Hazardous Pesticides

Agricultural trade is growing worldwide and with it an agricultural model and agricultural technologies stemming from the green revolution of the 1960s. We are talking about mechanization and the use of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. Sales of pesticides have experienced tremendous growth in recent decades, especially in low income countries. All pesticides entering the market …

Prof. Ilan Pappe

About the speakers Prof. Ilan Pappe is a professor of history at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. He is also the author of the bestselling …

Prof. Joel Beinin

Prof. Joel Beinin, Stanford University Title: Egyptian Popular Culture in Late-Ottoman and Mandate Palestine Summary: Joel Beinin, professor emeritus of history at Stanford University, delivered the Bisan Lecture of March 8th. Beinin’s subject was the strong presence of Egyptian popular culture in Palestine during the first half of the 20th Century. That was a time …

Prof. Juliet Floyd

Prof. Juliet Floyd (Boston University) Title: Revisiting the Turing Test: Humans, Machines, and Phraseology Abstract: In this lecture I offer a re-reading of the Turing Test as a social experiment in human-to-human phraseology.  Turing’s 1936 analysis of computation is reviewed in light of its resonance with Wittgenstein’s Blue and Brown Books; certain objections to the Turing …

Prof. Nergis Mavalvala

  Prof. Nergis Mavalvala, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Title: The Warped Universe: the quest to discover Einstein’s elusive gravitational waves Abstract: The first direct detections of gravitational waves in 2015 launched a new era of gravitational wave astrophysics. I will describe the scientific and human story behind these discoveries that provide a window into some …

Prof. Ivar Ekeland

Abstract: Planet Earth is a complex system, where various worlds (physical, biological, human) and various scales (in time and space) interact. It has been in equilibrium for the past 10,000 years, but in  the last 100 years, developed and developing countries have conducted a real-life experiment by injecting in the atmosphere increasing quantities of carbon …