The filibuster threatens to block a great deal of the Democratic Party’s legislative wish list. We examine its history, its function in democracy, and its future. [ dur: 29min. ]

• Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at University of Texas, Austin. He holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office and Foreign Policy Breakthroughs: Cases in Successful Diplomacy

Then, we explore a new book on the peaceful uses of nuclear power: The Wretched Atom by Jacob Hamblin.[ dur: 29mins. ]

• Jacob Hamblin is Professor of History at Oregon State University. His books include Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, Oceanographers and the Cold War, Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism and his latest The Wretched Atom: America’s Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology.

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

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Several states have passed legislation barring teaching critical race theory in public schools. Today we explore critical race theory and how race is taught. How should academics proceed in light of the political backlash to teaching about race? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Utz McKnight is Chair of the Department of Gender and Race Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Race and the Politics of the Exception: Equality, Sovereignty, and American Democracy and Everyday Practice of Race in America: Ambiguous Privilege.
• Laura E. Gómez is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. She has taught the Critical Race Studies Program in the law school’s upper-year curriculum. Professor Gómez has co-founded and served as the first co-director of UCLA School of Law’s Critical Race Studies Program. She is the author of Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism and Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race. 2nd ed.
• David Livingstone Smith is Professor of Philosophy at New England University. He is the author of Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It, and the forthcoming Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization.

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

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A look at changes in environmental policies on local, state, national and international levels. How are they formed? How do they converge? [ dur: 12mins. ]

• Astrid Carrapatoso is assistant professor of political science at University of Feiberg, Germany. She has published many studies on climate change policy implemented by local, state, national and international governments. She is the author of The Greening of Free Trade: Domestic Politics and Environmental Issues in New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreement Negotiations and co-editor of Climate-Resilient Development: Participatory solutions from developing countries. List of her publications can be found here .

How is climate change affecting the oceans and marine life? What are the interactions between the earth, the atmosphere, and the ocean, and how does that affect human life? What measures can people take to prevent massive environmental damage? [ dur: 46mins. ]

• Karina Nielsen is Professor of Biology and Executive Director of Estuary and Ocean Science Center at San Francisco State University. She is the co-author of California’s 4th Climate Assessment: Coast and Ocean Summary Report and Emerging understanding of seagrass and kelp as an ocean acidification management tool in California, and Are meta-ecosystems organized hierarchically? A model and test in rocky inter-tidal habitats.
• Stephen R. Palumbi is Jane and Marshall Steel Jr. Professor in Marine Sciences at Stanford University and the Harold A. Miller Director of the Hopkins Marine Station. He is the co-author of numerous publications including Using naturally occurring climate resilient corals to construct bleaching-resistant nurseries, Cobble community DNA as a tool to monitor patterns of biodiversity within kelp forest ecosystems, and Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services.
• Scott Doney is Joe D. and Helen J. Kington Professor in Environmental Change in the Department of Environmental Sciences at University of Virginia. He is the co-author of numerous publications including A comprehensive global oceanic dataset of helium isotope and tritium measurements , Strengthened scientific support for the Endangerment Finding for atmospheric greenhouse gases , and Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms.

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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War has broken out in Northern Ethiopia in the Tigray region. What is the cause, and what are the implications for the nation and the region? What are the prospects for peace and what can international actors do to facilitate this process? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Ann Fitz-Gerald is the Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and a Professor in Wilfrid Laurier University’s Political Science Department. She is the author of Ethiopia in Turmoil, Ethiopia: A New Proxy Battlespace? and As G7 Leaders Gather, Canada Should Not “Blindly Follow” U.S. Lead on Africa.
• Aly Verjee is a nonresident senior advisor to the Africa program at the U. S. Institute of Peace. He is the author of Five Steps to Sustain a Cease-Fire in Northern Ethiopia and What Ethiopia’s Brewing Conflict Means for the Country—and the Region.
• Yohannes Gedamu is Lecturer of Political Science at Georgia Gwinnett College. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Politics of Contemporary Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and Authoritarian Survival.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Why do sustainable business initiatives so often fail? What fundamental changes we need from societies and the economic system to stem a climate change induced collapse? What economic systems might work on a planet with a finite capacity to sustain life? [ dur: 58 mins.]

