Tag Archives: Peace

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle-Rwanda-Genocide-Anniversary-/-How-to-Stop-Cruelty-of-Armed-Conflict-April 19th, 2015

First, in remembrance of the 21st Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, we revisit the tragedy with retired Lieutenant-General and Senator​ ​Roméo Dallaire who witnessed the atrocities first-hand.

  • Roméo Dallaire is a retired lieutenant-general and senator. In 1993, LGen Dallaire was appointed Force Commander for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), where he witnessed the country descend into chaos and genocide, leading to the deaths of more than 800,000 Rwandans.

Since his retirement, he has become an outspoken advocate for human rights, genocide prevention, mental health and war-affected children. He founded The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, an organization committed to ending the use of child soldiers worldwide. He is the author of Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda and They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children: The Global Quest to Eradicate the Use of Child Soldiers.

Next, war and armed conflict are declining on the global level, however atrocities, cruelty and lethal violence continue in many parts of the world. What justifies human cruelty? What is driving people to commit lethal violence and what can bystanders and others do to prevent their continuation?

  • Ervin Staub is a Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Founding Director of its ​Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence. He i​​s the author of The ​R​oots of ​E​vil: The ​O​rigins of ​G​enocide and ​O​ther ​G​roup ​Violence, The ​Psychology of ​G​ood and ​E​vil: Why ​Children, ​Adu​​lts and ​G​r​​oups ​H​el​p​ and ​H​arm ​O​ther​s and his recently published book The ​R​oots of ​G​ood​nes​s​ and ​R​e​s​ist​ance to ​Evil: Inclusive ​C​aring, ​M​oral ​C​ou​r​age, ​Altruism ​B​o​r​n of ​S​uffering, ​A​c​t​ive ​B​ystandership and ​H​e​r​oism.
  • David Livingstone Smith is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. He is the author of Less Than Human: Why we Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others.
  • John Kaag is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is the author of Neoconservative Images of the United Nations: American Domestic Politics and International Cooperation.

Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle-1914-Christmas-Truce-/-Redefine-Democracy-/-Design-of-Cities-Dec. 28th, 2014

This week on the Scholars’ Circle:

First, 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, this December marks the 100th anniversary. [ dur: 24 mins. ]

  • Stanley Weintraub is Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at Penn State University. His books include 11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944, Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, Long Day’s Journey into War: December 7, 1941 and A Stillness Heard Round the World: The End of the Great War, November 1918

Next, author Raj Patel discusses his book, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market, Society and Redefine Democracy. [ dur: 15 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Rajeev Patel is a Research Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy

Finally, how does the design of a city and its architecture affect democracy, community, our psychology and public health? [ dur: 20 mins. ]

  • Jan Gehl is an Architect and is former Professor and Researcher at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. His books include Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space, Cities for People and How to Study Public Life.

Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle-New-Deal-History-/-War-In-Our-Times-Dec. 21st, 2014

First, Michael Hiltzik author of, The New Deal: A Modern History, discusses the politics of the new deal, and what can we learn from the program that reshaped the country. [ dur: 27 mins. ]

  • Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author who has covered business, technology, and public policy for the Los Angeles Times for three decades. He currently serves as the Times’s business columnist and hosts its business blog, The Economy Hub. His books include The New Deal: A Modern History, Colossus: The Turbulent, Thrilling Saga of the Building of Hoover Dam, Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age and The Plot Against Social Security: How the Bush Plan Is Endangering Our Financial Future.

