The Ballpark

Contributor(s): Evelyn Ong, Callum Cleasby | In August 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Evelyne Ong, an undergraduate research assistant with the Phelan US Centre for the 2023-24 academic year.

 

They discuss her work with Visiting Professor Jeffrey Legro, on the project, ‘The Nuclear Revolution and Great Power Competition’. They also talked about her experience taking part in the Phelan US Centre’s undergraduate research assistantship programme.

 

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson | In 2024, the Phelan US Centre ran an essay competition for master’s students with the prompt, ““How should the United States work to shape the future of capitalism in this age of insecurity?”.

We speak to the author of the winning essay, David Millman, and the runners-up, Yazmin Baptiste and Manickam Valliappan. We discuss their essays, the competition, what it’s like for students to engage with a wider audience, and the opportunity they had to present their essays in the UK parliament to MPs and the British-American Parliamentary Group.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Nathan Lane | In July 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Nathan Lane, Associate Professor in Economics at Oxford University, about industrial policy in the United States and its history, including recent policies from the Biden administration like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. They also discussed how US industrial policy might change depending on who wins the 2024 presidential election.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Patriann Smith | In 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Patriann Smith, professor in the College of Education at the University of South Florida. Dr. Smith's transdisciplinary research examines how differences in languages, Englishes, and English language ideologies affect Black Caribbean students’ immigrant literacy practices as they cross cultures and languages between their home countries and the United States. In this episode, they spoke about her new book, Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom.

 

This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Adia Wingfield | In June 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Adia Harvey Wingfield, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences and Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity at Washington University in St. Louis.

They spoke about Professor Wingfield’s new book, Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It. The discussion also covered US labor activism, and the role US federal and state governments have in addressing racial inequalities in the workplace

This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Further resources

Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It (HarperCollins, 2023) - https://www.harpercollins.com/products/gray-areas-adia-harvey-wingfield

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Maxwell Stearns | In May 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Maxwell Stearns, the Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law about his new book, Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy. The book argues that the solution to many of America’s democratic challenges is to amend the Constitution to reform the US government to become a parliamentary democracy. We talk about why he thinks American democracy is in crisis, the lessons he has learned from how other countries govern, and what reforms are now needed in the US.

This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Dr Lauren Sukin, Debak Das, Matthew Fuhrmann, J. Luis Rodriguez | In June 2024, the LSE Phelan US Centre held the conference, US Nuclear Strategy in a Changing Indo-Pacific. The conference brought together scholars and analysts with a strong record of policy-relevant research on nuclear strategy and expertise in the security dynamics of the Indo-Pacific.

The conference was convened by Phelan US Centre Affiliates, Rohan Mukherjee and Lauren Sukin, both Assistant Professors of International Relations in the LSE’s International Relations Department.

In this episode of the Ballpark, we speak to Dr Lauren Sukin about the main themes and takeaways from the conference. We also talk to three of the conference participants, Debak Das (University of Denver), Matthew Fuhrmann (Texas A&M University), and J. Luis Rodriguez (George Mason University), about what they saw as the nuclear security dynamics in their region of focus, and how the US has been responding to these both within that region and across the Indo-Pacific.

This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Jeff Legro | In May 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Jeff Legro, University Professor at the University of Richmond, and Visiting Professor at the Phelan US Centre for 2023-24. They spoke about the US’ role as a “unipolar” country in the world, conceptions of sovereignty, both in the US and abroad, the potential future of US foreign policy, and the relationship between nuclear weapons and globalization.

 

They also discussed Professor Legro’s work with the Phelan US Centre’s Undergraduate Research Assistantship programme and students Ayush Das and Evelyne Ong.

 

This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Links mentioned in this episode

Phelan US Centre Undergraduate Research Assistantship programme - https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/for-students/us-centre-undergraduate-research-assistantships-current

Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order (Cornell University Press, 2016) - https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7591/9781501707322/html?lang=en

Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Harvard University Press, 2016) - https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674660212

Contributor(s): Brooke Gladstone, Chris Gilson | In 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Brooke Gladstone, host and Managing Editor of WNYC’s On the Media about the US’ changing media landscape, the meaning of truth and facts in the age of Donald Trump, and how we can teach the next generation to be better media consumers.

This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Contributor(s): Dr Fred Kaplan, Chris Gilson | In May 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to author and journalist for Slate magazine and Phelan US Centre Visiting Senior Fellow, Fred Kaplan about his 2020 book, The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War and the changing attitudes of US politicians and policymakers to nuclear weapons and nuclear war.

This Extra Inning was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Listen to the podcast of the LSE Event ‘Is the risk of nuclear war increasing?’ on LSE Player: https://www.lse.ac.uk/lse-player?id=c1fc651a-d27e-46e2-8ae0-2078d24736e0

Fred Kaplan’s ‘War Stories’ column at Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/war-stories