Scholars’ Circle – Book interview – Madison’s Militia: The Hidden History of the Second Amendment – June 4, 2023

June 4, 2023 host

What did James Madison mean when he wrote the Second Amendment? What was his motivation? In a new book, our guest says the Second Amendment was intended to protect the states against slave insurrection, not to protect individual liberties. We explore the “original intent” of this controversial amendment to the US Constitution. And look at the epic debate between James Madison of the Federalists and Patrick Henry of the Anti-federalists and how they framed the motivations behind the Second Amendment. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Carl T. Bogus is Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law. He is the author of the book we are discussing today Madison’s Militia: The Hidden History of the Second Amendment (Oxford University Press 2023). He is also the editor of The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms and the author of The Hard, Simple Truth about Gun Control and Gun Control and America’s Cities: Public Policy and Politics.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Food Insecurity and Famine , why they persist? – May 28, 2023

May 28, 2023 host

Famine and food insecurity threaten the lives of nearly a billion people worldwide. And the number of people living in food insecurity is increasing. Why is there food insecurity and what can be done? How much is food insecurity caused by environmental factors and how much is it caused by conflict? We will explore the conflict shock
that creates food insecurity particularly in East Africa , the Horn of Africa, and effective, efficient ways to address concerns of famine and food insecurity. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Daniel Maxwell is the Henry J. Leir Professor in Food Security at the Friedman School of Nutrition and Research Director at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. He is the author of Understanding the Humanitarian World with Kirsten Gelsdorf, Famine in Somalia: Competing Imperatives, Collective Failures with Nisar Majid and Humanitarian Challenges and Implications for Famine Early Warning Systems in Accountability for Mass Starvation.
Bill Moseley is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography at Macalester College. He is the author of “Climate crisis in Africa exposes real cause of hunger – colonial food systems that leave people more vulnerable” and “The trouble with drought as an explanation for famine in the Horn and Sahel of Africa“.
Bilal Butt is Associate Professor of Sustainability and Development at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Neoliberalism, Conservation and Dispossession in Kenya’s Arid Lands,” “Commoditizing the Safari and Making Space for Conflict: Place, Identity and Parks in East Africa” and Pastoral herd management, drought coping strategies, and cattle mobility in Southern Kenya”.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Capital Punishment in US is explored as it faces ethical, political and legal concerns – May 21, 2023

May 22, 2023 host

The death penalty in the United States has faced increased opposition based on ethical, political, and legal concerns. Several states have outlawed it, but the federal government has returned to its use with a feverish wave of state executions last year. We discuss the implications of the use of the death penalty in the US and examine additional forms of extreme sentencing, such as life without parole. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Frank R. Baumgartner is the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence and Deadly Justice: A Statistical Portrait of the Death Penalty.
Lee Kovarsky is Bryant Smith Chair in Law and Co-Director of the Capital Punishment Center at The University of Texas in Austin School of Law. He is the author of The Trump Executions and the co-author of The Death Penalty: Concept and Insight.
Jenny-Brooke Condon is a Professor of Law in the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School. She directs the Equal Justice Clinic. She is the author of When Cruelty is the Point: Constitutional Restraints and Remedies for Family Separation and Denialism and the Death Penalty.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy – May 14, 2023

May 15, 2023 host

From the entertainment realm to higher education, political activists have complained that we live in cancel culture. But what is cancel culture? And what is its impact in the classroom and for democracy. How much is cancel culture a reaction to dis-empowerment and a means of resistance? And what has been the backlash to its successes? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Sigal Ben-Porath is Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Political Science and Philosophy. She is the author of Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About, Free Speech on Campus and the book we are discussing Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy.
Eve Ng is Associate Professor at Ohio University, in the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. She is the author of Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis and the forthcoming Mainstreaming Gays: Critical Convergences of Queer Media, Fan Cultures, and Commercial Television.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Sudan’s war between it’s Generals ; Wars in perspective – May 7, 2023

May 7, 2023 host

In April, war broke out in Sudan. How much is the war driven by a power battle between two generals and how much is it embedded in the relationship between Khartoum and marginalized areas of the nation? We explore the recent events, the political and military context of the war, and the prospects for a resolution.[ dur: 31mins. ]

Kon K. Madut is Part-time Professor of Political Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Why did governance and institutional establishments fail in Sudan and South Sudan? and Ethnic Mobilization, Armaments, and South Sudan’s Quest for Sustainable Peace.

Then, scholars note that the world is waging fewer wars, but that the wars that are waged are more brutal and intractable.[ dur: 27mins. ]

This segment was recorded 2013, hosted by Maria Armoudian.

George A. Lopez is the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is the editor of The Sanctions Enterprise: Assessing a Quarter-Century of UN Action for Peace, Security and Human Rights.
Ervin Staub is Professor of Psychology at the University of Massettuces, Amherst. He is the author of The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others.
Norrin M. Ripsman is Monroe J. Rathbone Professor in the International Relations Department at Lehigh University. He is the author of Peacemaking from Above, Peace from Below: States, Societies, and Peace Between Regional Rivals and the co-editor of The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking.

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Scholars’ Circle – Politics, Violence and Memory The new social science of the Holocaust – April 30, 2023

April 30, 2023 host

New research on the Holocaust, on Jewish resistance and local collaboration in the killing offers insights into genocides, atrocities, and political violence. We discuss this research and other social science findings about the Holocaust in a new book Politics, Violence, Memory: The New Social Science of the Holocaust.

How does historical memory make researching the Holocaust a greater challenge? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Jelena Subotic is Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University. She is the author of Hijacked Justice: Dealing with the Past in the Balkans and Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism.
Jeffrey Kopstein is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust and the editor of Growing Apart? America and Europe in the 21st Century.

Together they are editors of Politics, Violence, Memory: The New Social Science of the Holocaust.

Excerpt from the publisher:

Politics, Violence, Memory highlights important new social scientific research on the Holocaust and initiates the integration of the Holocaust into mainstream social scientific research in a way that will be useful both for social scientists and historians. Until recently social scientists largely ignored the Holocaust despite the centrality of these tragic events to many of their own concepts and theories.
In Politics, Violence, Memory the editors bring together contributions to understanding the Holocaust from a variety of disciplines, including political science, sociology, demography, and public health. The chapters examine the sources and measurement of antisemitism; explanations for collaboration, rescue, and survival; competing accounts of neighbor-on-neighbor violence; and the legacies of the Holocaust in contemporary Europe. Politics, Violence, Memory brings new data to bear on these important concerns and shows how older data can be deployed in new ways to understand the “index case” of violence in the modern world.

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Scholars’ Circle – Israel’s democratic challenge – April 23, 2023

April 24, 2023 host

Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to give Israel’s Parliament the ability to overturn high court decisions has been met with widespread protests. What are the stakes of these protests? What’s the democratic and political future for Israel? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Mira Sucharov is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Carlton University. She is the author of The International Self: Psychoanalysis and the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and co-editor (with Aaron J. Hahn Tapper) of Social Justice and Israel/Palestine: Foundational & Contemporary Debates.
Liron Levy, is assistant Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She is the author of King Bibi, the personification of democratic values in the 2019 2021 election cycle recently published in the book, the election in Israel 2019 to 2021.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – French protests explained – April 16, 2023

April 17, 2023 host

Amid mass Protests that have rocked France, the country’s constitutional council have approved President Macron’s move to raise the retirement age to 64. What does all of this mean for French politics, and for the future of unions in French politics and the workplace? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Martin A. Schain is Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at New York University. He is the author of The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain and the United States: A Comparative Study, and co-author and editor of Comparative Federalism: The US and EU in Comparative Perspective and Shadows Over Europe: The Development and Impact of the Extreme Right in Europe.
Patrick Chamorel is Senior Resident Scholar and a lecturer at the Stanford Center in Washington. He is the author of France’s Vanishing Center and The French Presidential Election: Can Macron Stay Ahead of the Pack?
Herrick Chapman is Professor Emeritus of History. He is the author of A Century of Organized Labor in France: A Union Movement for the Twenty-First Century? co-edited with Mark Kesselman and Martin Schain and France’s Long Reconstruction: In Search of the Modern Republic.

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Scholars’ Circle – Addressing justice after mass atrocities – April 9, 2023

April 8, 2023 host

After mass atrocities and crimes against humanity, how can societies reconcile? How is justice performed and how should we recognize these crimes? And what of the clash between international interests and local needs when dealing with the punishment and acknowledgment of atrocities? Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Elazar Barkan is Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and Director of Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. He is founding Director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (IHJR) in The Hague. He is the author of Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices and co-author of Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation.
Mark Drumbl is Professor at Washington and Lee University, School of Law, and Director of the University’s Transnational Law Institute. He is the author of Reimagining Child Soldiers In International Law and Policy and Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law.
Jeremy Sarkin is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law and member of CEDIS at Nova University Law School in Lisbon, Portugal. He is the author of The Global Impact and Legacy of Truth Commissions, Reparations for Colonial Genocides and co-editor of Africa’s Role and Contribution to International Criminal Justice.

This interview was recorded on April 18, 2021.

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Scholars’ Circle – Women protest in Iran, a persistent struggle – April 2, 2023

April 2, 2023 host

After the murder of Mahsa Amini by morality police Iran has seen protests, demonstrations, and an ongoing resistance movement against its regime. What best explains the origins and persistence of this movement? What has influenced Iran’s resistant movement? We will explore the status of women and the history of women’s rights movement in Iran. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Also, Iran has a substantial number of diaspora around the world. They help frame the issues that are occurring inside its borders. What is the interaction between Iranians abroad and Iranians in Iran and the resistance movement going on right now in the nation?

Persis Karim is the Neda Nobari Chair of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and a professor in the Comparative and World Literature department at SF State. She is the author of Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora.
Nayereh Tohidi is Professor Emerita in the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the author of Women’s Rights and Feminist Movements in Iran.

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Book interview – Madison’s Militia: The Hidden History of the Second Amendment – June 4, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Food Insecurity and Famine , why they persist? – May 28, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Capital Punishment in US is explored as it faces ethical, political and legal concerns – May 21, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy – May 14, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Sudan’s war between it’s Generals ; Wars in perspective – May 7, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Israel’s democratic challenge – April 23, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – French protests explained – April 16, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Addressing justice after mass atrocities – April 9, 2023

Scholars’ Circle – Women protest in Iran, a persistent struggle – April 2, 2023

By Maria Armoudian