Audio Lectures
Listen to audio lectures, see full descriptions of each lecture, and read complete transcripts.
Audio: The Evolution of Big-Game Hunting: Protein, Fat, or Politics
Our ancestors hunted big game for the same reasons some of us drive fancy cars or carry a designer handbag: status. The hunters were hungry for prestige, and the meat was a bonus. The Evolution of Big-Game Hunting: Protein, Fat, or Politics Hallam L...
Audio: Tornadoes, Twin Towers, and Hurricanes: 20 Years of Urban Disaster Clean-up
Roughly every five years since 1992, the United States has experienced major urban destruction, both natural and man-made. Even before the shock has passed, dealing with trash and rubble is a critical part of post-disaster response. How do cities clean up...
Audio: Rags, Bones, and Plastic Bags: Trash in Industrial America
Every human culture leaves some broken pottery and more, which fill the trash dumps that archaeologists study. But the trash of today is a product of industrialization. Rags, Bones, and Plastic Bags: Trash in Industrial America Trash Talk Lecture by Susan...
Audio: Garbage: Learning to Unsee
Garbage is rich with contradictions. It is both intimate and global, ubiquitous and invisible. We generate trash in vast quantities but few of us know where it goes, or how it gets there, or what happens to it next. Garbage: Learning to Unsee Trash Talk...
Audio: Products, Plastics, Putrefaction, and Power
The majority of urban trash is plastic or biodegradable. What is the best way to manage these materials? Businesses and environmentalists are battling it out right now. Products, Plastics, Putrefaction, and Power Trash Talk Public Lecture by Samantha...
Audio: Stuff by the Yard: Campus Materials Management
Harvard generates as much trash as a small city, with a wide spectrum of refuse from residences, dining facilities, offices, clinics, and research laboratories. How does the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university recycle and reduce waste? Stuff by the...
Audio: Waste Ecologies: The Landscape of Energy Cycling, Material Movements, and Resource Exchanges
The golden age of mass disposal is now being supplanted by the age of mass recycling. Managing waste production has become an economic and ecologic imperative. Waste Ecologies: The Landscape of Energy Cycling, Material Movements, and Resource Exchanges...
Audio: Four Thousand Years Ago in Coastal Peru: America's First Civilization
Could the ancient city of Caral in Peru be the oldest city in the Western Hemisphere? Four Thousand Years Ago in Coastal Peru: America's First Civilization? Gordon R. Willey Lecture by Dr. Michael E. Moseley Professor in the Department of Anthropology at...