The next Bisan Lecture webinar will take place on Wednesday, November 9th at 6pm Palestine time (5pm Central European Time, 11am US Eastern time) – ATTENTION unusual schedule. We will have the pleasure to welcome Prof. Esther Duflo (MIT, Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences in 2019) who will speak on Good economics for warmer times. You can register for the event on Zoom here.
Dear Colleagues,
On October 12th, Professor Nancy Kanwisher (MIT) gave the second lecture of the 2022-2023 Bisan Lecture Series. She described her research into the diverse roles in perception played by different areas in the cerebral cortex. The advent of functional MRI scanning has vastly increased the detail of our knowledge over the past thirty years. This detail has revealed many surprising aspects of brain function. Some examples: Perception of spoken language, written language, and music, occupy three different regions of the cortex. Linguistic skills in multiple languages occupy the same region. There is a segment of the cortex uniquely devoted to understanding what another human being is thinking. The facial recognition area functions equally in the sighted and the congenitally blind. This research was presented as a road-map for future research; we are just scratching the surface. You can watch the video recording here. The lecture slides are available here. To extend the enjoyment of this excellent talk, you can check out Prof. Kanwisher’s course on the human brain here.
We are pleased to announce that the next Bisan Lecture webinar will take place on Wednesday, November 9th at 6pm Palestine time (5pm Central European Time, 11am US Eastern time) – ATTENTION unusual schedule. We will have the pleasure to welcome Prof. Esther Duflo (MIT, Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences in 2019) who will speak on
Title: Good economics for warmer times
You can register for the event on Zoom here.
Abstract: As cop27 began in Egypt, with the issue of loss and fines finally at the forefront, this lecture will explore how both the causes and impacts of climate change are disproportionately impacting poor and rich countries, and what this implies for policies and politics.
Biographical Sketch: Esther Duflo
Esther Duflo is a professor at MIT and at Collège de France. She is the second woman to have received the Nobel prize in economics (2019), together with her husband, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer, ten years after Elinor Ostrom (2009). Both women have been pathbreaking by turning their attention to non-Western societies, with a view of studying non-market mechanisms and alleviating poverty. Professor Duflo has introduced new methods into the field of development ecomics, randomized controlled trials (RCT), with a view of eschewing theoretical discussions in favor of experimental facts. Her work has been hugely influential, both on the scientific side, by the careful design of experiments and their statistical interpretation, and on the public policy side, because of their practical and often counter-intuitive conclusions.
This lecture is sponsored by the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Scientists for Palestine and the Center for Palestinian Studies of Columbia University
Hoping to see many of you at this webinar, we send you our best regards.
The Bisan Lecture Series Steering Committee
Next BLS webinar
– Wednesday December 14, 2022, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Daniel Pauly (University of British Columbia)
– Wednesday January 11, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Mahmood Mamdani (Columbia University)
– Wednesday February 8, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Juliet Floyd (Boston University)
Title: Revisiting the Turing Test
– Wednesday March 8, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Marina Warner (Mythographer, novelist and independent scholar)
– Wednesday April 12, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Mark Smith (University of Missouri)
To receive BLS announcements, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.
BLS Statement of purpose
In concert with Scientists for Palestine and the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and in keeping with their joint commitment to full integration of Palestine in the global community of learning, the Bisan Lecture Series sponsors discourses on subjects of cultural, scientific, and societal importance by leading research experts and public intellectuals of varied heritage and viewpoint. The interactive webinars are free and open to the public, and recordings of each will be posted soon afterward.