Tag Archives: Society and Culture

Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Living off the Grid -/- Living an Infinite game of life – March 3, 2019

First, living off the grid. A look inside the movement to live with total freedom and independence. Who is doing it? How are they doing it and why are they doing it? [ dur: 15 mins. ]

Then, living life as an infinite game. We speak with Niki Harre author of Infinite Game: How to Live Well Together. [ dur: 43 mins. ]

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 – How Culture affects Mental health – December 16, 2018

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

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 – Refugee Camps -/- Equitable and Sustainable Food System – October 7, 2018

First, why do people remain in refugee camps for decades? [ dur: 28 mins. ]

  • Elizabeth Cullen Dunn is Associate Professor of Geography and International Affairs at Indiana University–Bloomington. She is also the author of No Path Home and Privatizing Poland.

Then, our guests have studied the food system and what it means to have an equitable and sustainable system. What are the problems in the system and what are the solutions? [dur: 30 mins. ]

Raj Patel and Saru Jayaraman are contributors to The Nation magazine’s special issue, “The Future of Food: Setting the table for the next generation“.

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 – Future of food, food politics -/- US immigration policy and Human Rights Crisis – June 17, 2018

First, we continue our exploration of the future of food. With climate change, contamination and host of stressors on the planet, how will we feed a growing population? What are the politics of food? This is part three of a three part panel from a symposium held in Auckland, NZ. In the third part of this symposium on food, we look at solutions and the changes we need to assure a system is just, sustainable and resilient. Future of Food symposium recording: Part 1, Part 2.[ dur: 23 mins. ]

  • Michael Carolan is a Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of Research for the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University. He has authored and coedited books including Reclaiming Food Security; The Sociology of Food and Agriculture; The Real Cost of Cheap Food; Food Utopias: Reimagining Citizenship, Ethics and Community; and Biological Economies: Experimentation and the Politics of Agrifood Frontiers.
  • Richard Le Heron is a Professor of Geography in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. His has coauthored and coedited books including Knowledge, Industry and Environment: Institutions and Innovation in Territorial Perspective; Economic Spaces of Pastoral Production and Commodity Systems: Markets and Livelihoods; Agri-Food Commodity Chains and Globalising Networks; and Biological Economies: Experimentation and the politics of agri-food frontiers.
  • Nicolas Ian Lewis is an Associate Professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. He coedited the book Biological Economies: Experimentation and the politics of agri-food frontiers and has authored book chapters including ‘Constructing economic objects of governance: the New Zealand wine industry’ in Agri-Food Commodity Chains and Globalising Networks.
  • Anastasia Telesetsky is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland. She has coauthored and coedited the books The International Law of Disaster Relief; Ecological Restoration in International Environmental Law; and Marine Pollution Contingency Planning, State Practice in Asia-Pacific States.

Then, is America facing a human rights crisis with its immigration policy? With reports of indefinite detentions and separating children from their families, we explore how we got here, what the political and legal ramifications are, and what happens next for America. [ dur: 35 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Kevin Johnson is Dean and Professor of Public Interest Law at UC Davis School of Law. He has co-authored Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink Its Borders and Immigration Laws, and authored Immigration Law and the US-Mexico Border. His list of publication can be found here.
  • David Kyle is Professor of Sociology at University of California, Davis. His publications include, Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, and Transnational Peasants: Migrations, Networks and Ethnicity in Andean Ecuador and Smart Humanitarianism: Re-imagining Human Rights in the Age of Enterprise. You can find his publications here.

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 – Future of Food – May 6, 2018

Today’s program was recorded in front of a live audience. In this symposium about the future of food, we look at food insecurity, food shortages, food justice and sovereignty. We explore the threats to long term availability of health food: climate change, chemical contamination, soil depletion, loss of land, power politics, mass death of pollinators and host of big business practices. We look at solutions and the changes we need to make to be sure of system is just, sustainable and resilient. [ dur: 58 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Ann Elizabeth Bartos is a Lecturer in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. She has authored book chapters including ‘Food sovereignty and the possibilities for an equitable, just and sustainable food system”’in Eating, Drinking, Surviving: The international year of global understanding – IYGU and journal articles including ‘The body eating its food politics: reflections on relationalities and embodied ways of knowing’ in Gender, Place and Culture.
  • Gerhard Benjamin McDonald Sundborn is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland. His has coauthored journal articles including ‘Low sugar nutrition policies and dental caries: A study of primary schools in South Auckland’ in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health and ‘Sugar, dental caries and the incidence of acute rheumatic fever: A cohort study of Māori and Pacific children’ in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
  • Daniel Carl Henare Hikuroa is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. He coedited the book Ara Mai he Tetekura: Visioning Our Futures: New and Emerging Pathways of Maori Academic Leadership and has coauthored journal articles including ‘Ensuring objectivity by applying the Mauri Model to assess the post-disaster affected environments of the 2011 MV Rena disaster in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand’ in Ecological Indicators.
  • Mike Joy is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Agriculture and Environment at Massey University. He authored the book Polluted Inheritance: New Zealand’s freshwater crisis; authored book chapters including ‘Our deadly nitrogen addiction’ in The New Zealand Land & Food Annual; as well as coauthored journal articles including ‘New Zealand dairy farming: milking our environment for all its worth’ in Environmental Management.