Then, scholars note that the world is waging fewer wars, but that the wars that are waged are more brutal and intractable. How far have we come in the science of making peace? [ dur: 31 mins. ]

  • George Lopez  Vice President and Director of international conflict management  at US Institute of Peace and co-author of Sanctions and the Search for Security: Challenges to UN Action
  • Ervin Staub, Prof. of Psychology University of Massettuces Amherst.  Author of The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others
  • Norrin Ripsman, Professor of  Political Science at Concordia University. Co-author of Globalization and the National Security State

Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Chile’s-toppled-democracy-in-1973-/-Just War-Theory- Sept. 14th, 2014

First, this week marks the anniversary of the September 11th, 1973 coup in Chile that toppled democratically elected Salvador Alende and installed the dictator Augustin Pinoche. We’ll revisit what happened, explore that latest revelations and how Chileans are dealing with their past now. [ dur: 23 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • John Dingus is Professor of Journalism at Columbia University. He is the author of The Condor Years: How Pinochet And His Allies Brought Terrorism To Three Continents and Our Man in Panama: How General Noriega Used the United States- And Made Millions in Drugs and Arms
  • Peter Kornbluh directs the Cuba Documentation Project and the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archives. He is the author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana, and co-author of The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History.

Earlier in the week the Obama administration vowed to destroy ISIS invoking the long held philosophy called the just war theory. What exactly is just war theory? And can it be applied to modern warfare? [ dur: 35 mins. ]

  • Jeff McMahan is a Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He is the author of Killing in War, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life and editor of Ethics and Humanity: Themes from the Philosophy of Jonathan Glover
  • Heather Roff  is a Professor of International Studies at the University of Denver. She is the author of Global Justice, Kant and the Responsibility to Protect: A Provisional Duty (Global Politics and the Responsibility to Protect) .
  • Thomas Gregory is a lecturer of Political Studies at the University of Auckland. He is the author of  “Drones – mapping the legal debate”.

Visit our Store [ Amazon Book Store with links to books authored by our guests on Scholars’ Circle. ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Philanthropic Colonialism / Politics of Emotions – Aug. 3rd, 2014

First, has our society created a “charitable industrial complex?” We speak with Peter Buffet about “philanthropic colonialism” and “conscious laundering.” Buffet is Emmy winning musician, author and philanthropist. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Peter Buffett has an acclaimed career that spans more than 30 years as an Emmy Award winning musician, composer, philanthropist and author. Buffett’s inspiring book, “Life Is What You Make It,” has been translated into over 15 languages. He co-chairs the NoVo Foundation, one of three foundations founded by his father Warren Buffet. His NY Times op-ed titled, The Charitable Industrial Complex.

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, we look at the politics of emotions. How do emotions drive outcomes like ethnic violence, wars and genocide? What roles to fear, anger, resentment and entitlement play in conflict? [ dur: 28 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Roger Petersen is a Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the author of, “Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe,” “Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, Resentment in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe,” and “Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict.”
  • David Altheide is Emeritus Regents’ Professor in the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University. He is the author of, “Terrorism and the Politics of Fear,” “Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis,” and “An Ecology of Communication: Cultural Formats of Control.”
  • Jeff Birkenstein is an Associate Professor in, and chair of, the Department of English at Saint Martin’s University. He is the author of, “Reframing 9/11: Film, Popular Culture and the War on Terror.”

Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Human Rights / Israel / Are We Warlike by Nature – July 27th, 2014

First, what can the history of human rights tell us about the struggles of today. [ dur: 15 mins. ]

  • Michelline Ishay is Professor and the director of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Denver. She is the author of The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era.

Then, Israel’s spiritual crisis and how it effects the Middle East. [ dur: 15 mins. ]

  • Avraham Burg, former speaker of Israel’s parliament. He is author of The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes.

Finally, our panel argues that warring is a relatively new phenomenon in human societies and that human beings are not warlike by nature. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

  • Douglas P. Fry, is Director of Peace, Mediation & Conflict Research at Abo Akademi University, Finland.  He is author of Beyond War : The Human Potential for Peace.
  • Darcia Narvaez, is Professor of Psychology at University of Minnesota. Co-author of Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development: From Research to Practice and Policy.
  • Brian Ferguson, is Professor of  Anthropology  at Rutgers University.  Co-author of  War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare.

Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Worse than War / Peace Between Israel & Palestine – July 13th, 2014

First, we explore eliminationism and genocide in the 20th and 21st century. And address how to prevent and hold those responsible, accountable, with Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Worse than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity.

  • Daniel Jonah Goldhagen was a Professor of Political Science and Social Studies at Harvard University until he decided to devote himself full time to writing. He is the author of, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair, and Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity.

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, what are the requisite pathways to building a real peace between Israel and Palestine?

  • Sami Adwan is Professor of Education at Bethlehem University and the Palestinian Director and Co-Director of Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). His is the author of, Learning Each Other’s Historical Narrative: Palestinians and Israelis, co-author of Comparative Analysis of the Israeli and Palestinian Conflict in History and Civic Education, and Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine.
  • Sarai Aharoni is Professor and research fellow of International Relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is the co-author of, Where Are All the Women? U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325: Gender Perspectives of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
  • Ervin Staub is Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His numerous publications include The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence, The psychology of good and evil: Why children, adults and groups help and harm others, and Overcoming evil: Genocide, violent conflict and terrorism

Your purchase from our store supports our work!
Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Play:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Jan. 19th, 2014

In this hour, is humanity outgrowing planet?

  • Paul R. Ehrlich is president of the Center for Conservation Biology and Bing professor of population studies at Stanford University, author of the Population Bomb, Human Natures: Genes, Culture, and the Human Prospect and A World of Wounds: Ecologists and the Human Dilemma.

Then, while much of the country remembers Martin Luther King, Jr. as primarily a leader of civil rights and desegregation and a great orator, our next guests say he stood for so much more. Many aspects of his life, legacy & philosophy remain either unknown or conveniently forgotten

  • David Garrow, Professor of History and Law at University of Pittsburgh, author of FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr: From “Solo” to Memphis
  • Joshua Inwood is Professor of Geography and Africana Studies in Geography Department, University of Tennessee. His publications include, Nonkilling Geography, Searching for the Promised Land: Examining Dr. Martin Luther King’s Concept of the Beloved Community,and Street naming and the politics of belonging: spatial injustices in the toponymic commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Thomas Jackson, Professor of History at University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is the author of, From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice

Your purchase from our store supports our work!
Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Play:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Dec. 22nd, 2013

In this hour, 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 kill? We’ll revisit the so-called Christmas truce of 1914. [ dur 25 mins. ]

  • Stanley Weintraub, Professor Emeritus historian, Penn State University; Author of Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce.

Then, religion, politics and the so-called God gap. We’ll explore how religion unites and divides us. [ dur: 20 mins. ]

  • David Campbell, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame; co-author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
  • Robert Putnam, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University; co-author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us

Finally, in the midst of so much bad news, what in the world is getting better? We’ll explore the widespread improvements in the world. [ dur: 20 mins. ]

  • Charles Kenney, Sr fellow Center for Global Development. Author of Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding–And How We Can Improve the World Even More

Your purchase from our store supports our work!
Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Play:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

The Scholars’ Circle & Insighters Radio- Dec. 8th, 2013

In this hour, we reflect on Nelson Mandela s life, legacy and the struggle for multiracial democracy in South Africa with Mandela s friend and partner in the struggle, Albie Sachs.

  • Albie Sachs, South African Human rights lawyer and co-authored new constitution of South Africa. He has authored among others, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law.

Then, scholars note that the world is waging fewer wars but that the wars that are waged are more brutal and intractable. How far have we come in the science of making peace?

  • George Lopez  Vice President and Director of international conflict management  at US Institute of Peace and Author of Sanctions and the Search for Security: Challenges to UN Action
  • Ervin Staub, Prof. of Psychology University of Massettuces Amherst.  Author of The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others
  • Norrin Ripsman, Professor of  Political Science at Concordia University. Author of Globalization and the National Security State

Your purchase from our store supports our work!
Visit our Store [ lists books written by each on this panel ]

Play:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS