Ethan Zuckerman, Director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT and principal research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves’ Day of Learning “Thought, Judgment, Action: Choosing to Participate.” Zuckerman illustrates some new ways in which young people are participating and trying to affect change, and discusses how to most effectively build movements.

Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University and Chair of the Facing History Board of Scholars, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves’ Day of Learning (2015) “Thought, Judgment, Action: Choosing to Participate.” Appiah describes and defines the concept of honor, and how it can be used to bring about social change.

Jon Sawyer, founding Director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves’ Day of Learning: Confronting Evil in Individuals and Societies. Sawyer describes how the Pulitzer Center does, uses new media and platforms to expand the reach of traditional print journalism, engage new audiences, and sustain the conversation around the issues that it covers.

Jeffrey Burds, professor of History at Northeastern University, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves' Day of Learning: Confronting Evil in Individuals and Societies. Burds examines the "microhistory" of the events in Lvov, Ukraine during the summer of 1941 that led to the massacre of thousands of Jews.  

Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves’ Day of Learning: Confronting Evil in Individuals and Societies. Moreno Ocampo describes the importance of international law in preventing atrocities by illustrating examples, including the trials at Nuremburg and the Junta Trial in Argentina. He explains that the role of law in society is to clarify limits of behavior and provide incentives to behave well.

Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves’ Day of Learning: Confronting Evil in Individuals and Societies. Pagels explains that many interpretations of evil throughout history are inspired by the Book of Revelation, and she uses artistic depictions to describe the events of the story. She then illustrates examples of people using the imagery from the Book of Revelation at different times of war to justify their position and vilify their enemy.

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Assistant Professor of Education, Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves’ Day of Learning: Confronting Evil in Individuals and Societies. Immodino-Yang uses examples from experiments she has run to describe some of her findings about how humans relate physical actions they see or perform and emotions they feel.She then explains the implications that these findings have for modern education. Immordino-Yang is an affective neuroscientist and human development psychologist who studies the development of social emotion and self-awareness across cultures, and connections to social resilience and morality.

Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy at New York University, delivers a talk at Facing History and Ourselves’ Day of Learning: Confronting Evil in Individuals and Societies. Appiah demonstrates the difficulties philosophers in the 18th century faced in determining how natural evil (natural disasters, for example) was possible in a world created by an omnipotent, loving God, and describes the ways in which some philosophers sought to respond to this problem.

Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine describes her experience during the first days of integration at Central High School.

Kwame Anthony Appiah from Princeton University describes the three basic principles of ethics and applies them to personal and group identities, illustrating how ethics can help shape the way we think about and approach diverse identities. While he acknowledges that people have used identity to place limits and negative associations onto a group ofpeople, Appiah also demonstrates how we can think about identities in a positive way.