Students, administrators and academic researchers demonstrate the value of learning music in school as they show improvements in English and Math test scores, class attendance rates, cognitive development, self-esteem and the ability to work with others. Featured are Francisco Escobedo, the superintendent of the Chula Vista Elementary School District; UC San Diego cognitive scientists Terry Jernigan and John Iversen; and young musicians participating in the Community Opus Project, an in-school and after school music program led by Dalouge Smith, the president and CEO of the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory.

In his new book, Anatomy of Malice: The Enigma of the Nazi War Criminals, author Joel Dimsdale draws on decades of experience as a psychiatrist and the dramatic advances within psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience since the Nuremberg Trials to take a fresh look at four Nazi war criminals: Robert Ley, Hermann Goring, Julius Streicher and Rudolf Hess. Dimsdale, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego, is presented by the UC San Diego Library.

Yusef Komunyakaa, an internationally renowned poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for "Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems," reads and discusses his work while writer-in-residence at UC Santa Barbara. Recorded on 03/01/2017.

Author and legendary athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar describes the cultural and historical influences that led him to write several best-selling books, "along with some basketball on the side," in this introspective and wide-ranging conversation with veteran journalist Dean Nelson. Abdul-Jabbar shares stories from his most recent book, "Coach Wooden and Me," about his 50-year friendship with the late UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, in this event presented by the 2018 Writer's Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. 

The Last Gift study aims to understand where and how HIV hides in the human body when a person with HIV is taking HIV medications. The Last Gift study tackles these aims by studying people with HIV who are terminally ill from a disease other than HIV, like cancer, ALS, or heart disease. The study follows these volunteers with regular blood draws before the person dies and then examines multiple tissues throughout their bodies after death. From these samples, investigators hope to understand how HIV remains hidden from both the person's immune system and from current HIV therapy. Results from these studies are designed to help develop ways to clear these reservoirs with future therapies. Dr. Davey Smith, Professor of Medicine and Chief of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at UCSD discusses the study and its medical and ethical implications.

Celebrate the launch of the Women Waging Peace Network at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego as emcee and US Ambassador Swanee Hunt leads a panel of peacemakers marking the success of the more than 1,000 women from around the world who have joined together to serve as negotiators, experts, advocates, policy makers, and other roles crucially needed in peace processes. The Women Waging Peace Network was founded by Ambassador Hunt and developed into a preeminent global network of women leaders by Hunt Alternatives and the Institute for Inclusive Security.

What is spirituality and spiritual health? How can we effectively assess our own spirituality and identify spiritual distress in ourselves and others? Douglas Ziedonis, MD, MPH, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, discusses the link between healthy aging and spirituality.

Cosmologist and author of "Losing the Nobel Prize" Brian Keating tells the inside story of BICEP2's mesmerizing discovery and the scientific drama that ensued in this interview with science fiction author David Brin. Keating describes a journey of revelation and discovery, bringing to life the highly competitive, take-no-prisoners, publish-or-perish world of modern science. Along the way, he provocatively argues that the Nobel Prize, instead of advancing scientific progress, may actually hamper it, encouraging speed and greed while punishing collaboration and bold innovation. In a thoughtful reappraisal of the wishes of Alfred Nobel, Keating offers practical solutions for reforming the prize, providing a vision of a scientific future in which cosmologists may, finally, be able to see all the way back to the very beginning. Recorded on 04/25/2018.

Rev. Traci Blackmon is the Executive Minister of Justice & Local Church Ministries for the United Church of Christ and Senior Pastor of Christ The King United Church of Christ in Florissant, MO. A featured voice with many regional, national, & international media outlets and contributor to print publications, her communal leadership & healing work in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, Jr., in Ferguson, MO has gained her both national & international recognition and audiences, from the White House to the Carter Center to the Vatican. She was appointed to the Ferguson Commission by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon & to the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships for the White House by President Barack Obama. Rev Blackmon's mission is an expanded understanding of church as a sacred launching pad of community engagement and change. Recorded on 04/26/2018.

Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948) was adapted and directed by its star. Mark Rose (English, UCSB) and Jim Kearney (English, UCSB) discuss this cinematic treatment of Hamlet and examples of Shakespeare on film. Recorded on 02/15/2018.

Why are negative emotions out of control? How do we begin to tame them? UC Berkeley Professor Charis Thompson focuses on how we understand and deal with negative emotions in this turbulent moment, when new technologies (e.g. reproductive technology, digital media, robotics, AI) can contribute to the shared environment of polarization. Recorded on 03/13/2018.

When Saturday Night Live debuted in 1975, it gave the sketch/variety show format a twist, offering high-concept comedy sketches and political satire that attracted a younger audience than its competitors on late night television. It also featured pioneering work by female comedians. Laraine Newman, a member of the show's legendary original cast, talks about the show and the work of women comedians on television. Recorded on 04/12/2018.

How it is possible for imagination to have practical social effects? The great potential size of human societies, in contrast to those of other primates, is due to a kind of shared imagination of which kinship and religion are important examples, says Maurice Bloch, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. Bloch says that the shared imaginary emerges in normal life at certain moments yet is still governed by the potential of imagination. The lecture is illustrated by Bloch's experience of an isolated village in Madagascar. Recorded on 06/04/2018.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar-, Golden Globe-, and Emmy-winning actress, appeared in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001. After a recent screening at UC Santa Barbara, she discussed the film and more. Recorded on 05/19/2018.