Video of Programs (search and sort)

Franklin, Jefferson, and the Common Man
12/28/2014
Dave Collamer

Presentation by HGP member Dave Collamer. Humanists in general support democratic principles, especially the responsibility of common people to solve problems, plot their destiny, and govern the republic.  To what extent did the Framers really believe this possible? Collamer looks at the attitudes of the Framers, especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to see what they were really thinking.

Complexity
12/14/2014
Melanie Mitchell

Computer scientist Melanie Mitchell presents examples of how the interdisciplinary field of complex systems science is discovering principles underlying different natural and technological systems. As science probes the nature of life and society, what it finds is complexity. The behavior of social insects, the genome, and the structure of the World Wide Web -- these are examples of systems that challenge scientific understanding. Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. She has published books and papers on artificial intelligence, in cognitive science, and about complex systems.

Land Ownership and Democracy
11/30/2014
Jeff Strang

Jeff Strang presents an overview of the history of U.S. land and natural resource ownership, development of democracy, and economics of land ownership. He also outlines a proposal for more democratic ownership of land, related to a bill scheduled for the 2015 Oregon legislature proposing a Constitutional amendment to be put on the ballot.

From Citizens to Enemy Aliens
11/23/2014
Kimberly Jensen

Presentation by Kimberly Jensen. The full title is “From Citizens to Enemy Aliens: Oregon Women, Marriage and the Surveillance State during the First World War.” Federal legislation in effect from 1907 to 1922 required women who were U.S. citizens and who married men of other nations to forfeit their U.S. citizenship and take on the status of their husbands. During the First World War, some 400 Oregon women became "enemy aliens" as a result of their marriage to German men in the state. Kept under surveillance by state officials, many of the women resisted actions against them and definitions of themselves as enemy aliens. Ms. Jensen is professor of history and gender studies at Western Oregon University.

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