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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Birmingham, Alabama -/- Cost Benefit of Homeland Security -/- Eisenhower-Nixon Relationship – February 18, 2018

First, we’ll revisit the 1920 founding of Black History Month and the pivotal civil rights campaign in Birmingham. [ dur: 12 mins. ]

  • V.P. Franklin is the Distinguished Professor of History at University of California, Riverside. He is the author of Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths: Autobiography and the Making of the African-American Intellectual Tradition as well as the editor of Journal of African American History.

Next, our guests suggest the government may be overreacting. We are joined by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart, authors of, Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security. [ dur: 16 mins. ]

  • John Mueller is a Research Scientist and Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University and author of Retreat from Doomsday and War, Presidents and Public Opinion.
  • Mark Stewart is a Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Center for Infrastructure, Performance and Reliability at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Finally, for President’s Day, we’ll take a peek inside the strange political marriage of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon and how their terms shaped U.S. politics and policy. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

  • Jeffery Frank is a journalist and the author of Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Global Arms Trade -/- Poverty, Inequality and Social Mobility – February 11, 2018

First, a look into the murky world of the global arms trade and its cost to society, democracy and security. Andrew Feinstein ( link to his wiki page ) is author of The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade and Corruption Watch [ dur: 28 mins. ]

Then on the Scholars’ Circle, we look at poverty, inequality, and social mobility – both here in the U.S. and worldwide. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

  • Lane Kenworthy ( wiki page ) is a Professor of Sociology & Political Science at University of Arizona. He is the author of Progress For the Poor.
  • David A. Smith is a Professor of Sociology at UC Irvine. He is the author of Third World City.
  • Gregory Clark is Professor & Chair, Department of Economics, UC Davis. He is the author of Farewell To Alms.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Water Rights, Scarcity and Water use in Perspective – February 4, 2018

While water is a basic human right, some 3 billion people face water scarcity and some countries are running out of water. We’ll explore the realities of water. [ dur: 34 mins. ]

  • Barbara Cosens is a Professor with the University of Idaho College of Law and the Waters of the West Graduate Program. She is the author of Indigenous Water Justice, The Adaptive Water Governance Project: Assessing Law, Resilience and Governance in Regional Socio-Ecological Water Systems Facing a Changing Climate, and Truth or Consequences: Settling Water Disputes in the Face of Uncertainty.
  • Rick Hogeboom is Executive Director of The Water Footprint Network. He is a Ph. D. candidate at the University of Twente in Netherland.

Then, how much water is in the jeans we wear or the meals we eat? How our everyday decisions can alleviate the water crisis. Thomas Kostigan discusses his book, the Green Blue Book. [ dur: 22 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Thomas Kostigen is an author, journalist, and environmentalist. He is the author of The Green Blue Book: The Simple Water-Savings Guide to Everything in Your Life, The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time and The Big Handout

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Outcome from Investigating the President of USA -/- Parasites affect human behavior – January 28, 2018

First, what might be next in U.S. politics in light of the latest developments?  Last week, we discussed where the U.S. is headed under the Trump presidency, and whether it might begin to resemble authoritarian states. In this hour, in light of the latest revelations in the special investigation by Robert Mueller, we continue our conversation with our experts. What are the consequences should the investigation come to a head? [ dur: 42 mins. ]

  • Louis Michael Seidman is a Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law School. He is the author of Silence and Freedom, On Constitutional Disobedience and Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review.
  • Sanford Levinson is a Professor of Political Science and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) and Constitutional Faith.
  • Mark Peterson is Professor of Public Policy, Political Science Law at UCLA. He is the author of Legislating Together: The White House and Capital Hill from Eisenhower to Reagan and the editor of Healthy Markets? The New Competition in Medical Care.

Then, we end with the question, is our behavior free will or is it partly due to parasites? New science shows how parasites change behaviors throughout the animal kingdom. What does that mean for human behavior? [ dur: 14 mins. ]

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Constitution and Unprecedented Political Power in USA -/- Science of Sleep – January 21, 2018

First, Unprecedented times in the U.S.A. Is the country facing an existential crisis? And if so, what might effect the outcome? [ dur: 24 mins. ]

  • Louis Michael Seidman is a Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law School. He is the author of Silence and Freedom, On Constitutional Disobedience and Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review.
  • Sanford Levinson is a Professor of Political Science and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) and Constitutional Faith.
  • Mark Peterson is Professor of Public Policy, Political Science Law at UCLA. He is the author of Legislating Together: The White House and Capital Hill from Eisenhower to Reagan and the editor of Healthy Markets? The New Competition in Medical Care.

