The Scholars' Circle

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The Scholars' Circle episodes

May 26, 2024Scholars’ Circle – Insights into student protests at university campuses – May 26, 2024
With massive protests on university campuses over the war in Gaza, universities have chosen to aggressively and violently break up the protests putting student protesters at risk. How does non-violent protest turn to violence at the hands of the police? How have national politics driven the responses to student protests? As university space has become more contested, particularly by political forces on the right, what do violent responses to protests mean for university values of free speech?
We speak with three university professors and one student about their experiences at their respective campuses. [ dur: 58mins. ]
Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs and 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 his latest book Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight For Democracy. He hosts the podcast This is Democracy.
Mark LeVine is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History in the Department of History at UC Irvine. He is the author of Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil and Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Soul of Islam. He is also the co-editor of One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States and Religion and Social Practices and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies.
David S. Meyer is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Planning, Policy, and Design at UC Irvine. He is the author of The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America and co-editor of The Resistance: The Dawn of the Anti-Trump Opposition Movement. His blog is Politics Outdoors.
Jack Leff is Post Doc and instructor of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His PhD dissertation is An Alchemy of Smoke and Flame: The Politics of Tear Gas Use Against Social Movements in the United States. He is an active political organizer interested in prison abolition.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
58 min
May 19, 2024Scholars’ Circle – Politics and Elections in India – May 19, 2024
With its 1.4 billion population and a billion registered voters, India stands as the world’s largest democracy and 5th largest economy. India is holding national elections, which will decide its leaders for the next five years. What are the role of its institutions in supporting democracy and how are their elections conducted? What is the state of India’s democracy and what are its big challenges? [ dur: 58mins. ]
Ritu Mathur is Professor of international relations at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is the author of Civilizational Discourses in Weapons Control.
Sandipto Dasgupta is Assistant Professor of Politics at New School of Social Research. He is the author of Legalizing the Revolution – India and the Constitution of the Postcolony

Amit Ahuja is Assciate Professor of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements and Internal Security in India – Violence, Order, and the State

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
May 14, 2024Scholars’ Circle – Armenian human rights group petitions ICC to investigate Azerbaijan for genocide against Armenians in Armenia – May 12, 2024
Armenia has taken legal action against Azerbaijan claiming numerous violations of international law. What legal actions have been taken at both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. What are the causes of action and what might the consequences and impacts of these legal actions be?
Armenia is under intense pressure to negotiate a permanent peace with Azerbaijan. How could this normalize and legitimize Azerbaijan’s aggression? And what does it signal to aggressors internationally about the likelihood of punishment for this aggression? [ dur: 58mins. ]
Tamara Voskanian is a cofounder of the Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ), a nonprofit organization that documents atrocities and uses the evidence to bring perpetrators to justice. Last month Tamara represented CFTJ at the UN Committee Against Torture.
Talin Hitik is an international human rights advocate focused on seeking accountability for war crimes and human rights violations. She also has worked as a legal officer at the Hague Conference on Private International Law and the Permanent Court of Arbitration and has served at the Ministry of Justice of Armenia, managing the European Court of Human Rights litigation department. She was a professor of international human rights and humanitarian law at American University of Armenia and Yerevan State University and most recently, was an Academic Affiliate at the University of Michigan Law School.
Steve Swerdlow, esq. is Associate Professor of the Practice of Human Rights in the Department of Political and International Relations at the University of Southern California. He writes extensively as a human rights monitor for Human Right Watch in both the Central Asian region and in the Caucuses.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
May 05, 2024Scholars’ Circle – Book Author Interview – Exit Wounds : How Americas Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border – May 5, 2024
Beyond asylum seekers heading north, the problems of US/Mexico Border are also about the flow of guns and drugs. How can we understand the totality of problems related to the US southern border? What are the solutions?
We speak with Ieva Jusionyte the author of a new book Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border. [ dur: 58mins. ]
Ieva Jusionyte is a legal and medical anthropologist and associate professor at Brown University. She is also the author of award-winning ethnography Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border. She has been studying borders, violence, and security in Latin America and the United States for over fifteen years.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
April 28, 2024 Scholars’ Circle – Origins of War and Resolving violent conflicts – April 28, 2024
With wars still raging in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, we return to an earlier interview on the origins of war. When and how did war begin?

While some have argued it evolved in early human behavior within forging bands societies, our guests say, that's not true. Forger bands did not wage war. [ dur: 30mins. ]

Douglas P. Fry is Professor and Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of Beyond War, The Human Potential for Peace, and Nurturing Our Humanity, co-authored with Riane Eisler.
Robert L. Kelley is Professor of Anthropology at University of Wyoming. He is the author of The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers, The Foraging Spectrum, and The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell us About Our Future.

We continue this conversation by exploring how war and violent conflict might be resolved. [ dur: 28mins. ]

Douglas P. Fry is Professor and Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of Beyond War, The Human Potential for Peace, and Nurturing Our Humanity, co-authored with Riane Eisler.
Mari Fitzduff, Professor of International program of coexistence and conflict, Brandeis University; Author of The Psychology of Resolving Global Conflicts: From War to Peace
Douglas Noll, lawyer, mediator peacemaking. Author of Peacemaking: Practicing at the Intersection of Law and Human Conflict

Websites mentioned : University of North Calorina Greensboro studies of Peaceful Societies and an example of building a Peaceful Society organization.

