All posts by host

How does culture shape our understanding and treatment of mental illness? [ dur: 58 mins. ]

Roberto Lewis-Fernandez is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University. He is also Director of NYS Center of Excellence for Cultural Competence and Hispanic Treatment Program and Co-Director of Anxiety Disorders Clinic at New York State Psychiatric Institute. He is the author and co-editor of the book DSM-5(R) Handbook of the Cultural Formulation Interview. He is also the co-author of the research publications Impact of motivational pharmacotherapy on treatment retention among depressed Latinos, and Conditional risk for PTSD among Latinos: A systematic review of racial/ethnic differences and sociocultural explanations.
Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University. She is the author of When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God, Of Two Minds: An Anthropologist Looks at American Psychiatry and Our Most Troubling Madness: Schizophrenia and Culture.
Andrew G. Ryder is Associate Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Centre for Clinical Research in Health at Concordia University. He is the co-author of the research publications Culture and psychopathology, Revisioning psychiatry: Cultural phenomenology, critical neuroscience, global mental health, Depression in cultural context: Chinese somatization and Towards a cultural-clinical psychology.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – International Trade Tariff -/- Hormones effect on Brain – December 9, 2018

December 8, 2018 host

First, we explore tariff policy in the US and its global implications, and the ongoing trade war between the US and China. With guest host Professor Doug Becker. [ dur: 43 mins. ]

Iva Bozovic is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the School of International Relations. She is the author of the book chapter “Social Capital and Performance in Transition” in Democracy, Trust and Transition: Social Capital in a Changing World.
Lui Hebron is a Training and Development Specialist for the Executive Management Program at Transcendent Solutions. He was previously an Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at Hult International Business School. He is the co-author of Globalization: Debunking the Myths. He is also co-editor of Understanding New Security Threats.

Then, hormones change our brain according to neuroscientists. What might these changes be? What does this mean for women taking birth control pills over the course of their child bearing years? [ dur: 14 mins. ]

Belinda Pletzer is a researcher at the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Salzburg, Austria. She is the co-author of many publications including, Sex and menstrual cycle influences on three aspects of attention, 50 years of hormonal contraception. Time to find out what it does to our brain and Subcortical structural changes along the menstrual cycle: beyond the hippocampus.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Analysis of post-truth Society -/- Purpose of sleep in our daily life – December 2, 2018

December 1, 2018 host

Some call it post-truth society. With increased media consolidation, fake news and plummeting trust in media what needs to be done? [ dur: 24 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) and The Future of Internet Policy (with Peter Decherney). And he is the author of 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.

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 contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Role of Food in History -/- Extractive industries and their economic and environmental affects – November 25, 2018

November 24, 2018 host

First, the role of food in history- as a weapon of war, of empire and of building societies. With Tom Standage. [ dur: 21 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

Tom Standage is a journalist and author of The Edible History of Humanity.

Then, what is the relationship between minerals such as oil, diamonds and gold and conflict, authoritarianism and poverty? This week’s scholars have spent years studying how these so-called extractive industries, mining and drilling, impact people’s lives, their governance and the environment throughout the world. How can countries so rich in mineral wealth remain mired in so much poverty? [ dur: 33 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

Jeffery Mantz is Program Director of Cultural Anthropology at the National Science Foundation. His publications include Blood Diamonds of the Digital Age: Coltan and the Eastern Congo, Do Cellular Phones Dream of Civil War? e Mystication of Production and the Consequences of Technology Fetishism in the Eastern Congo and How a Huckster Becomes a Custodian of Market Morality: Traditions of Flexibility in Exchange in Dominica
Michael Ross is a Professor of Political Science at UCLA. His books include The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations and Timber Booms and Institutional Breakdown in Southeast Asia.
Suzana Sawyer is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. Her books include Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador and The Politics of Resource Extraction: Indigenous Peoples, Multinational Corporations and the State.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Humanitarian crisis in Yemen -/- Culture boycott of Israel and the BDS movement – November 18, 2018

November 17, 2018 host

Experts say Yemen is the worse humanitarian crisis in modern history. Warnings from the UN say the death toll from starvation could reach 18.4 million by the end of the year. Why is this happening? And what can be done? [ dur: 29 mins. ]

Charles Schmitz is professor of Geography at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland. He is an Affiliated Scholar with the Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He has authored articles “Negotiating Yemeni Peace: Deep Divisions and Hard Realities”, “No Winners in Yemen” and co-authored Historical Dictionary of Yemen.
Hammoud Salhi is Professor and Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Cal State Dominguez Hills. He is a host of SWANA Region Radio on KPFK in Los Angeles. He is a commentator for Arabic media.

