangers. Featuring: Katie McLaughlin (https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/kate-mclaughlin), John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University Barbara Fredrickson (https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/faculty-profile/barbara-l-fredrickson-phd), Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Dilip Jeste (https://profiles.ucsd.edu/dilip.jeste), Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at University of California, San Diego Valerie Tiberius (http://www.valerietiberius.com/), Paul W. Frenzel Chair in Liberal Arts and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota

In this episode of “Keen On”, Andrew is joined by David Cutler, the author of “Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation”, to discuss how cities are changing in the face of existential threats that have only been accelerated by the pandemic. David Cutler has developed an impressive record of achievement in both academia and the public sector. He served as Assistant Professor of Economics from 1991 to 1995, was named John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences in 1995, and received tenure in 1997. He is currently the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics and was named Harvard College Professor in 2014 until 2019. Professor Cutler holds secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. Professor Cutler was associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for Social Sciences from 2003-2008. Visit our website: https://lithub.com/story-type/keen-on/ Email Andrew: a.keen@me.com Watch the show live on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajkeen Watch the show live on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankeen/ Watch the show live on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lithub Watch the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiteraryHub/videos Subscribe to Andrew's newsletter: https://andrew2ec.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Not only was our healthcare system failing us in its job of keeping us healthy for as little dollar and resource costs as possible, now we know it's also failing in its ability to keep us safe from pandemic." Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and David Cutler join the show for a discussion centered around their new book Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation. The two argue that while city life will survive, individual cities face major risks. What happens when offices don't fill back up? How comfortable are companies with employees working from home? What will distinguish between cities that flourish and those that do not? Also addressed: the major inequities in healthcare and our deeply flawed health system, and how in a city, just like the world, our health is all interconnected. Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught microeconomic theory, and occasionally urban and public economics, since 1992. He has served as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He has published dozens of papers on cities economic growth, law, and economics. In particular, his work has focused on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1992. David Cutler has developed an impressive record of achievement in both academia and the public sector. He served as Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University from 1991 to 1995, was named John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences in 1995, and received tenure in 1997. He is currently the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics and was named Harvard College Professor in 2014 until 2019. Professor Cutler holds secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. Professor Cutler was associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for Social Sciences from 2003-2008.

Who knew that that hottest new thing in the early 21st century would be an old thing—the nation state? Nationalism acquired a foul odor in the 20th century, but ever since Brexit and Trump upset the cosmopolites from Berkeley to Brussels, the idea of nationalism has crept back into favor, at least with many conservatives. I’ve written my own short overview of the issue a couple years ago now, but was delighted to spend some time talking with Samuel Goldman of George Washington University about his new book, After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division. Sam offers three portals into thinking about the character of American nationalism, and ends up settling on roughly the same answer I do—that a sensible American nationalism is best anchored in the creedal principles of the country, including especially the Constitution and all that has gone into our constitutional traditions. Needless to say, this legacy is under massive attack today. Sam is the executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program at George Washington University. His first book, God's Country: Christian Zionism in America, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018. In addition to his academic research, Goldman is literary editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Quarterly and a contributing editor at The American Conservative. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

Speaker: Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, St. Cross College, University of Oxford Discussant: Jie Li, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University LECTURE 2 OF 3: AN ERA OF EMOTION? One factor that defines Chinese engagement with the world today is its highly emotional character, in terms of self-presentation that can move from saccharine to shrill at remarkable speed. But emotion is not new – the use of the registers from exhilaration to depression defines the way that China, Japan and the Koreas have chosen to present themselves over the past century, whether through (often highly gendered) lenses of Asianism, revolution, martiality, discourses of “national humiliation,” or of global citizenship. How much of this draws on emotional registers defined by modernity, and how much from a repertoire shaped by a culture with much longer roots? Rana Mitter is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, and a Fellow of St Cross College at the University of Oxford. He is the author of several books, including China’s War with Japan: The Struggle for Survival, 1937-1945 (Penguin, 2013), [US title: Forgotten Ally] which won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, and was named a Book of the Year in the Financial Times and Economist. His latest book is China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard, 2020). His recent documentary on contemporary Chinese politics “Meanwhile in Beijing” is available on BBC Sounds. He is co-author, with Sophia Gaston, of the report “Conceptualizing a UK-China Engagement Strategy” (British Foreign Policy Group, 2020). He won the 2020 Medlicott Medal for Service to History, awarded by the Historical Association. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. The Annual Reischauer Lecture Series is co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Korea Institute, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and Harvard University Asia Center.

Episode Notes For this episode, we are joined by Samuel Goldman, Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom, and director of the Politics & Values Program. Professor Goldman's book After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division is forthcoming this year. We discussed Leo Strauss's lecture "Religion and the Commonweal in the Tradition of Political Philosophy," recently published in American Political Thought. If you liked this episode, please leave us a review! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us on our website. Or, if you would like to read and listen to more of our work, go to www.athwart.org. Image by Crystal Huff via Unsplash. Music courtesy of yn00001 via Musopen

Our guest this month is Maria Tatar, the John L. Loeb Research Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. Maria, who received her Ph.D. from Princeton in 1971, has recently published a book, Fairest of the Them All: Snow White and 21 Tales of Mothers and Daughters, which explores Disney’s Snow White and all of the Snow White-esque folklore found in cultures across the globe. Tatar shifted the focus of her scholarship to folklore in the 1980s and was one of the first American scholars to seriously study fairy tales and folklore. Maria discusses why the theme of mother-daughter jealousy has proved to be so universal, and why fairy tales are retold in new ways with each generation.

