The Scholars' Circle

The devastating explosion in Lebanon last week is just one of many crisis causing profound suffering for the people there. The economic and political crises have been exacerbated by the Covid 19 pandemic bringing the country to the brink of collapse. What is behind these crises? What can be done?

With military control of Kashmir, how is Covid19 pandemic being treated and we get an insight into how privatized military affecting international convention on just war.

Federal troops occupy Portland despite local government's demand that they leave. These troops often do not wear uniforms and have seized protesters off the streets in unmarked vans. We discuss the legal and political implications. We also examine the implications on democracy, civil liberties, and the protest movements that mark America's cities. Doug Becker hosts.

What does the decisions made by the Supreme Court in 2020 mean for the future of American politics? What is the future of the Court? And how does this influence the relationship between the Supreme Court and the other branches of government?

States with controversial histories struggle to overcome the memories and how it influences contemporary politics. We explore whether the US is haunted by its racist past and what it must do to overcome this history. Then we examine the future of liberal arts education in light of the trend to silo student training into pre-professional programs at the undergraduate level.

One of the most fundamental features of the Trump Administration is a policy of limiting immigration and reversing previous US policy on work visas, asylum, and deportation policy. Today we examine the status of this policy in light of recent US Supreme Court decisions and the Covid-19 Pandemic.

With the world facing multiple crises, we speak with three preeminent scholars from psychology, anthropology and philosophy about the crossroads before us and ways that we can navigate them for the betterment of humanity. [ dur: 58mins. ]

* David Livingstone Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of New England. He is the author of Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind, The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others, and his latest On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist it.

* Ervin Staub is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His numerous publications include Overcoming evil: Genocide, violent conflict and terrorism, The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence, and The roots of goodness: Inclusive caring, moral courage, altruism born of suffering, active bystandership and heroism.

* Doug Fry is Professor & Chairperson in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. With Riane Eisler he has co-authored, Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Minds, Lives, and Future. He is also the author of ,Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace and the editor of War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views.

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

First, Tensions along the India/China border have left soilders killed, emotions high, and the risk of war increasing. We examine the cause of these tensions and the importance of de-escalation. Then how does privatization amount to what our guest calls a Constitutional Coup.

In days after the killing of George Floyd, protesters have made several demands to counter police violence and racism in the United States. Some of the demands directly relate to the history of race and violence in the nation, with a particular emphasis on the memory of the US Civil War. We explore the renewed campaigns to remove racially offensive public memorials. Hosted by Doug Becker [ dur: 27 mins. ]

* Brent Sasley is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas, Arlington. He is the co-author of the book Politics in Israel: Governing a Complex Society and the journal article Theorizing States’ Emotions.

In 1979, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the genocidal Khmer Rouge government. What have been the consequences of that decision and its impact? Hosted by Dough Becker. [ dur: 29 mins. ]

* Kosal Path is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Chair of Master’s Program in International Affairs and Global Justice at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He is the author of the book Vietnam’s Strategic Thinking During the Third Indochina War.

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

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.