Category Archives: Scholars’ Circle Interviews

Information and recordings from Schloars’ Circle radio show is posted here.

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – May 20th, 2012

Seg. 1: Mexico’s drug war is claiming thousands of lives and threatening to destabilize Mexico. With Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Univ. of Texas @ Brownsville,  studies Mexican politics, Mexico-U.S. relations. Molly Molloy, New Mexico State Univ. is prof. and librarian for Border & Latin American issues. She is creator of The Frontera List. [ duration 28 mins. ]

Seg. 2: The Scholars’ Circle. How is the so-called war on drugs connected to lethal drug trade and how can societies more effectively and humanely solve drug problems. Our three panel members have co-authored a book titled, Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know.

  • Prof. Mark Kleiman, author – When Brute Force Fails , UCLA;
  • Prof. Jonathan P. Caulkins, Carnegie Mellon Univ.;
  • Prof. Angela Hawken, Pepperdine Univ.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – May 13th, 2012

Segment 1: We speak with Nancy Gibbs, author of The President’s Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, on one of the world’s most exclusive and influential clubs; [ duration 30 mins. ]
Scholars’ Circle. In the face of looming public health and sustainability, we look at the intersection of science and politics.

  • Naomi Oreskes, Prof. of History & Science, UC San Diego;
  • Prof. David Gustan, Poli Sci, Co-director Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, AZ State Univ.;
  • Prof. Mark Brown, Gov’t & Poli Sci, CSU Sacramento.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – May 6th 2012

Segment 1: Can new media change power relations? We speak with Rory O’Connor author of, “Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media” [ Dur. 29 mins. ]
Segment 2: Scholar’s Circle. What does the conviction of former Liberian President Charles Taylor reveal about the international justice system? Does this system work? Are there other ways to ensure justice?

  • Mark Drumbl is director of the Transnational law Institute at WA and Lee Univ. School of Law. His numerous publications include the award winning, Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law.
  • Prof. Hannah Garry is director of Int’l Human Rights Clinic at USC’s Gould School of law. She specializes in int’l human rights law, int’l criminal law, int’l humanitarian law and international refugee law.
  • David Kaye is the Executive Director of the Int’l Human Rights Law Program and Director of Int’l Justice Clinic at UCLA School of Law.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – April 29th, 2012 @ LA Times Book Festival

All interviews were recorded live at the LA Times Book Festival on April 20th.

1. What is the collective cost to our wastefulness? And what are the economic and environmental harms of wastefulness? Edward Humes is author of, Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash.

2. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to restore the US economy were met by a set of dark forces that sought to destroy him and all of his policies. What were those forces and how might they still resonate today? Sally Denton is author of, The Plots Against the President: FDR, A Nation in Crisis and the Rise of the American Right.

3. Army scientist Bruce Ivins mailed cultivated anthrax spores to U.S. Senators and media outlets, or did he? Who was Bruce Ivins? How did the press contribute to misleading America? Why did some of our highest government officials disregard scientific data while spinning the letter attacks into a basis for war? David Willman is author of, Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks and America’s Rush to War.

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Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – April 24th, 2012, Armenian Genocide

On the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, we look at what are the conditions for genocide and what are the means to prevent it. [ Dur: 28 min. ]

  • Vahakn Dadrian, Dir. of Genocide Res. @ Zoryan Inst.
  • Prof. Alex Hinton, Rutgers Univ. Anthropology & Genocide;
  • Prof. Richard Dekmejian, Political Science, USC

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – April 19th, 2012

Seg. 1: Living Off the Grid? a look inside the movement to live with total freedom and independence. Who’s doing it? How and why? We speak with Nick Rosen author of, Off the Grid.

Seg. 2: Cancer and the environment – increasing evidence suggests that the cancer epidemic is linked to chemicals in the environment. We speak with Steingraber author of, Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment.

Seg.3: On the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, we look at what are the conditions for genocide and what are the means to prevent it.

  • Vahakn Dadrian, Dir. of Genocide Res. @ Zoryan Inst.;
  • Prof. Alex Hinton, Rutgers Univ. Anthropology & Genocide;
  • Prof. Richard Dekmejian, Political Science, USC.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – April 8st, 2012

First, did the sexual counter revolution polarize American politics? With author Nancy Cohen ( UCLA ) author of the just released book. Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution is Polarizing America. [duration: 29 min.]

Then, on the scholars’ circle, how might the power of ideas shape countries and international power structures. [duration: 25 min. ]

  • Liz Borgwardt, Univ. of Chicago, author.
  • Christopher McKnight Nichols, Univ. Of Penn.
  • Tim Lynch, Univ. of Melbourne.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – April 1st, 2012

Our interview with scholars’ about following questions:

1) How much does the President drive US foreign policy and how much is driven by other factors?  [duration: 25 min.]

With:

  • Prof. Jeremy Suri, Univ. of TX, Austin. Author of  Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama.
  • Prof. James D. Boys, Richmond Univ., London.

2) What are the issues that will determine our next president?
[ duration: 27 min. ]

With:

  • Prof. Thomas Holbrook, Univ. of WI. , author of Do Campaigns Matter? Contemporary American Politics.
  • Prof. Robert C. Smith, SF State Univ. , author of Conservatism and Racism, and Why in American They Are the Same.
  • Prof. Jan Leighley, American Univ. , author of  Strength in Numbers? The political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic Minorities.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – March 25th, 2012

Today we spend the hour exploring how the current rightward movement fits into U.S. history. How did it develop? And how has the movement been changing U.S. politics and policies? What can we learn from the past rightward movements right here and abroad? And how far can the movement go? (duration: 58 minutes)

Analysis by:

  • Kathleen Blee, Prof. & Chair, Sociology Dept. @ Univ. of Pittsburgh. Author of Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement, and Democracy in the Making: How Activist Groups Form
  • Lawrence Rosenthal, Exec. Dir. & Lead Researcher, Center for Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movmnts @ UC Berkeley. He is currently working on a study of the contemporary American Right in comparison to movements of the Right in 20th century Europe
  • Martin Cohen, prof. of political science, James Madison Univ.  co-author of, The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Insighters & Scholars’ Circle – March 18th, 2012

Seg. 1. Massive vacancies on the federal bench and justices with conflicts of interest. What is the state of the independent judiciary? with Nan Aaron, Dir. of Alliance for Justice
Seg. 2. Should people who have committed crimes as teenagers face life in prison with no chance for parole? A look at the laws and the 2500 people who are serving those sentences; with Elizabeth Calvin, Senior Advocate, Human Rights Watch
Seg. 3. Scholars’ Circle. The effect of war on laws, society, governance, and democracy itself. How are these affected as the lines of war-time are increasingly blurred.

  • Mary Dudziak is Judge Edward J. and Ruey Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science at the University of Southern California Law School. She is the author of several books including her latest, War-Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.
  • Patrick James is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California.
    He is the author of numerous publications including, Religion, Identity and Global Governance: Theory, Evidence and Practice. And he has co-authored, Rethinking Realism in International Relations: Between Tradition and Innovation.
  • Christopher McKnight Nichols is Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow in U.S. History at the University of Pennsylvania. He will be Assistant Professor in the History of the U.S. and the World at Oregon State University starting in the summer of 2012. Nichols specializes in the intellectual history of the U.S. role in the world from 1865 to present. He is the author of many publications including his latest, Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age (Harvard University Press, April 2011)

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