Watching our favorite TV shows and movies today, it’s easy to take the relatable characters and familiar settings for granted. But when Henrik Ibsen debuted his play A Doll’s House, realism was a shocking, new approach. Professor Derek Miller discusses what realism can teach us about our reality and how A Doll’s House rocked the 19th century theatre scene. Derek Miller is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He teaches in the English department as well as courses in theater, dance, and media. He is the author of Copyright and the Value of Performance, 1770-1911 and is currently working on a project titled Visualizing Broadway. See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Join the conversation on the Lyceum app.

When talking about classic men’s clothing particularly the American variety, one can’t talk long without bringing up Brooks Brothers. In 2018 Brooks Brothers celebrated its 200th anniversary. In 2020 Brooks filed for bankruptcy.My guest today, like me, is a decades long customer of Brooks Brothers, Dr. Samuel Goldman of George Washington University is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He not only is the literary editor of Modern Age, a journal founded by Russell Kirk, but he recently published an essay on the bankruptcy of Brooks Brothers in First Things magazine called ‘Lamb to the Slaughter.’ Join Dr. Goldman and me as we discuss his article, the history of Brooks Brothers, and its possible future.Samuel Goldman - 'Lamb to the Slaughter'Alan Flusser - 'Alan's Thoughts on Reconstructing Brooks Brothers'Bruce Boyer - 'Boyer On Brooks, 1981'The Triangle Club - The Ivy League LookSpencer Reece - 'The Clerk's Tale'Cultural Debris on Twitter  

Dr. Bleday dives into the findings of a recent study on role of organized religion in treatment with Professor Tyler VanderWeele. Dr. VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

What does it mean for someone to flourish? Flourishing is more than just being happy—although that’s a part of it. But the idea of flourishing expands beyond happiness to look at a person’s overall well-being, taking into account things like life satisfaction or someone’s sense of purpose. That’s why studying flourishing is an interdisciplinary science drawing on public health, philosophy, psychology, and more. In this week’s episode we’re talking to two researchers from Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University who are tackling big questions about flourishing: What does it mean for people to flourish? How do we measure it? And are there things that make people more or less likely to flourish? Our guests are Tyler VanderWeele, director of the Human Flourishing Program and John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard Chan School, and Matthew Wilson, associate director of the Human Flourishing Program and a research associate at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. You can sign up here for a monthly research e-mail from the Human Flourishing Program, or click here to follow them on Twitter. You can also check out the Human Flourishing Blog, hosted by Psychology Today. You can subscribe to Harvard Chan: This Week in Health by visiting iTunes or Google Play and you can listen to it by following us on Soundcloud, and stream it on the Stitcher app or on Spotify. If you’re a fan, we’d appreciate you leaving a rating and review wherever you listen.

What does it mean for someone to flourish? Flourishing is more than just being happy—although that’s a part of it. But the idea of flourishing expands beyond happiness to look at a person’s overall well-being, taking into account things like life satisfaction or someone’s sense of purpose. That’s why studying flourishing is an interdisciplinary science drawing on public health, philosophy, psychology, and more. In this week’s episode we’re talking to two researchers from Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University who are tackling big questions about flourishing: What does it mean for people to flourish? How do we measure it? And are there things that make people more or less likely to flourish? Our guests are Tyler VanderWeele, director of the Human Flourishing Program and John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard Chan School, and Matthew Wilson, associate director of the Human Flourishing Program and a research associate at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Full Transcript: https://hsph.me/flourishingpod

In this episode, Derek Miller, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, discusses his new book, "Copyright and the Value of Performance, 1770-1911," which is published by Cambridge University Press. Miller provides a comprehensive history of the origins and development of the concept of copyright in performance. Among other things, he explains the dialectical relationship between the social and economic "value" of performance in historical context, and how the law reified performance, transforming it from propriety into property. He describes the social entrepreneurs who pioneered the concept of owning performance, and the legal disputes in which courts defined the ontology of drama. And he reflects on how the tension between social and economic value persists in the contemporary concept of the performance right. Miller is on Twitter at @DerekKMiller. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jelani Nelson is Associate Professor of Computer Science John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. We talk about algorithms, programming contests, and Ethiopia. For more information: Jelani Nelson on Quora Jelani Nelson's MIT classes Jelani Nelson's TEDxAddis talk on streaming algorithms Jelani Nelson on EBS TechTalk with Solomon (Part 1 and Part 2) AddisCoder

Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, where she also chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology. Her books include “Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood” and “The Annotated Brothers Grimm.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Maria Tatar — The Great Cauldron of Story: Why Fairy Tales Are for Adults Again.” Find more at onbeing.org.

Dr. Hopi Hoekstra is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Curator of Mammals at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. Concerning her research interests and this lecture, she states: “Our planet is teeming with a stunning display of biological diversity—from star-nose moles to the giant blue morpho butterflies to majestic redwoods and the toxic deathcap mushrooms. How did this diversity evolve? With the recent advent of new DNA sequencing technologies, we are now able to answer this question with unprecedented precision by studying the genetic code. In my lecture, I will present one of the most complete studies of adaptive change in nature—the evolution of camouflaging coloration in mice inhabiting the coastal dunes of Alabama and Florida. Examples such as this are of growing importance for education as we live in a country in which less than half our citizens accept evolution.”