The Scholars' Circle

First, after years of allowing censorship and criminal prosecution of dissent, what caused the radical turnaround by the Supreme Court to then support free speech and dissent? Part one of a two part discussion with Thomas Healy author of, The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind–and Changed the History of Free Speech in America.

* Thomas Healy is Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School. Author of The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind–and Changed the History of Free Speech in America

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, what we remember about historical events and how we remember them effects the future of politics and policies, according to our guests. And memory entrepreneurs are in the business of shaping these memories as a means of advancing political agenda. We look at the politics of memory and how these memory entrepreneurs are trying to shape what how we remember the past as a means of shaping the future. Part one of a two part panel discussion.

* Douglas Becker is a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California and author of the chapter Memories and Trauma as Elements of Identity in Foreign Policymaking.

* Dovile Budryte is a professor of political science at Georgia Gwinnett College in Atlanta. She is the author of Taming Nationalism: Political Community Building in the Post-soviet Baltic States and co-editor of the collected volume Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases and Debates.

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

First, with the death of Fidel Castro and with Donald Trump as the incoming president, what will happen with Cuba and it’s relations with the United States? Peter Kornbluh of Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archives with insights.[ dur; 26mins. ]

* Peter Kornbluh directs the Cuba Documentation Project and the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archives. He is the author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability and co-author of The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History.

Then, storms and fires are on the rise in quantity and severity bringing disastrous consequences to lives and livelihood. How will we deal with the storms, particularly with the loss of power? [ dur: 32mins. ]

* Dr Steve Matthewman, teaches at University of Auckland, NZ. His research and expertise is in Social theory, technology studies, the underbelly of modernity, the sociology of accidents and disasters. He is the author of Disasters, Risks and Revelation: Making Sense of Our Times

* Dr Julie Leigh MacArthur , teaches at University of Auckland, NZ. Her research and expertise is in Environmental politics and policy, participatory governance, renewable energy policies, social and solidarity economies. She is the author of Empowering Electricity: Co-operatives, Sustainability, and Power Sector Reform in Canada.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

First, beyond ending war what does it take to make a lasting quality peace? Peter Wallensteen is the author of Quality Peace: Peacebuilding, Victory and World Order.[ dur: 28mins. ]

* Peter Wallensteen is a Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden and research Professor of peace studies at Joan B Kroc Institute for Peace Studies at University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Quality Peace: Peacebuilding, Victory and World Order, Understanding Conflict Resolution, contributor to The Scientific Study of Peace and War: A Text Reader and editor of Regional Organizations and Peacemaking: Challengers to the UN?.

Then, the birth of what we know as big science. The big money supported, cross institution collaborations that have supported both medicine and weaponry. How did science and government get so entrenched with industry, and one another? And what have been the results? Michael Hiltzik is the author of Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military Industrial Complex. [ dur: 30mins. ]

* Michael Hiltzik is a Pulizer Prize winning journalist and author. He has been writing for the Los Angeles Times for three decades and is currently the Times’ Business Columnist. He is the author of many books including, The New Deal: A Modern History; The Plot Against Social Security, and his latest Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military Industrial Complex.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

First, the makings of a scandal. Why are some perceived as big scandals, while a rash of other wrongs are ignored? [ dur: 21mins. ]

* Robert Entman is a Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is the author of, Scandal and Silence: Media Responses to Presidential Misconduct, Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy, and The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America.

Then, what might the 2016 election mean for the future on climate, the economy, foreign policy and democracy in the US? [ dur: 37 mins. ]

* Sean Theriault is a Professor in the Department of Government at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Power of the People: Congressional Competition, Public Attention, and Voter Retribution, Party Polarization in Congress, and The Gingrich Senators: The Roots of Partisan Warfare in Congress.

* William F. Grover is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Michaels’s College. He is the author of The Unsustainable Presidency: Clinton, Bush, Obama and Beyond, The President as Prisoner: A Structural Critique of the Carter and Reagan Years, and co-editor of Voices of Dissent: Critical Readings in American Politics.

* Keith T. Poole is a Professor of the Department of Political Science at the University of Georgia and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-author of Political Bubbles: Financial Crises and the Failure of American Democracy, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches, and Ideology and Congress.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

Is the US State Department using its diplomatic efforts to push genetically modified foods into other countries? Our guest says yes. She traced US multi-pronged effort to persuade Mexico to allow genetically modified foods.[ dur: 23mins. ]

* Yadira Ixchel Martínez Pantoja, PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland. Her recent paper is titled, United States promotion of GM foods: the use of public diplomacy strategies and instruments to target government agencies in Mexico.

