Living in More Than One World

A nice place to be this week, starting two days ago and running through July 5, is the Aspen Ideas Festival. A large and diverse group of big thinkers from academia, business, law, science, government, nonprofits, the arts, architecture, media and more have converged in Colorado for what looks to be a highly stimulating event. Since most of us can’t be there, the next best thing is following it online at the festival’s website and on the blogs from Atlantic Online. The Atlantic is a co-sponsor of the event, along with the Aspen Institute. Just a handful of the more recognized names from the 200 speakers and moderators: Madeleine Albright, James A. Baker III, Stephen Breyer, David Brooks, Marian Wright Edelman, Thomas L. Friedman, Howard Gardner, Frank Gehry, Alan Greenspan, Sandra Day O’Connor, Tim O’Reilly, Susan Rice, Charlie Rose and Eric Schmidt. You can see the entire list of the speakers and moderators, with photos and thumbnail descriptions, on the festival site. The Aspen Daily News has an interesting piece reflecting on the first day of the festival, and looking to possible highlights from the upcoming speakers. You can view videos from the festival on the Audio Video Library portion of the festival site. One of the several that are available now is Google Looks at the Economy: In Conversation With Eric Schmidt, in which Google’s Chairman of the Board and CEO is interviewed by Kai Ryssdal, host of “Marketplace,” on American Public Media. We are fortunate to live in an age where we can have a virtual experience of these major events (including music and literary festivals, and to some extent, professional conferences) that we can’t attend in person.

I’ve read many references over the years to the BBC’s Reith Lectures, which have been given yearly (except in 1992) since 1948, to “advance public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest,” in honor of the BBC’s first director-general. But I didn’t realize how much material was available on past lectures – and the upcoming series – until finding producer Jennifer Clarke’s BBC Radio 4 May 25 blog post ‘Multiplatforming’ the Reith Lectures. Clarke explains that this year’s lectures, “A New Citizenship,” by Harvard government professor Michael Sandel, in addition to the traditional live lectures and broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, will also have an array of social media and BBC radio, podcast and website activity. Sandel will be continuing a tradition that started with the philosopher Bertrand Russell (“Authority And The Individual”) and that has included many other distinguished lecturers, including the historian Arnold Toynbee (“The World and The West,” 1952), economist John Kenneth Galbraith (“The New Industrial State,” 1966), historian and former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin (“America and The World Experience,” 1975), the poet-playwright Wole Soyinka (“Climate of Fear,” 2004) and the conductor Daniel Barenboim (“In the Beginning Was Sound,” 2006). Sandel’s lectures will be broadcast beginning June 9 on BBC Radio 4, and June 13 on the BBC World Service. You can also listen to the 2008 lectures, “Chinese Vistas,” by Yale professor Jonathan Spence, and selected earlier lectures linked from that page. For the great majority of us who can’t be there in person, this sounds like a great self-education opportunity for the summer and beyond.