This recording was produced Nov. 2013.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
58 min
April 22, 2024 Scholars’ Circle – Determining genocide and other human rights violations of the law ; Dark side of democracy – April 21, 2024
April is Genocide Awareness month. Two of the worst genocides in history, the Hutu killing of Tutsis in Rwanda and the Ottoman genocide against Armenians, began in April. We explore genocide with two specific questions: Who internationally makes a determination that violence and atrocities are in fact genocide? And what if anything changes when there is a finding that atrocities are genocide?

We explore whether a legal approach is the best way to determine whether political violence and atrocities are genocide or is a political or social approach more effective. And does discourse on genocide crowd out discussions of other crimes, such as war crimes? We draw insights from history and contemporary issues. [ dur: 42mins. ]

Keith David Watenpaugh is Professor and Director of Human Rights Studies at the University of California at Davis. He is the author of Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class and the award-winning Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism. He is a recipient of Human Rights Educator USA award for implementing Article 26 Backpack for Refugees.
Mark Drumbl is Professor at Washington and Lee University, School of Law, and Director of the University's Transnational Law Institute. He is the author of Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law , Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy and he is the co-editor of Sights, Sounds and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecution with Caroline Fournet.

When does democracy have a dark side? Our guest says that majorities can and do oppress minorities in the name of majoritarian democracy. [ dur: 16mins. ]

Michael Mann is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at UCLA. He is the author of the four volume The Sources of Social Power, Fascists and The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
April 14, 2024 Scholars’ Circle – The Suffragist Peace: How Women Shape the Politics of War – April 14, 2024
The expansion of the vote to women throughout the 20th Century has had an impact on the discourses and politics of war and peace. What is the relationship between women voting, electing women leaders, and women-lead groups in civil society on the issue of war and peace?
Does the expansion of the vote to women lead to the election of women as leaders? And are these leaders more committed to peace than their male counterparts? We explore a new book, The Suffragist Peace: How Women Shape the Politics of War..[ dur: 58mins. ]

Joslyn Barnhart is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California Santa Barbara. She is also senior research scientist at Deep Mine in London. She is the author of The consequences of humiliation, anger, and status, threats in international politics
Robert F. Trager is a Professor in the political science department at the University of California, Los Angeles. He's the author of a forthcoming book Diplomacy Communication and the Origins of International Order

Together they have authored The Suffragist Peace: How Women Shape the Politics of War

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
April 08, 2024 Scholars’ Circle – Urban Flooding its causes and mitigation explored; Book author interview on Land Back Movement in Indonesia – April 7, 2024
We look at how to sustainably mitigate urban flooding in the mist of climate crisis.
Altering how we think of hardscape in urban design to manage water drainage. [ dur: 30mins. ]

Gary Brierley is Professor of Environment at University of Auckland, NZ. He is the author of River restoration as a sociocultural process: A case study from the Waimatā Catchment, Aotearoa New Zealand and Truths of the Riverscape: Moving beyond command-and-control to geomorphologically informed nature-based river management
Timothy Welch is a senior lecturer on Architecture and Planning at University of Auckland, NZ.

Then we look at Land Back movement to repossess land by local farmers taken by corporations and state. Book author David E. Gilbert interview of his book Countering Dispossession, Reclaiming Land - A Social Movement Ethnography. Specifically, looking at Land Back effort in Casiavera village on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. This is one of many Land Back movements in the world. [ dur:28mins. ]

You can find other land back movements at La Via Campesina website, which supports Food Sovereignty among Pheasant Farmers.

David Gilbert is postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelonais. He is an environmental anthropologist with a special interest in social movements, ecological change, and post-development theory.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
March 31, 2024 Scholars’ Circle – Title IX history and compliance struggle for Women’s equality in higher education – March 31, 2024
Title IX, the landmark legislation on women’s equality in higher education, was passed to equalize funding between men’s and women’s athletics. What has it achieved? Where does it fall short?

When some schools failed to implement Title IX for athletics, activists sued. We look at the landmark cases and what they have achieved. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Lisa S. Kaplowitz is Associate Professor of Professional Practice in the Finance and Economics department at Rutgers Business School. She is co-founder and Executive Director of the Rutgers Center for Women in Business. She is the author of the opinion article Title IX increased opportunities for women athletes, but there's still work to do and Thought Leadership: How men can advance gender equity at work.
Bonnie J. Morris, Lecturer, Department of History at University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Feminist Revolution, the award winning Women's History for Beginners and What's the Score? 25 years of Teaching Women's Sports History.
Nancy Hogshead-Makar is faculty at Rutgers-New Brunswick Global Business and Sports MS Program. She is the co-author of Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change, with Andrew Zimbalist, and author of Pregnant and Parenting Student-Athletes: Resources and Model Policies. She is CEO and Founder of Champion Women, and won three Gold medals and one Silver medal at the 1984 Olympics.

Link to report on Title IX compliance by Champion Women Advocacy: https://titleixschools.com/

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
58 min
March 23, 2024 Scholars’ Circle – The dangerous political rhetoric of Donald Trump – March 24, 2024
Donald Trump's political rhetoric is becoming more apocalyptic, more dehumanizing, and more violent. What does this mean for the future of American politics and its institutions? Will Trump-ism die with Donald Trump or will it survive after he passes on? [ dur: 58mins. ]

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 and Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization.
Roger Petersen is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science at MIT. He is the author of Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, Resentment in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe, Death, Domination, and State-Building: The US in Iraq and the Future of American Military Intervention, and Emotions and backlash in US society and politics.
David L. Altheide is a Regents Professor Emeritus on the faculty of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. He is the author of Terrorism and the Politics of Fear, The Media Syndrome and Gonzo Governance: The Media Logic of Donald Trump.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min