Bhuvnesh Jain and Michael Weisberg discuss the mystery of Dark Matter and the use of some of the world’s largest telescopes to search for it. The lecture also features a screening of a partial rough cut of Weisberg’s new documentary, which follows a team of students searching for Dark Matter.

Russia and the West are locked in a fierce struggle.  Why?  And what effect is it having on our politics?  Professor Orenstein will answer these questions and discuss how Russia’s hybrid war on the West is affecting not only the U.S., but many other European countries, some of whom have been dealing with it for longer.  A look at the problems they have suffered provides important insight into and context for understanding our own problems.

Sophia Rosenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, considers three key questions for our "post-truth" moment: How, historically, have democracy and truth been connected to one another? Why is that relationship seemingly in peril now in the U.S. and in much of the world? And what, if anything, can be done?

As right-wing nationalism and authoritarian populism gain momentum across the world, people worry that democratic principles are under threat, but Professor Michael Hanchard argues that the current rise in xenophobia and racist rhetoric is nothing new. In this lecture, Hanchard will discuss how marginalization is reinforced in modern politics, and why these contradictions need to be fully examined if the dynamics of democracy are to be truly understood.