How do we make sense of the 2016 US election politically and historically? [ dur: 35mins. ]

* David P. Redlawsk is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. He is the author of The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning, Why Iowa? How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process and Reforming Presidential Nominations: Rotating State Primaries or a National Primary?

* Henry E. Brady is a Dean of Policy and a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-editor of Rethinking Social Inquiry, Capturing Campaign Effects, and The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology.

* Dr. Paul Michel Taillon is a Professor of History at The University of Auckland. He is a contributing author of Good, Reliable, White Men: Railroad Brotherhoods, 1877-1917.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

First, the roots of the ultraconservative media movement. Nichole Hemmer is the author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. [ dur: 28mins. ]

* Nicole Hemmer is Assistant Professor of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. She is the author of, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.

How accurate are the polls? Who will vote and who won’t? What election laws affect who votes? And what will ultimately determine the presidential race? Two political scientists join us to analyze. [ dur: 30mins. ]

* Jonathan Nagler is Professor of Politics at New York University. He is the Director of the Politics Data Center and a principal investigator at the NYU Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) Lab. He is the co-author of, Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality, and Turnout in the United States.

* Jan Leighley Is Professor of Political Science at American University. She is the co-author of, Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality and Turnout in the United States, Strength in Numbers? The Political Mobilization of Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Mass Media and Politics: A Social Science Perspective.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

We look at how the financial crisis, like those that came before it, was a political crisis. We spend the hour analyzing the failures of democracy that allowed it to happen, and what reforms are necessary to prevent it from happening again. We are joined by the authors of Political Bubbles: Financial Crisis and the Failure of American Democracy. [ dur: 57 mins. ]

* Nolan McCarty is the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Politics and Public Affairs and Chair of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, respectively.

* Keith T. Poole is the Philip H. Alston, Jr. Distinguished Chair and Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Georgia and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California San Diego.

* Howard Rosenthal is Professor of Politics at New York University and Professor Emeritus of Social Sciences and of Politics at Princeton University.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

First we look at art as an act of resistance and as a weapon to counter oppression and violence. [ dur: 28 mins. ]

* Mark LeVine is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine and author of Overthrowing Geography, Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam and Impossible Peace.

Finally, on the Scholars’ Circle panel, we explore the historic and current efforts to amend the constitution. [ dur: 30 mins. ]

* John R. Vile is Dean and Professor of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of, The Writing and Ratification of the U.S. Constitution: Practical Virtue in Action, Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015, and ReFramers: 170 Eccentric, Visionary, and Patriotic Proposals to Rewrite the U.S. Constitution.

* Stephen M. Griffin is Professor in Constitutional Law at Tulane Law School. He is the author of, Long Wars and the Constitution and American Constitutionalism: From Theory to Politics.

* Sanford Levinson is Professor in the Department of Government and Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School. His numerous publications include, Constitutional Faith, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It) and, most recently,Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

First, birds, bees, whales and turtles all use the earth s magnetic field to guide their behaviour. Now scientists have learned much more about how. Joining us is Andres Vidal Gadea. He s a professor of Molecular Neuroethology at Illinois State University who has made the fascinating discoveries. [ dur: 17mins. ]

* Andrew Vidal Gadea, Molecular Neuroethology, Illinois State University . His research website at Illinois State University https://about.illinoisstate.edu/avidal/Pages/AGVG_Res.aspx

Human history has been drastically changed by our relationship with animals. So much so that our next guest says it would be a different world if not for our intimate bonds with animals. How have they changed us and the world we live in? Joining us is Professor Brian Fagan. [ dur: 41 mins. ]

* Brian Fagan, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored more than two dozen books, including the latest. “The Intimate Bond: How Animals Have Shaped Human History“.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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

First, trend for economic equality in US has been changing with less opportunity for people to transcend inter-generational economic status than they have in other countries, like Norway, Finland, Denmark and Canada. Why the changes? [ dur: 13 mins. ]

* Miles Corak is a professor of economics with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottowa. He is the author of, “Generational Income Mobility in North America and Europe” and “Income Mobility Across the Generations”

Then, climate change, pesticides and mites are killing off the planet’s bees. What will happen to the planet’s foods? And can the bee colony collapse be stopped? [ dur: 45 mins. ]

* Jeremy Kerr is a Professor of Biology at the University of Ottowa, specializing in conservation biology and biodiversity – Macroecology , Conservation research site. His latest publication links the decline of bumble bees to climate change.

* Peter Dearden is a Professor of Genetics and a researcher in the laboratory for evolution and development at Otago University where he specializes in evolution, development and epigenetics (link).

* Paulo de Souza is a Professor and team leader at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, and the Global Initiative for Honey Bee Health (link). He’s also a collaborating scientist on NASA’s Mars exploration Rover Mission.

Find books authored by our guest scholars on this Book Shelf .

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