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

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Living Off-Grid -/- Infinite Game of Living Communities – April 29, 2018

First, living off the grid. A look inside the movement to live with total freedom and independence. Who is doing it? How are they doing it and why are they doing it? [ dur: 15 mins. ]

  • Nick Rosen is writer, author and filmmaker. He is the author of Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government and True Independence in Modern America. His website is  www.off-grid.net

Then, living life as an infinite game. We speak with Niki Harre author of Infinite Game: How to Live Well Together. [ dur: 43 mins. ]

  • Niki Harre is a Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean for Sustainability at the University of Auckland. She is the author of Psychology for a Better World and The Infinite Game: How to Live Well Together. Her website is: http://www.infinite-game.net/

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

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Culture War by CIA in 1950’s against French cultural left -/- Code Economy and Future of Work – December 17, 2017

Why were CIA agents reading French philosophy? [ dur: 22mins. ]

  • Gabriel Rockhill is a philosopher, cultural critic and political theorist. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University and Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop at the Sorbonne. In this interview, we ask about his published paper The CIA Reads French Theory: On The Intellectual Labor of Dismantling The Cultural Left. In it, he focused on the reasoning behind why the CIA wanted to dismantle cultural left in France soon after the end of World War II. He is the author of Counter-History of the Present: Untimely Interrogations into Globalization, Technology, Democracy, Interventions in Contemporary Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics and Radical History and the Politics of Art.

What is the Code Economy and what does it have to do with the future of work. Some people argue that machines will take over jobs. But our guest argues that perhaps humanity will reinvent work in a way that’s more aligned with what it means to be human. [ dur: 36mins. ]

  • Philip Auerswald is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. He is the author of The Code Economy: A Forty-Thousand Year History, The Coming Prosperity: How Entrepreneurs Are Transforming the Global Economy and he is the editor of Iraq, 1990-2006 3 Volume Set: A Diplomatic History Through Documents.

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

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Insight into Greenwashing Culture -/- Politics of Muslim Americans – September 17, 2017

First, greenwashing culture. How journalism, the entertainment industry and museums impact our environment. Joining us is Toby Miller author of 29 books, including Greenwashing Culture. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

  • Toby Miller is a Professor of media and the author of 29 books, including Greenwashing Culture.

Then, what are the politics of Muslim Americans? [ dur: 30 mins. ]

  • Emily Cury Tohma is a Research Fellow at Northeastern University’s Middle East Center. She’s the author of the research papers Muslim Americans and the 2016 Elections and Muslim American Policy Advocacy and the Palestinian Israeli Conflict: Claims-making and the Pursuit of Group Rights.
  • Aubrey Westfall is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wheaton College. She is the author of the research papers Gender and Political Behavior among Muslim Americans, The Complexity of Covering: The Religious, Social and Political Dynamics of Islamic Practice in the United States, and the forthcoming Islamic Headcovering and Political Engagement: The Power of Social Networks.

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

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Bird Songs -/- New Form of Corporate Lawlessness – August 27, 2017

First, scientists have made fascinating discoveries on how animals communicate. Birdsongs are more than music; they are warnings of danger understood by many species. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

  • Erick Greene, Professor of Biological Sciences at University of Montana. He has published numerous papers in ornithology, the latest in collaboration with the Cornell labs of Ornithology

Then, companies like Uber, Google and AirBnb claim to be civil rights leaders, but they are introducing a new form of corporate lawlessness? [ dur: 28 mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

  • Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media Studies at University of Virginia. Author of “The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry)“. His articles at Slate can be found here. He co-authored an opinion piece on Guardian UK newspaper with Frank Pasquale ( author of Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press, 2015) Uber and the lawlessness of ‘sharing economy’ corporates

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

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Insight into Good and Evil part II -/- Race, Ethnicity, Politics and Society – August 6, 2017

First, we continue our conversation with preeminent psychology scholar Ervin Staub. Last week we discussed how to build peaceful societies, particularly when some groups have been traumatized by violence, war or genocide. Erwin Staub’s latest book is The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil. This is part two of our discussion.

  • Ervin Staub is a Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Founding Director of its ​Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence.

Then, what is race? How is it distinct from ethnicity? And what do they mean for politics and society?

  • 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 and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War.
  • Garrett Albert Duncan is Associate Professor of Education in Arts & Sciences. He also teaches African & African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His publications are listed here.

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

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