The Scholars' Circle

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The Scholars' Circle episodes

April 28, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Insights into Cambodian Genocide and Wiriyamu Massacre in Mozambique – April 27, 2025
April is Genocide Awareness Month, and no genocide was more devastating, more destructive and more emblematic of the demand for never again like the Cambodian Genocide. Often referring to as the “Killing Fields” after the moving Dith Pran novel and movie of the same name, 2 million people out of a pre-genocide population of 7 million were killed by the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia between the years 1975 and 1979. The importance of the remembrance of the genocide lies in remembering its victims. But learning from the processes by which this killing was committed and to understand how genocides are perpetrated is essential at ensuring Never Again. And in light of the world’s rejection of its commitments to human rights in its contemporary times, including an American government with a much lessening commitment to these rights, how much can we learn from genocides like Cambodia to counter such actions today? [ dur: 30mins. ]
Alex Hinton is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He is also the Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention, and the award-winning author or editor of seventeen books, including, most recently, It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US (NYU, 2021), Anthropological Witness: Lessons from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Cornell, 2022) and Perpetrators: Encountering Humanity’s Dark Side (Stanford, 2023). Most recently, he received the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology in the Media Award in 2022, a 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Network of Genocide Scholars, and a H. F. Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award in 2024.
Portugal’s colonization of Mozambique is part of a pattern of colonialism from European powers in Africa in the 19th and 20th century. Mozambique was one of the last countries to be decolonized. A bitter war of independence broke out in 1964 from a campaign by the Mozambique Liberation front and a ten year resulted in the nation gaining its independence in 1975. Numerous atrocities marked this war and one in particular, the Portuguese massacre at Wiriyamu in December, 1972, marked the brutality of this war and the Portuguese response. Our guest has written the definitive history of this massacre, which proved to be challenging to construct the story. His account serves as an incredibly important marker of the Portugese violence in Mozambique and in Portual’s eventual acknowledgement and apology for the atrocity.[ dur: 28mins. ]
Mustafah Dhada, is a Professor in the Department of History at California State University, Bakersfield. He is the author of the bookWiriyamu Massacre: An Oral History, 1960-1974.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
58 min
April 28, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Armenia – Azerbaijan treaty update ; Labors view on tariff – April 20, 2025
Recent peace treaty communication coming from Armenia and Azerbaijan explained.
Robert English is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War and The Other Side: How Soviets and Americans Perceive Each Other.
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.
How does Labor unions view Trump’s tariff policies?
Wendy Hansen is professor of Political Science at University of New Mexico. Her research interest are in international relations, economics, public policy and labor. She is author of New Evidence for the Theory of Groups: Trade Association Lobbying in Washington D.C. and Campaign Finance in US Politics: An Era Without Limits.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
58 min
April 14, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Origins of war and ways to resolve socially violent tendencies – April 13, 2025
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: 30 mins. ]
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: 28 mins. ]
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 at Brandeis University. She is the author of The Psychology of Resolving Global Conflicts: From War to Peace.
Douglas Noll is a lawyer and a mediator of 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 07, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Alien Enemy’s Act invoked to deport people from US without due process on civil charges – April 6, 2025
The Trump Administration is using the Alien Enemies Act to seize Venezuelans and ship them to a notorious prison El Salvador without due process. What can be done to protect and uphold the rule of law and human rights in the face of the Trump Administration’s rejection of them? What are some means of legal and political resistance when human rights are being violated? [ dur: 58mins. ]
Jennifer Selin is Associate Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. She’s written numerous articles, and in particular, Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador sparks light Legal questions likely to reach the Supreme Court.
Victor Narro is Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center and Core Faculty for the UCLA Department of Labor Studies. He teaches immigration law and is author of The Activist Spirit – Toward a Radical Solidarity and No One Size Fits All: Worker Organization, Policy, and Movement in a New Economic Age (Cornell University Press, 2018) and others.
