Mark Blyth, political economist at Brown's Watson Institute, and Carrie Nordlund, political scientist and associate director of Brown's Master of Public Affairs program, share their take on the week's news and discuss Trump's trade wars with steel, gun violence, the NRA and the student and corporate response; Brexit, Italian elections, and Curling.

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ze48aVLKgulg0B3K_CVPigIrMwEQcIhp/view?usp=sharing]

Pulitzer Prize winner and Paris Bureau Chief for the New York Times Alissa Rubin '80 reflects on her career as a reporter and on the American image abroad, from Kabul to Baghdad.

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DTRrhFMPsE4XtBOkAuHc4xCmdM2jQRYX/view?usp=sharing]

The Middle East has been ground zero for the major chemical attacks of the past 40 years. From the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), to the Persian Gulf War (1991), to the Syrian Civil War (2011-present), countless civilians and soldiers have been exposed to chemical agents and hundreds of thousands of survivors live with the long-term consequences of these bombs. Yet, there has been limited scholarly and public work about chemical warfare and the traces it leaves behind in the region: from its illicit international trade, to the lives of survivors post-exposure, to the environmental disasters these bombs unleash.

Narges Bajoghli is a media and political anthropologist and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Watson Institute. Joost Hiltermann is Program Director for the Middle East and North Africa for International Crisis Group. We spoke with the recently during a break in the Middle East Toxic Wars conference here at the Institute.

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KqQPaut1nUVZ543Z0SKMgWk2rK8JVG7y/view?usp=sharing]

Mark Blyth, political economist at Brown's Watson Institute, and Carrie Nordlund, political scientist and associate director of Brown's Master of Public Affairs program, share their take on the week's news and discuss Trump's State of the Union Speech, stock market volatility, the Nunes memo, German government coalition, the EU's stance on non-Paris agreement trade partners, and the Super Bowl - should JT be the target of political fervor?

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PiNe-PwskksxM8sbCjip2BBd0A1sUojJ/view?usp=sharing]

For the past 70 years, the nations of the world have more or less agreed that the role of nuclear weapons is to discourage aggression: owning them is one thing, but using them is beyond the pale. Now, two volatile world leaders with considerable nuclear arsenals at their fingertips are engaging in bellicose rhetoric. How nervous should we be as we read the threatening tweets coming out of Washington and Pyongyang?

Nina Tannenwald is a faculty fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute and director of its International Relations program. She writes often on issues of nuclear proliferation and her book, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Nonuse of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 won the 2009 Lepgold Prize for best book in international relations.

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mvR8T31cTGf_pJaSfyOwQOAduMGKFASV/view?usp=sharing]

Islamists, Arab nationalists and Orientalists have all used notions about the Muslim family and Muslim law—as well as the encounter with Europe in the early 19th century—to explain society in the Middle East. But when historian Beshara Doumani set out to explore these notions, he found almost no scholarship had been done.

Taking a deep dive into two centuries of local records about ordinary people in the Eastern Mediterranean, Doumani discovered that when it comes to defining the typical Muslim family, there was, and is, no such thing.

On today’s podcast he discusses his new book, Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean.

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iV-CcHitVWbzbexypE5zlPM0p5UwbGIq/view?usp=sharing]

In Mexican cities, the war on drugs has created a culture of such fear that upper class cities within cities are developing, and drawing on both private and public resources for protection.

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QeqJxFvTyQAL81Z560pWTf1iuyeg9lca/view?usp=sharing]

Happy New Year! Mark Blyth, political economist at Brown's Watson Institute, and Carrie Nordlund, political scientist and associate director of Brown's MPA, share their take on the week's news and discuss the government shutdown, Oprah 2020, North Korea at the Olympics, and why Trump has Satan over a barrel in order to get away with his illustrious history...

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jwK3GtNckJnuRbfEwQuUMivI-Z6s84FD/view?usp=sharing]

Stephanie Lopez from Colombia participated in the "Forced Migration, Forced Displacements" Institute at BIARI.

Stephanie’s work focuses on displacement due to the decades-long conflict in her home country, whom she says were exiled for their political beliefs.

Natalia Cidade from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and participated in the "Humanitarian Response and Post-Conflict Reconstruction' Institute at BIARI.

Natalia realizes that shelters are just a small, technical element of a larger disaster-response equation and without effective policy, shelters are just a short-term solution.