Guest host Sam Smith speaks with historian Mike Levine about musicians, cultural boycotts and the BDS movement. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

Mark LeVine is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History in the Department of History at UC Irvine. He is the author of Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil and Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Soul of Islam. He is also the co-editor of One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States and Religion and Social Practices and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Impact of US Midterm Elections -/- Why bad behavior is almost always good politics – November 11, 2018

November 10, 2018 host

First, what does the US midterm election results mean for international relations, ethical considerations of US border policy and the future of US-Russian relations? Guest host Doug Becker speaks with three experts. Doug is Professor of International Relations at USC. Here’s that discussion. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

Pam Chasek is Chair of the Political Science Department at Manhattan College. She is the author of Transforming Multilateral Diplomacy: The Inside Story of the Sustainable Development Goals, Global Environmental Politics, and The Global Environment in the 21st Century: Prospects for International Cooperation.
Amy Eckert is Professor of Political Science at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is the author of Outsourcing War: The Just War Tradition in the Age of Military Privatization, and the book chapter “Critical Approaches to the Ethics of War”
Brent Sasley is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is the author of Politics in Israel: Governing a Complex Society and the journal articles Theorizing States’ Emotions, and Palestinian Roadblocks: Changing Attitudes Among Israeli Jews.

Then, what do dictators, CEOs, and political leaders have in common? We’ll re-explore some of the strategies for getting and keeping power with Alastair Smith coauthor of “The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics“. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

Alastair Smith is Professor of Politics at NYU. He has also co-authored the book “The Logic of Political Survival“.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – US Elections: Voters Turn – October 28, 2018

November 3, 2018 host

What is at stake in the upcoming midterm election? How does our current moment fit within American history? What are the factors that will determine the election’s outcome? And what does it mean for the future of the US? We have four experts on American history and politics with us.

Henry Brady is Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-author of Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the People’s Voice in the New Gilded Age, and The Unheavenly Chorus: Political Voice and the Promise of American Democracy. He is also the co-editor of Capturing Campaign Effects. And the monograph, Counting All The Votes: The Performance of Voting Technology in the United States.
David P. Redlawsk is the James R. Soles Professor and Chair of Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. He is the co-author of the book The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning. He is also co-author of the publications Donald Trump, Contempt, and the 2016 GOP Iowa Caucuses and Donald Trump and right-wing populists in comparative perspective.
Jennifer Frost is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. 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
Paul Taillon is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of Good, Reliable, White Men, Railroad Brotherhoods, 1877-1917 and the research paper A syndicalist moment? Democracy, insurgent unionism, and the ‘Outlaw Strike’ of 1920.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Birds, insects colony collapse in the current state of climate change – October 28, 2018

October 28, 2018 host

First, Bird Colony collapse and crop failures.

Josh Tewksbury is Research Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Director of the Colorado Global Hub, Future Earth. He is also Executive Editor of Anthropocene magazine. He is the co-author of the studies Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate and Defaunation leads to interaction deficits, not interaction compensation, in an island seed dispersal network.
Curtis Deutsch is Associate Professor of Chemical Oceanography in the School of Oceanography at Washington University. He is the co-author of the studies Acceleration of oxygen decline in the tropical Pacific over the past decades by aerosol pollutants, Microbial functional diversity alters the structure and sensitivity of oxygen deficient zones, and Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate.
Steven R. Beissinger is Professor of Conservation Biology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-author of the studies Mojave Desert Bird Populations Plummet as Region Warms and Dries and The push and pull of climate change causes heterogeneous shifts in avian elevational ranges.

Then, birds, bees, whales and turtles all use the earth s magnetic field to guide their behaviour. Now scientists have learned much more about how. [ dur: 15mins. ]

Andres Vidal Gadea is Professor of Molecular Neuroethology at Illinois State University. He is the co-author of Magnetosensitive neurons mediate geomagnetic orientation in Caenorhabditis elegans and Factors that influence magnetic orientation in C. elegans. JCPA.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – Preserving fresh waters -/- Memory Entrepreneurs shaping the future – October 21, 2018

October 20, 2018 host

First, how water has shaped our past and how new water challenges are shaping the future. We talk with Charles Fishman author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

Charles Fishman, journalist and author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, the so-called “memory entrepreneurs” try to change how we remember the past to shape the future. Are they losing the Cold War memory fight? [ dur: 28 mins. ]

Ellen Schrecker, Professor of History, Yeshiva University. Author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities
Jon Wiener, Professor of History at the UC Irvine. He is the author of How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey across America
Douglas Becker is a Professor of International Relations at USC.

This program is produced with contributions from the following volunteers: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

All posts by host

Scholars’ Circle – How Culture affects Mental health – December 16, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – International Trade Tariff -/- Hormones effect on Brain – December 9, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – Analysis of post-truth Society -/- Purpose of sleep in our daily life – December 2, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – Role of Food in History -/- Extractive industries and their economic and environmental affects – November 25, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – Humanitarian crisis in Yemen -/- Culture boycott of Israel and the BDS movement – November 18, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – Impact of US Midterm Elections -/- Why bad behavior is almost always good politics – November 11, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – US Elections: Voters Turn – October 28, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – Birds, insects colony collapse in the current state of climate change – October 28, 2018

Scholars’ Circle – Preserving fresh waters -/- Memory Entrepreneurs shaping the future – October 21, 2018

By Maria Armoudian