UC San Diego – Page 30

The Literary Imagination with Jonathan Lethem and Kim Stanley Robinson

We may not often think of the role imagination plays in our society and in our everyday lives. Without imagination, would the internet exist? Would Edison have invented the light bulb? Would primitive man have invented the wheel?

Literature is a field where the imagination is encouraged to run freely. Science fiction in particular pushes the imagination to its limits. UC San Diego recently created a center devoted to this creative aspect of our minds, dedicated to the very imaginative author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke.

Watch “The Literary Imagination with Jonathan Lethem and Kim Stanley Robinson” to hear these two science fiction authors discuss the literary imagination in honor of the grand opening of UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination.

See what other literature programs are available on UCSD-TV.

Richard Dreyfuss on Civic Duty

The trend of declining voter turn out has been ongoing for over a century. In the most recent presidential election, only 57.5% of people eligible to vote actually voted.

What is causing this decline in our sense of civic duty?

It is proven that younger generations are less inclined to vote, but in the 2012 election not even half of the youngest generation of eligible voters made it to the ballot box.

According to a report from the United States Census Bureau, voter rates increase with age. In the most recent election only 41.2 percent for 18- to 24-year-olds voted, compared to 71.9 percent for those 65 and older.

Actor Richard Dreyfuss seems to think that it is the duty of the older generation to reverse this voter apathy. At UC San Diego’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, he introduced the Dreyfuss Initiative, a plan to better teach civics in schools with the hope that children will better understand our democracy before it is their to turn to run it.

Watch “Richard Dreyfuss: Common Sense is not Common” and don’t forget to register to vote!

See what other programs are available on education and society.

The Resurgence of Manufacturing

The most recent presidential election brought the issue of outsourcing to the forefront of Americans’ minds as citizens became concerned that they were losing their jobs to factories in China or Bangladesh.

However, Peter Cowhey, Dean of the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego, tells us that the U.S. remains the largest manufacturer based on total output.

As rumors stir about the de-industrialization of America, Cowhey explains that the rate of manufacturing only seems to be drastically declining, because it is not growing as fast as the rest of our economy.

In “The Resurgence of Manufacturing in the United States,” Cowhey is joined by Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, Vizio CEO Willliam Wang, former Gateway CEO Ted Waitt and journalist James Fallows to discuss the trends of manufacturing as well as strategies for keeping and creating jobs in the United States.

For more videos with Peter Cowhey, click here or see what other programs on globalization are available.

Tuning into the Sounds of Our Dynamic Planet

Did you know there are unheard sounds in the Earth’s atmosphere that can travel all the way around the world?

Dr. Michael Hedlin of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography explains that when massive events occur in the atmosphere low frequency sounds are generated that can be received all over the earth, depending on the magnitude of the event. Much like when there is an earthquake and seismic waves can be read on seismometers around the planet.

Although we cannot hear these sounds because of their low frequencies, there is still a lot they can tell us about things like volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts.

Listen in as Michael Hedlin discusses what we can learn from the Earth’s atmosphere’s frequencies in “Listening to Earth’s Atmosphere: Tuning into the Sounds of Our Dynamic Planet”

Check out other videos in the Perspectives on Ocean Science Series presented by Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The Psychology of War Criminals

What does it mean to be evil?

When considering the evil events in history, the Holocaust remains one of the most notorious.

Dr. Joel Dimsdale, professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego, began his work 40 years ago studying survivors of Nazi concentrations camps, uncovering strategies of coping that helped these victims survive. However, after a visit from a Nuremberg executioner, Dimsdale began to study the perpetrators of these crimes instead.

In “The Anatomy of Malice: Rorschach Results from Nuremberg War Criminals,” Dimsdale searches for the answers to questions like: How could the Nazi’s do what they did? Were they criminally insane? Psychopaths? Suffering from delusions, or some other mental disorder?

In this presentation, part of the Holocaust Living History Workshop, Dimsdale examines archival data of Rorschach ink blot tests administered at the Nuremberg trial in an attempt to uncover those answers.

Watch other programs in history and the Holocaust on UCSD-TV.