Investing in the Future

How do we connect youth who are struggling to the possibility of a brighter future? We meet them where they are with opportunity and compassion. Youth advocates from the spheres of education, non-profit, and health come together in this engaging conversation to talk about how they implement programs, how they navigate challenges, and how they found their career paths.

This panel is part of the Global Empowerment Summit that aims to activates changemakers around collaborative solutions in the areas of empowerment, education, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and social impact.

Watch Guiding Lost Youth to a Better Future – Global Empowerment Summit 2019.

To watch more, please visit https://uctv.tv/global-empowerment-summit/

Between Cultures

“Despite the current attempts to whitewash U.S. history, ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity is the predominant feature of the U.S. experience.” – Charles Musser

Almost from their inception, motion pictures have dealt with the question of cultural assimilation. This was certainly true in America where many of the country’s film industry founders were themselves either immigrants or the children of immigrants, in particular Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews.

In “Racism in German and American Cinema of the Twenties” Yale University’s renowned film historian and documentarian Charles Musser examines this issue by comparing and contrasting two related films: “The Ancient Law” (1923, Germany) and “The Jazz Singer” (1927, USA). While “The Ancient Law” is largely forgotten by today’s audiences, “The Jazz Singer” achieved lasting fame for being the first (partially) talking picture and lasting notoriety for star Al Jolson’s performance in blackface, deemed racist by modern sensibilities.

In E. A. Dupont’s “The Ancient Law,” the Orthodox Jew Baruch Mayer leaves a shtetl in Galicia for Vienna. Mayer pursues a career as a stage actor, much to the consternation of his conservative parents. Released four years later, Alan Crosland’s “The Jazz Singer” was based in part on a hit play but was also a loose adaptation of the earlier film. Baruch Mayer becomes Al Jolson’s Jakie Rabinowitz, who runs away from his strict cantor father to pursue a career as a cabaret singer after changing his name to Jack Robin. “The Jazz Singer” was an immediate hit and made Jolson a star overnight. Musser’s research refutes the commonly-held notion that Jolson was himself a racist, citing his and the film’s popularity with African American audiences at the time. Jolson was considered a friend by the African American community who advocated hiring black actors for stage roles, and his blackface performances were seen as positive portrayals by the very people we assume were offended.

Further, Musser argues that the depictions of the assimilation process in both films were essentially optimistic. In each case the protagonist is able to maintain or reclaim their cultural identity in spite of prevailing attitudes, and to cross the line between two uneasily co-existing cultures without the necessity of fully assimilating into either. Both films are also idealistic in the sense that they downplay the toxicity of racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia. Nevertheless, they (sadly) retain their relevance in the modern world.

Watch — Racism in German and American Cinema of the Twenties: From The Ancient Law to The Jazz Singer with Charles Musser – Holocaust Living History Workshop

Impact of Early Life Deprivation

Unlike most other animals, much of human brain development and maturation occurs after birth, a process that continues into early adulthood. This unusual pattern allows for greater influences of environment and culture on the emergence of the adult mind.

This series of programs from the recent CARTA symposium addresses the interactive contributions of nature and nurture in this process, ranging from experiments by ancient monarchs and lessons from “feral” children of various kinds, to the follow-up on Romanian orphans.

Distinguished speakers address comparative and neurobiological issues which likely played a key role in the origins of the human species and in the evolution of distinct features of our minds.

Browse more programs in Impact of Early Life Deprivation on Cognition: Implications for the Evolutionary Origins of the Human Mind.

The Truth Needs Reinforcements

Maybe it has happened to you. You were talking to friends, or scrolling through Facebook when someone shares an outrageous political news story. You think, “that can’t be right.” After a quick check you confirm the story was actually fabricated by a click farm or satirical website. You might be able to set your friend straight, but what about the larger implications of living in a world where you can’t believe everything, if anything, you read or see.

David Barstow, the new head of UC Berkeley’s investigative journalism program, addressed the challenges facing truth during the Goldman School of Public Policy’s recent board of advisor’s dinner. Barstow examines attacks on the truth from several angles. There is the aforementioned rise of intentionally untruthful news. There is social media, granting anyone unfettered access to the masses. There are deepfakes, new technology allowing people to create increasingly convincing videos of politicians, celebrities and others saying whatever the creator wishes. And on top of it all, there is the rise of public relations firms putting pressure on the economically devastated journalism industry.

Barstow believes we are in a great contest between a world of truth and a kingdom of lies. He shows how investigative reporting can excavate truth from a mountain of deceit, from his work examining President Trump’s finances, to Ronin Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein. Now, the four-time Pulitzer Prize winner hopes to inspire a new generation of journalists.

Watch — The World of Truth vs. The Kingdom of Lies — Goldman School of Public Policy Board of Advisors Dinner Fall 2019

3D Printing with Stem Cells

Transplants are expensive and risky, and donor organs are in short supply. Researchers at UC San Diego are working on technology to change all of that. It’s called bioprinting. In simple terms, bioprinting is 3D printing with living tissue. Researcher Shaochen Chen has been perfecting the process in his lab for years.

Bioprinting is a complex process that takes place in a matter of seconds right before your eyes. Chen’s lab builds their own printing machines, which shine light into a gel the team has developed. Any spot the light hits becomes solid. Because the process uses light, it allows the team to recreate microscopic structures like liver cells or vascular networks with incredible precision.

While the process enables researchers to accurately reproduce biological structures, it’s what’s inside the gel that makes bioprinting truly remarkable. The gel can be filled with stem cells from a potential transplant recipient. Those cells can fuse with tissue in the body as the gel disintegrates, essentially repairing damage with the patient’s own cells. Chen’s lab has shown the process can work in rats with severe spinal cord injuries. Someday, the process could be used in humans to do the same.

Bioprinting is also helpful to researchers in other fields. Chen has teamed up with Alysson Muotri and Karl Wahlin to help them study the connection between the eye and the brain. Their labs are conducting research using organoids – tiny organ-like structures grown from stem cells. They realized in order to effectively study how brain and retinal organoids interact with one another, they need to physically separate them at just the right distance, similar to how they might be separated in the womb. Chen’s lab developed a bioprinted structure to achieve that separation, taking the partnership to the next level.

Watch — 3D Printing with Stem Cells – Shaochen Chen