Earlier this month, an oil spill devastated parts of the ecosystems off the coast of Southern California. We explore how to limit the destruction arising from oil production and spills during the transition away from fossil fuels. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Deborah Gordon is Senior Principal in the Climate Intelligence Program at Rocky Mountain Institute where she leads RMI’s Oil and Gas Solutions Initiative. She is also a senior fellow at the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University and the principal investigator for the Oil Climate Project. She is the author of No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World.
Ron Tjeerdema is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Toxicology and the Donald G. Crosby Endowed Chair in Environmental Chemistry in the College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences at University of California, Davis. He is the co-author of A Tale of Two Spills: Novel Science and Policy Implications of an Emerging New Oil Spill Model, Environmental variations and toxicological responses and Effects of dispersed and un-dispersed oil on developing topsmelt embryos.
Jill Sohm is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Program at the University of Southern California. She is the co-author of Microbial mats of the Dry Valleys: oases of activity in the cold desert and The distribution and relative ecological roles of autotrophic and heterotrophic diazotrophs in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica.
David Ginsberg is Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. He is the co-author of Effects of depth-cycling on nutrient uptake and biomass production in the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera and Methane Reduction Potential of Two Pacific Coast Macroalgae During in vitro Ruminant Fermentation.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Decolonizing the mind: a conversation with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o – October 24, 2021

October 23, 2021 host

David Lloyd speaks with the world-renowned Kenyan novelist, playwright and poet, critic and widely influential postcolonial theorist, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. They explore the problem of colonization of languages, his commitment to writing in his native language, and his incarceration and exile for political dissidence. And with the panel they discuss a new book of essays on his work, Ngũgĩ in the American Imperium. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Timothy J. Reiss is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at New York University and recently a visiting scholar at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. His many books include Against Autonomy: Global Dialectics of Cultural Exchange. He is the editor of Ngũgĩ in the American Imperium.
Noenoe K. Silva is Kanaka Hawai’i from Kailua, O’ahu, and professor of Hawai’ian and Indogenous Politics in the Department of Politics and Cooperating faculty Kawaihuelani Center for Hawai’ian Language at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. She is the author of Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawai’ian Resistance to American Colonialism and The Power of the Steel-Tipped Pen: Reconstructing Native Hawai’ian Intellectual History. She is a contributor to Ngũgĩ in the American Imperium.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine. Among his many writings are Decolonising the Mind, Globalectics and his memoir Detained recently recast as Wrestling with the Devil. His most recent novel is Murogi wa Kagogo, published in English as Wizard of the Crow. His rendering of the Gikuyu epic, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi, appeared in 2019. He has been awarded numerous prestigious prizes.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, David Lloyd, and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – Capital Punishment in USA and reasons why it faces increased opposition – October 17, 2021

October 16, 2021 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.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Examining Disability and Ableism – October 10, 2021

October 10, 2021 host

The rights of persons with disabilities is a growing and important area of human rights. But what does it mean to ensure equal treatment under the law? What exactly is a disability, and who makes the judgment? And what do we mean by ableism? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Lydia X. Z. Brown is Core Faculty in the Disabilities Studies Program at Georgetown University as well as Adjunct Professional Lecturer in the Critical Race, Gender and Culture Studies Program at American University. Lydia is the author of Ableist Shame and Disruptive Bodies: Survivorship at the Intersection of Queer, Trans, and Disabled Existence.
Michael Ashley Stein is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, and a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. He is the editor of the book Mental Health, Legal Capacity and Human Rights.
Joel Michael Reynolds is a senior advisor to The Hastings Center and an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University. He is the co-author of The Harm of Ableism: Medical Error and Epistemic Injustice and the author of Three Things Clinicians Should Know about Disability.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – Impact of American Lawyers on International Human Right Cases ; One Year after Armenia and Azerbaijan war – October 3, 2021

October 2, 2021 host

We interview Maria Armoudian who has published a book on international human rights and the role that lawyers have played at advancing cases against human rights abusers. Maria Armoudian is the author of Lawyers Beyond Borders : Advancing International Human Rights Through Local Laws and Courts. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

Maria Armoudian is a lecturer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She is the author of the books Reporting from the Danger Zone: Frontline Journalists, Their Jobs and an Increasingly Perilous Future, Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World, and her most recent Lawyers Beyond Borders : Advancing International Human Rights Through Local Laws and Courts . Maria is a host and anchor of this show, the Scholars’ Circle.

Then, we explore the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan a year after the war over the disputed region of Ngoro-Karabagh. What is the current status of the region following the cease-fire? Is there possibility of lasting peace? [ dur: 26 mins. ]

Anna Ohanyan is the Richard B. Finnegan Distinguished Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Stonehill College, and a two-times Fulbright Scholar in the South Caucasus. She is the editor of Russia Abroad: Driving Regional Fracture in Post-Communist Eurasia and Beyond, and her latest book “The Neighborhood Effect: The Imperial Roots of Regional Fracture in Post-Communist Eurasia“. Professor Ohanyan is also a nonresident senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Monthly Archives: October 2021

Scholars’ Circle – Consequence of Oil Spill on the Southern California Coast – October 31, 2021

Scholars’ Circle – Decolonizing the mind: a conversation with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o – October 24, 2021

Scholars’ Circle – Capital Punishment in USA and reasons why it faces increased opposition – October 17, 2021

Scholars’ Circle – Examining Disability and Ableism – October 10, 2021

Scholars’ Circle – Impact of American Lawyers on International Human Right Cases ; One Year after Armenia and Azerbaijan war – October 3, 2021

By Maria Armoudian