Then, Why do we sleep? What is its purpose? And what actually happens during sleep? [ dur: 34 mins. ]

  • Marcos G. Frank is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Washington State University-Spokane. He is the author of The mystery of sleep function: current perspectives and future directions, The role of sleep in memory consolidation and brain plasticity: dream or reality? and Sleep enhances plasticity in the developing visual cortex
  • Graham H. Diering is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of Homer1a drives homeostatic scaling-down of excitatory synapses during sleep, and Regulation of dendritic spine growth through activity-dependent recruitment of the brain-enriched Na+/H+ exchanger NHE5

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – History, Law and the Trump Presidency – January 14, 2018

In this hour, the showdown between Robert Mueller’s independent investigation and the President in historic and legal context.

The year 2018 may be one of the most important years in American history, says one of our next guests. Constitutional law professor Louis Michael Seidman argues that what happens in 2018 may determine whether or not we still have a coherent country in the U.S.A. What are those determinants? And what might actually happen? What are the constitutional issues—good and bad—that are contributing to the crisis that the USA seems to find itself in. We spend the hour with three experts on American history and law. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

  • Louis Michael Seidman is a Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law School. He is the author of Silence and Freedom, On Constitutional Disobedience and Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review.
  • Sanford Levinson is a Professor of Political Science and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) and Constitutional Faith.
  • Jennifer Frost is Professor of American History at University of Auckland, NZ. She is the author of An Interracial Movement of the Poor: Community Organizing and the New Left in the 1960s and Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism (American History and Culture).

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Propaganda in democratic society -/- Post-Truth Society – January 7, 2018

First, how does propaganda work, particularly in democratic settings? How does propaganda in a democratic state differ from propaganda in an authoritarian state? This is part two of our two part interview with Professor Jason Stanley. Part one can be found here. [ dur: 29 mins. ]

  • Jason Stanley is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of How Propaganda Works , Know How and Knowledge and Practical Interests (Lines of Thought)

Then, some call it post-truth society. With increased media consolidation, fake news and plummeting trust in media, what needs to be done? [ dur: 29 mins. ]

  • Victor Pickard is Associate Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at Pennsylvania State University. He is the co-editor of Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights (with Robert McChesney), The Future of Internet Policy (with Peter Decherney), America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and The Future of Media Reform
  • Robert Entman is Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is the author of The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America (with Andrew Rojecki), Projections of Power and Scandal and Silence: Media Responses to Presidential Misconduct

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Propaganda in democratic society -/- Silencing science, how and why – December 31, 2017

First, how does propaganda work, particularly in democratic settings? This is part 1 of our 2 part interview with Professor Jason Stanley. ( Hear Part 2 )[ dur: 26 mins. ]

  • Jason Stanley is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of How Propaganda Works , Know How and Knowledge and Practical Interests (Lines of Thought)

Then, what are the ways cience is being silenced? And to what end? We gain insight from Professor Shaun Hendy. [ dur: 32 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit:  TheBigQ

  • Shaun Hendy, Professor of Physics at University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of Silencing Science.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Compassion, a Human response – December 24, 2017

Why did soldiers on the front line of one of the deadliest wars lay down their arms and play soccer with the very men they were supposed to shoot? We’ll revisit the Christmas truce of 1914 with Stanely Weintraub, author of, Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce. [ dur: 23 mins. ]

Then, on the Scholars’ panel, we explore the Science of Compassion. What is it and how does it impact society? Can we learn to be compassionate? [ dur: 35mins. ]

  • Iain Wilkinson is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. He is the author of Suffering: A Sociological Introduction and Anxiety in a Risk Society
  • Dr. Paul Gilbert is the head of the Mental Health Research Unit as well as Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby. His books include Compassion-Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features and The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life’s Challenges
  • Dr James R. Doty is a Clinical Professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University and Founder and Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. He is the co-author of Surgical Disorders of the Sacrum

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Culture War by CIA in 1950’s against French cultural left -/- Code Economy and Future of Work – December 17, 2017

Why were CIA agents reading French philosophy? [ dur: 22mins. ]

  • Gabriel Rockhill is a philosopher, cultural critic and political theorist. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University and Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop at the Sorbonne. In this interview, we ask about his published paper The CIA Reads French Theory: On The Intellectual Labor of Dismantling The Cultural Left. In it, he focused on the reasoning behind why the CIA wanted to dismantle cultural left in France soon after the end of World War II. He is the author of Counter-History of the Present: Untimely Interrogations into Globalization, Technology, Democracy, Interventions in Contemporary Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics and Radical History and the Politics of Art.

What is the Code Economy and what does it have to do with the future of work. Some people argue that machines will take over jobs. But our guest argues that perhaps humanity will reinvent work in a way that’s more aligned with what it means to be human. [ dur: 36mins. ]

  • Philip Auerswald is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. He is the author of The Code Economy: A Forty-Thousand Year History, The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Economy and he is the editor of Iraq, 1990-2006 3 Volume Set: A Diplomatic History Through Documents.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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