Andrea Pitzer is an author and podcaster. She’s written One Long Night, a global history of concentration camps. This traces the idea of mass civilian detention without trial from its beginnings through Auschwitz and beyond, including up to today. She’s also the host of the podcast, Next Comes What.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
58 min
April 01, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations ; Building opposition to anti-science propaganda – March 30, 2025
The Russian invasion and war in Ukraine is now over three years old. The new Trump Administration is trying to negotiate a cease fire and peace in the war. Why has an agreement been so elusive? [ dur: 20mins. ]
Robert English is Associate Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the Central European Studies Program at the University of Southern California (USC). He is the author of Russia and the Idea of the West.
Anti-science propaganda has driven ignorance-fueled decisions that are driving us to ecological collapse. What are the costs of the spread of this mal-information? Who is spreading it? For what end? And how can it be overcome? [ dur: 38mins. ]
Eve Darian-Smith is the professor of Global Studies, Law, Anthropology, and Criminology Law & Society, at University of California Irvine. She is the author of Global Burning – Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis.
Stuart McNaughton is the professor of Faculty of Arts and Education at The University of Auckland in NZ.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
March 24, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s assualt on academic freedom; Book author interview – We the Men – March 23, 2025
The Trump Administration has launched full frontal political assaults on academic freedoms on college campuses. Both professors and students are being targeted for their political positions. Schools fear the loss of funding based on protests on campus and faculty political advocacy. And departments are being targeted not just for classes but also existentially, such as gender studies and Middle East studies. What does this mean for academic freedom, academic excellence, free speech and advocacy on college campuses? How does the attack on colleges and universities signal this countrys drive to authoritarianism. [ dur: 32mins. ]
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.
Have women’s stories been made invisible in the retelling of history and law? If so, what are the consequences of that? American history is too often told without the experiences of American women. And American Constitutional Law far too often reflects this invisibility by perpetuating inequality. Today’s guest has a new book on this historical invisibility and its consequences. Jill Hasday is the author of We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality. [ dur: 26mins. ]
Jill Hasday is the distinguished McKnight University professor and Centennial professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. She’s the author of Family Law Re-imagined, Intimate Lies in the Law, and her new book We the Men, how forgetting women’s Struggles for equality perpetuates inequality. She is editor-in-chief of Constitutional Commentary.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
March 16, 2025Scholars’ Circle – The Suffragist Peace: How women gained voting rights and affected global politics – March 16, 2025
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 interview was recorded April 2024.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
March 10, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Title IX history and compliance struggle for women’s equality in higher education – March 9, 2025
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 the CEO and Founder of Champion Women. 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 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 interview was recorded March 2024.
This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.
58 min
March 02, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s violations of US Constitution – March 2, 2025
Is the US in a constitutional crisis? Is the constitution itself a crisis? What are the specific actions of the Trump Administration that has led to this? How will the courts respond? And what is the unitary executive theory and how has it undermined the checks and balances of the system? [ dur: 58mins. ]
Heidi Kitrosser is William W. Gurley Professor of Law at Northwestern – Pritzker School of Law. She is the author of Reclaiming Accountability: Transparency, Executive Power, and the U.S. Constitution, and the articles, The Shadow of Executive Privilege and Accountability in the Deep State.
Sanford Levinson is W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School. He is the author of many publications including Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It) and Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today.
This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.
59 min
February 24, 2025Scholars’ Circle – Book author interviews: The fight for Black literacy, women intellectuals of the civil rights movement – February 23, 2025
We honor Black History Month.
The South outlawed Black literacy all the way until the Civil War. What was this war on Black literacy and how did educators resist this law? [ dur: 32mins. ]
Derek Black is Professor of Law in the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of South Carolina’s School of Law. He is the author of Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy, Ending Zero Tolerance: The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline and his latest Dangerous Learning The South’s long war on Black Literacy.
Then, Black women have long been at the forefront of black empowerment. What were their intellectual contributions during the civil rights era? we discuss the women intellectuals of the civil rights movement.[ dur: 26mins. ]
This interview was recorded February 2023.
Ashley Farmer is Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies & History at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era and co-editor of New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition. She is also the Co-Editor and Curator of the Black Power Series with Ibram X. Kendi.
This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.
58 min