Tag Archives: Social Sciences

Scholars’ Circle – Revolution in organizing civil protest for change -/- Why Power affects Moral judgement – June 7, 2020

June 6, 2020 host

The brutal police killing of George Floyd, a middle-aged, unarmed, Black man, provoked a massive wave of protest across America. How did this killing come to represent a much broader set of injustices in American life? Will the protests lead to anything? To get some answers, David S. Meyer interviews scholars Dana Fisher and Rashawn Ray of the University of Maryland. [ dur: 48mins. ]

Dana R. Fisher is a Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on questions related to democracy, activism, and environmentalism — most recently studying climate activism and the American Resistance. Her research employs a mixed-methods approach that integrates data collected through open-ended semi-structured interviews and participant observation with various forms of survey data. She is the author of the book, American Resistance. Twitter handle: @fisher_danar .
Rashawn Ray is Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research (LASSR) at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also one of the co-editors of Contexts Magazine: Sociology for the Public. Formerly, Ray was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, he is a Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institute. He is co-author of How Families Matter: Simply Complicated Intersections of Race, Gender, and Work. His recent article titled, Bad apples come from rotten trees in policing.

Then, how power can breed immorality and hypocrisy. [ dur: 10mins. ]

Adam Galinsky is the Chair of Management Department and Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School at Columbia University. He is the co-author of FRIEND AND FOE: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Being informed in Democratic Societies -/- What is Love? – December 29 , 2019

December 28, 2019 host

First, why do people seem to know so little about politics? And what does that mean for democracy? We speak with Arthur Lupia author of Uninformed: Why People Know So Little About Politics and What We Can Do About It.[ dur: 27 mins. ]

Arthur Lupia is the Hal R. Varian Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and Chair of National Research Council’s Roundtable on the Application of Behavioral and Social Science. He is the co-author of The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know?, Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice, and the Bounds of Rationality, and the author of his latest book Uninformed: Why People Know So Little About Politics and What We Can Do About It.

Finally, what is love? Is it emotional? Is it biological? Can it be summoned by rational decision and how does it play out in society? [ dur: 28 mins. ]

Simon May is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Kings College London. He is the author of Love: A History and Nietzsche’s Ethics and his War on ‘Morality’.
Bennett W. Helm is a Professor of Philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College. He is the author of Love, Friendship, and the Self: Intimacy, Identification, and the Social Nature of Persons and Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation, and the Nature of Value.
Dr. Robert Epstein is a Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He is currently working on a book called Making Love: How People Learn To Love, and How You Can Too, which is based on his research on how love emerges over time in arranged marriages. He is also the author of, Cognition, Creativity, and Behavior: Selected Essays.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – President Trump’s Rhetoric Analyzed -/- Rapid Rate of Species Extinction in Progress – November 17 , 2019

November 16, 2019 host

Does Trump use Nazi-Style rhetoric? Our guest says yes. [ dur: 17 mins. ]

David Livingstone Smith is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. He is the author of Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, How Biology Shapes Philosophy and Why We Lie: Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind.

Then, what are the causes of the rapid rate of species extinction and what can be done. [ dur: 41 mins. ]

Anthony Barnosky is Executive Director of Stanford University’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, and an Emeritus Professor of Integrative Biology at University of California Berkeley. He is the author of Dodging Extinction—Power, Food, Money and the Future of Life on Earth and co-author of Tipping Point for Planet Earth—How Close Are We To The Edge (with Elizabeth Hadly).
Stuart Pimm is Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke University. He is the author of A Scientist Audits the Earth, The Balance of Nature? Ecological Issues in the Conservation of Species and Communities, and Patterns in Nature: The Analysis of Species Co-Occurences.
David Wilkie is Director of Conservation Measures for the Wildlife Conservation Society. He is the author of Hunting for consensus: reconciling bushmeat harvest, conservation, and development policy in West and Central Africa, Valuation of consumption and sale of forest goods from a Central American rain forest, and Impacts of protected areas on local livelihoods in Cambodia.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Insight into Mental health treatment within cultures – September 15 , 2019

September 14, 2019 host

How culture shapes our understanding and treatment of mental health. We speak with three experts. [ 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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle -Fertility and Mortality affected by Climate Change -/- Designing Peace in Divided Society – June 30, 2019

June 30, 2019 host

Then, climate change is here. How does climate change affect conception? [ dur: 15 mins. ]

Alan Barreca is Associate Professor at the Institute of the Environment & Sustainability at UCLA. He is the author of the research papers Does hot weather affect human fertility? He is the co-author of Maybe Next Month? Temperature Shocks, Climate Change, and Dynamic Adjustments in Birth Rates , and Adapting to Climate Change: The Remarkable Decline in the U.S. Temperature-Mortality Relationship over the 20th Century

Then, designing peace in divided societies. How do you make peace after fatal conflicts and loss of lands? What is the role of identity in conflict and peacemaking? [ dur: 43 mins. ]

Neophytos Loizides is Professor and Chair in International Conflict Analysis in the School of Politics & International Relations (POLIR) at the University of Kent. He is the author of The Politics of Majority Nationalism: Framing Peace, Stalemates, and Crises and Designing Peace: Cyprus and Institutional Innovations in Divided Societies. He is also the co-editor (with Oded Haklai) of Settlers in Contested Lands: Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts.
Dr. Madura Rasaratnam is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics in the Department of International Politics at City University of London. She is the author of Tamils and the Nation: India and Sri Lanka Compared.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Dark side of Majoritarian Democracy -/- Understanding Consciousness – May 5, 2019

May 4, 2019 host

First, when does democracy have a dark side? Michael Mann says that majorities can and do oppress minorities in the name of majoritarian democracy. He is the author of The Dark Side of Democracy. [ dur: 15 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UCLA. He is author of The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing.

Then, what is consciousness? Is it just brain activity? and how does it differ from the subconscious? [ dur: 43 mins. ]

Valerie Gray Hardcastle is Professor of Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati. She is the author of Locating Consciousness, The Myth of Pain, How to Build a Theory in Cognitive Science, and Constructing the Self.
Dr. Rocco J. Gennaro is the Philosophy Department Chairperson and a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Indiana. He is the author of Consciousness, The Consciousness Paradox: Consciousness, Concepts, and Higher-Order Thoughts, and is the editor of the anthology Disturbed Consciousness: New Essays on Psychopathology and Theories of Consciousness and the Routledge Handbook of Consciousness.
Hakwan Lau is Professor in the Department of Psychology (Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience) & Brain Research Institute at UCLA. His numerous research papers include What is consciousness, and could machines have it? Should a few null findings falsify prefrontal theories of consciousness? and Heuristic use of perceptual evidence leads to dissociation between performance and metacognitive sensitivity.

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

By Maria Armoudian