Tag Archives: Politics and Activism

Scholars’ Circle – Celebrity Culture / Foreign Policy – June 15th, 2014

What drives destructive or unethical foreign policy? Some point to pathological pursuits of exceptionalism, honor and glory. Others, point to systemic flows. [ dur: 14 mins. ]

  • Christopher J. Fettweis is Professor of Political Science at Tulane University. He is the author of Dangerous Times? The International Politics of Great Power Peace and The Pathologies of Power: Fear, Honor, Glory, and Hubris in U.S. Foreign Policy.

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, what is the celebrity industrial complex? How does it impact our democracies, our culture and society? [ dur: 43 mins. ]

  • Joshua Gamson is Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. He is the author of Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America and Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity.
  • David Marshall is Chair of New Media, Communication and Cultural Studies at Deakin University, Australia. He is the author of Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture, New Media Cultures, and The Celebrity Culture Reader.
  • David Gilens is Professor of Media Psychology at the University of Winchester, UK. He is the author of Illusions of Immortality: A Psychology of Fame and Celebrity, and Psychology of the Media.

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Scholars’ Circle – Global Arms Trade / ICC – June 8th, 2014

First, how the murky world of the global arms trade compromises democracy and security. [ dur: 25 mins. ]

  • Andrew Feinstein served as an African National Congress (ANC) Member of Parliament in South Africa for over seven years. He is the founding Director of Corruption Watch. He is the author of, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, and his political memoir, After the Party: A Personal and Political Journey Inside the ANC.

Then, the International Criminal Court has sentenced a Congolese militia leader, completing its second conviction since the court was founded 12 years ago. Why so few convictions and what should be done about prosecuting international crime? [ dur: 33 mins. ]

  • Hannah Garry is a professor of law at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic. She specializes in international human rights law, international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law.
  • Chris Mahony, is a research fellow at Center for International Law Research and Policy. He was Deputy Director of the New Zealand Centre for Human Rights Law, Policy and Practice, Faculty of Law, Auckland University. He has advised the International Criminal Court, the British and US governments, the International Centre for Transitional Justice, and the Open Society Initiative, on international justice, transitional justice and justice sector reform.

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- May 25th, 2014

First, Thailand has experienced its second military coup in a decade. What does the military siege mean for the country and the region. [ dur: 17 mins. ]

  • Jack Fong, Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Author of Revolution as Development: The Karen Self-Determination Struggle Against Ethnocracy (1949 – 2004)

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, while advances in neuroscience are making great leaps in understanding humanity, scholars and doctors disagree on what neuroscience does and does not tell us about what it means to be human. Are we our brains? Do we have free will? How far can neuroscience take us? [ dur: 40 mins. ]

  • Dr. Sally Satel is lecturer at Yale University, a resident scholar at AEI and the staff psychiatrist at a methadone clinic. She is coauthor of One Nation under Therapy and Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.
  • Patricia S. Churchland is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. In 1991, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Her books include Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality, and Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain.

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- May 18th, 2014

First, the scenarios we face with climate change and the options for humanity. Gwynne Dyer, author of Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats [ dur: 28 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Gwynne Dyer, author, military historian, journalist;

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, we look at Political Power. New global developments are changing the structures and holders of power. With new technology and greater interconnectedness, states are losing power and non-state actors are gaining power. But what exactly does it mean to have power? And where exactly does power come from? [ dur: 30 mins. ]

  • Giulio M. Gallarotti, Professor of Government Studies, Wesleyan University; Author of The Power Curse: Influence and Illusion in World Politics
  • Joseph S. Nye Jr., Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Author of The Future of Power
  • Erica Chenoweth, Professor of Government, Wesleyan University. Co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare)

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- May 11th, 2014

How water has shaped our past and how new water challenges are shaping the future. We talk with Charles Fishman. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

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

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, in the wake of President Obama’s new climate plan, three of the world’s top scientists assess how to heal this planet [ dur: 30 mins. ]

  • Mark Z. Jacobson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford. He is the author of Air Pollution and Global Warming: History, Science, and Solutions and  Atmospheric Pollution: History, Science, and Regulation
  • Michael E. Mann is a Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University, and the Director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. Dr. Mann is author of more than 150 peer-reviewed and edited publications, and two books including, Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming, and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. He is also a lead author for the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on climate change for which he, his coauthors, and VP Al Gore won the Nobel prize.
  • Peter Ward is Professor of Biology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps, Under a Green Sky: Global warming, the mass extinctions of the past and what they can tell us about our future mass extinctions, and  Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere.

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- May 4th, 2014

First, we speak with Naomi Oreskes co-author of, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. [ dur: 25 mins. ]

  • Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science Studies at University of California, San Diego.

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, amid the turmoil in Syria, we analyze the psychology that drives human atrocities and the means of preventing them. [ dur: 32 mins. ]

  • Ervin Staub is Professor of Psychology at University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict, and Terrorism and The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others.
  • David Livingstone Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. He is the author of Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others.
  • John Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He is the author of Neoconservative Images of the United Nations: American Domestic Politics and International Cooperation.