• Christopher Wright is Professor of Organisational Studies, Discipline of Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney Business School.
• Daniel Nyberg is Professor of Management at Newcastle Business School and an Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney.

Together they have co-authored Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations: Processes of Creative Self-destruction.

This program is produced with generous contribution from Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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First, beyond ending war what does it take to make a lasting quality peace? [ dur: 28mins. ]

• Peter Wallensteen is Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden and Research Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at Joan B Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Quality Peace: Peacebuilding, Victory and World Order, Understanding Conflict Resolution: Peace, War, and the Global System and editor of the volume International Sanctions: Between Wars and Words.

Then, the birth of what we know as big science. The big money supported, cross institution collaborations that have supported both medicine and weaponry. How did science and government get so entrenched with industry, and one another? And what have been the results? [ dur: 30mins. ]

• Michael Hiltzik is a Pulizer Prize winning journalist and author. He writes a daily blog appearing on latimes.com. His publications include The New Deal: A Modern History; The Plot Against Social Security, and Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military Industrial Complex

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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Cameroon is a West African nation that is embroiled in a civil war between its Anglophone and Francophone populations. What led to this civil war? and how can it be resolved? We explore the causes of the war and the prospects for resolution. [ dur: 36mins. ]

• Patircia Asongwe is Visiting Lecturer at the National School of Administration and Magistracy in Cameroon. She is also Head of Litigation Unit in the Division of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Higher Education.
• Lauura Anyola Tufon is Consultant Expert to Conflict Sensitivity for Catholic Relief Services, Caritas, Archdiocese of Bamenda. She is founding member of the Network of Civil Peace Service in Cameroon.

Protests against violations of federalism agreements were met with state led violence in Cameroon. What were the impacts? We’ll hear from one of the organizers.[ dur: 22mins. ]

• Fontem A Neba was Secretary General of Teacher’s Trade Union of the University of Buea before his arrest on the 17th of January, 2017. He was Secretary General of the now banned Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium. Mr. Neba was Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Buea. Now he is in exile and serves as the Secretary General of the Southern Cameroon’s Alliance.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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Last April, protests erupting in Colombia against a new proposed tax on the middle and poorer classes were met with government oppression and violence. What are the prospects for political change in the embattled nation of Colombia? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Arlene B. Tickner is a Professor in the School of International, Political and Urban Studies at the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia. She is the author of International Relations from the Global South: Worlds of Difference.
• James A. Robinson is Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago and Institute Director of The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. He is the author of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Poverty and Prosperity and The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty, both co-authored with Daron Acemoglu.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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Grand Strategy defines the broad goals of nations or even groups. American Grand Strategy is best understood historically, as an amalgam of influences and interests. Is American grand strategy a reaction to events and domestic interests, or is it derived more strategically based on the American place in the world? And what does the history of American grand strategy tell us about its current goals? We speak with three of the authors of Rethinking American Grand Strategy. Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

• Christopher McKnight Nichols is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University. He is the author of Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age. He is also co-author of the opinion articles “‘Grand strategy’ has a bad rep. To fix it, get beyond hard power and traditional statecraft”, in the Los Angeles Times, and “America’s traditions pose an obstacle to preventing future pandemics”, in the Washington Post.
• Beverly Gage is Brady-Johnson Professor of Grand Strategy and Professor of History & American Studies at Yale University. She is the author of The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror and a forthcoming biography on J. Edgar Hoover.
• Kate Epstein is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Camden. She is the author of Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain.

All of our guests are contributors to the book we are discussing today Rethinking American Grand Strategy. Christopher McKnight Nichols is also co-editor of the book together with Elizabeth Borgwardt and Andrew Preston.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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What does the continued occupation and discrimination against its Palestinian population mean for Israeli identity as a democratic nation? What exactly is Israel’s relationship with the world’s Jewish population? And what precisely is the ideology of Zionism? Hosted by Doug Becker. [ dur:58mins. ]

• Mira Sucharov is Professor of Political Science and University Chair of Teaching Innovation 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.
• Brent Sasley is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas, Arlington. He is the author of the book Politics in Israel: Governing a Complex Society and the book chapter “The End of Oslo and The Second Intifada, 2000-2005.”
• Joshua Shanes is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of Arnold Center for Israel Studies at College of Charleston. He is the author of Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia. And is the co-author of the article We Need a Better Definition for Ant-Semitism.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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