September 4, 2011
ESB Supports the Boston Book Festival
by Andrea Perrault
This year, the Ethical Society of Boston’s Program committee is promoting a new and
different activity to engage members in a larger, community-wide effort to read and discuss current fiction. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo is part of the Boston Book Festival‘s “One City, One Story” effort. Russo’s short story “The Whore’s Child” will be widely distributed and promoted throughout the Boston area, and a discussion about it with the author will be featured at the festival on October 15th.
ESB will promote and distribute copies of the story, encouraging members and friends to read it and attend the BBF session. We may also choose a time before or after a Sunday program to host our own discussion about the story. Below is a passage about the themes of Russo’s work that highlight its connection to issues we care about at ESB.
“Richard Russo is one of American literature’s foremost chroniclers of small-town life, making him a contemporary heir to the likes of Sinclair Lewis and Sherwood Anderson. His novels are set in fading industrial towns throughout the northeastern United States, and the towns are delineated so precisely that they almost become characters in their own right. Russo pays keen attention to the socioeconomic divisions that structure small-town life, the invisible but palpable lines that determine where people live,
work, study, eat, drink. One of his recurring themes is the way that the decline of the factory town, as it succumbs to the brutal realities of globalization, affects the lives of its citizens who would otherwise be resistant to change. Though the settings and themes of his novels change — academic life in rural Pennsylvania in Straight Man, a tannery that poisons the local river in Bridge of Sighs — Russo has said, ‘Really, what I am writing about in all of these is, class and work.’”
For a fuller description of Russo’s work, use this link:
For more information about the Boston Book Festival, go to
September 18, 2011
Charles Derber, Professor of Sociology at
Charles Derber presents a discussion on his new book, Marx’s Ghost, which shows how right Marx was and where he made mistakes, based on a conversation between Derber and the ghost in London’s Highgate Cemetery (where Marx is buried). Derber will discuss the Marxist perspective on the deep economic crisis and current politics, as well as the rise of a vast surplus population breeding conditions of left or right wing revolution. Real-world alternatives to capitalism that can deal with the economic crisis, the climate crisis and the war system will be fleshed out.
Music: Harel Gietheim, cello, Kanako Nishikawa, piano
September 25, 2011
Sean Faircloth, Executive Director,
Mr. Faircloth will present a specific plan to return America to its secular roots.
Music: Tamar Grader, Piano
October 1, 2011
Location to be determined. Call Doris Berger at (617)277-1839 for information.
October 2, 2011
Dr. Gia Elise Barboza, Assistant Professor of African-American Studies and and Health Science,
Existing definitions of trauma are too narrow and therefore overlook the multiple stressors that youth living in adverse environments face on a daily basis. In this talk, Professor Barboza argues that trauma should be broadly defined, and concludes with a discussion of how to address trauma through a comprehensive youth development program to build on youth’s resilience in a way that leads to recovery.
Music: Key Change – accapella group from Harvard
Board of Trustees meetings are open to all members of the Society. Call Brian King at (781)581-6104 for more information.
October 9, 2011
Senator Eldridge has been cited by the organization Free Speech for People as a leader in Massachusetts who has developed legislation at the state level on corporate contributions to political campaigns. His is a voice for ethics in politics. Sign up for our e-mails or check the website for confirmation.
Music: Fanyue Donn, Piano
October 16, 2011
Gary King, Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor, Director of the ,
Gary King and his colleagues developed a computer-assisted method for the discovery of insightful conceptualizations from unstructured text — a way of “reading” or understanding information in a massive numbers of documents that no unassisted human being could accomplish in a lifetime of effort. Applying this new approach to 64,000 press releases from the U.S. Senate (among other data sets), they discovered and measured “partisan taunting,” a new conceptualization of how members act.
Music: Aduka Usui, violin
October 30, 2011
Kevin Doyle, President of Green Economy and Co-Chair of the Workforce Development Committee of the
Thousands of people throughout New England want to align their spiritual, social, and ecological values with the work they do every day in their professional careers. But is the promise of a “green economy” more hype than hope? Join us as we explore progress and pitfalls in recent efforts to grow good, green jobs for all.
November 5, 2011
Location to be determined. Call Doris Berger at (617)277-1839 for information.