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- April 27th, 2014

First, droughts all over the world are driving the prices of food and costing jobs as farmers are forced to cut crops from water shortages.  [ dur: 16 mins. ]

  • Lynn Ingram, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at University of California, Berkeley. She is the co-author of The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us about Tomorrow.

Then, a conversation between four Nobel Laureates about science and society, and the importance of public education. Hosted by UC Berkeley. [ dur: 44 mins. ]

  • Randy W. Schekman, professor of molecular and cell biology, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in revealing the machinery that regulates the transport and secretion of proteins in our cells.
  • Saul Perlmutter, professor of physics and a faculty senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), led one of two teams that simultaneously discovered the accelerating expansion of the universe and was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.
  • George Smoot, professor of physics and an astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), led a team that obtained the first images of the infant universe ” findings that confirmed the predictions of the Big Bang theory ” and was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics.
  • Daniel L. McFadden, professor of economics, was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics for his development of statistical methods relating to the economic theory of “discrete choice,” tools that have been used to determine how people and organizations make choices from a distinct set of alternatives.

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- April 20th, 2014

First, planet earth is facing a sixth extinction. Can humanity rescue the planet that it has imperiled? [ dur: 30 mins. ]

  • Annalee Newitz is journalist and author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. She is the founding editor of the science and science fiction website i09.com.
  • Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff member at The New Yorker. She is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, and her latest book The Sixth Extinction.

Then, on the Scholar’s Circle panel, we look at genocides. What are the causes and how we can prevent it. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

  • Ben Kiernan is Whitney Griswold Professor of History and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. He is the author of, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur, and The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79.
  • Alex Hinton is Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights, and Professor of Anthropology and Global Affairs at Rutgers University. He is the author of, Why Did They Kill?: Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide, and is the editor of Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation (The Cultures and Practice of Violence), and Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide.
  • Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is the author of, Zero Degrees of Empathy, and he is the editor of Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from developmental social neuroscience, and The Maladapted Mind: Classic Readings in Evolutionary Psychopathology.

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- April 13th, 2014

Scientists are saying the earth is changing more rapidly than we expected. Ecosystems are shifting and some species are dying out. What exactly is occurring and where are we headed? We speak with Larry Schweiger. [ dur: 27 mins. ]

  • Larry Schweiger is president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, America’s largest conservation organization. Author of Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth

On the Scholars’ Circle panel, the global refugee crisis has reached epic proportions with tens of millions being forced from their homes. We’ll explore what can be done. [ dur: 31 mins. ]

  • Elizabeth Ferris is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement in Washington, D.C., where her work encompasses a wide range of issues related to internal displacement, humanitarian action, natural disasters and climate change. She is the author of, The Politics of Protection:The Limits of Humanitarian Action.
  • Karen Musalo is clinical professor of law at UC Hastings College of Law. and is founding Director of the Center of Gender and Refugee. She was the lead attorney of the landmark case, Matter of Kasinga. She is the co-author of Do They Hear When You Cry, and Refugee Law and Policy: A Comparative and International Approach
  • Dr. Gilbert M. Burnham is the co-director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins. He has extensive experience in emergency preparedness and response. He has worked with numerous humanitarian and health development programs for multilateral and non-governmental organizations, regional health departments, ministries of health (national and district level), and communities in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. A major current activity is the reconstruction of health services in Afghanistan.

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The Scholars’ Circle Radio- March 30th, 2014

First we launch the first in our new monthly series with Scientific American, Scholars Circle Scientific (SCSC), with highlights in science. [ dur: 13 mins. ]

  • Fred Guterl, Executive Editor, Scientific American;

Then, in the wake of the three year anniversary of the Fukushima disaster we speak with Edwin Lyman. [ dur: 13 mins. ]

  • Edwin Lyman is Senior Scientist with the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is the co-author of, Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster.

Finally, the Crimea vote, was it self-determination or was it coercion? We explore autonomy, self-determination and ethnic conflict. [ dur: 32 mins. ]

  • Stefan Wolff is professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham, England, UK. He is the co-author of, Ethnic Conflict: Causes-Consequences-Responses, and the co-author of Autonomy, Self Governance and Conflict Resolution: Innovative approaches to Institutional Design in Divided Societies (Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Pol) and Disputed Territories: The Transnational Dynamics of Ethnic Conflict Settlement (Studies in Ethnopolitics).
  • Hurst Hannum is professor of International Law at Tufts University. He is the author of, International Human Rights: Problems of Law, Policy, and Practice, and co-author of Negotiating Self-Determination and Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination: The Accommodation of Conflicting Rights (Procedural Aspects of International Law).
  • Steven Fish is a professor of political science at UC Berkeley and author of award-winning books including Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics and Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton, 1995). He is coauthor of The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey (Cambridge, 2009) and Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton, 2001).

 

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