To commemorate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. we discuss Dr King’s life, his work, his legacy and his memory. We then explore the impact of Dr King and his memory on contemporary issues, including the role of women on the movement and the security of people of color as embodied in the Black Lives Matter movement. What is the meaning of Dr King’s dream today? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• David Garrow is Professor of History and Law at the University of Pittsburgh and Former Senior Research Fellow at Cambridge University. He is the author of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. His website is www.davidgarrow.com.
• Keith Miller is Professor of English and Professor, Affiliate Faculty, at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University. He is the author of Martin Luther King’s Biblical Epic: His Great, Final Speech and Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources. His website is: drkeithdmiller.com.
• Jared Clemons is Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. He is the author of “Freedom Now!” to “Black Lives Matter”: Retrieving King and Randolph to Theorize Contemporary White Antiracism.
• Dewey M. Clayton is Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. He is the author of The presidential campaign of Barack Obama: A critical analysis of a racially transcendent strategy, African Americans and the politics of congressional redistricting and Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Two Social Movements in the United States .

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

Western US is ablaze with intense and widespread fires. What role does climate change, forest management, overpopulation, and resource management play in the increasingly devastating fire seasons worldwide? How can climate mitigation and adaptation complicate forest management? [dur: 58mins. ]

• George Perry is a Professor at the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. He studies the effects of humans on forest ecosystems. He is the co-author of many publications including, Positive Feedbacks to Fire-Driven Deforestation Following Human Colonization of the South Island of New Zealand, Pyrodiversity is the coupling of biodiversity and fire regimes in food webs, and Green firebreaks as a management tool for wildfires: Lessons from China.
• Peter Ward is Professor of Biology and Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. He is the co-author of the best-selling Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, the author of many books including, Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere, Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future, and The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? which was listed by the New York Times as one of the “100 most important ideas of 2009.”
• Beverly Elizabeth Law is Emeritus Professor and was previously Professor of Global Change Biology and Terrestrial Systems Science in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. She is an American Geophysical Union Fellow and Aldo Leopold Fellow. She is an author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed publications including Drivers of Future Ecosystem Change in the US Pacific Northwest: The Role of Climate, Fire, and Nitrogen and Tree biomass mortality from fires, bark beetles, and timber harvest during a hot, dry decade in the western United States.
• William Moomaw is Emeritus Professor of international environmental policy and founding director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School. He is the co-founder and current co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts. Professor Moomaw has been a lead author of five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. He is the author of Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good and Scientist Diplomats or Diplomat Scientists: Who Makes Science Diplomacy Effective?

This panel was recorded in September 2020.

This program is produced by the following team members: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

The fourth amendment has protected privacy for Americans. But with new technologies, smart phones, the internet, and other devices, our protections are easily compromised. Will protecting privacy in the digital age require a new Digital 4th Amendment? We interview Orin Kerr author of The Digital Fourth Amendment: Privacy and Policing in our Online World [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Orin Kerr is a professor of law at Stanford Law school. His new book titled The Digital Fourth Amendment Privacy and policing in our online world. He has also published 70 law review articles many of which has been cited by Federal Courts.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, and Sudd Dongre.

The history of anti-slavery activism is a rich and important period in American history. But there are so many stories that still have yet to be written. Samuel Ward is one of those activists; an important figure in the African-American activist community working against slavery and racism, whose story is largely lost. Our guest R. J. M. Blackett is addressing this need to tell Ward’s story in a new book, Samuel Ringgold Ward: A life of Struggle. [ dur: 58mins. ]

• R. J. M. Blackett is Andrew Jackson Professor of History emeritus at Vanderbilt University. His previous books are The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery and Making Freedom: The Underground Railroad and the Politics of Slavery.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin, Mihika Chechi, and Sudd Dongre.

Money can distort politics. And the lack of transparency where this money comes from can further distort politics and invite corruption. Since much of the money in campaign finance is not subject to transparency laws, it has taken the name dark money. This specifically references spending by nonprofit organizations created for political spending. How much has dark money skewed American democracy? What role does transparency in spending play in ensuring the legitimacy of democracies? [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Stan Oklobdzija is Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Riverside’s School of Public Policy. He is the author of Public positions, private giving: Dark money and political donors in the Digital Age and Closing Down and Cashing In: Extremism and Political Fundraising.
• Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is Professor of Law at Stetson Law School. She is the author of Corporate Citizen? An Argument for the Separation of Corporation and State and Political Brands.
• Maurice Cunningham is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He is the author of Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.

This interview was recorded October 2022.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Mihika Chechi, Melissa Chiprin, and Sudd Dongre.

Tuesday December 10 , 2024 was a Human Rights Day. When human rights are denied, 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.

History of Meskhetian Turks who are stateless and struggling to exist as people among nations like Turkey, Georgia, Romania and Armenia. We will discuss this population and its unique challenges in Russia and its population also has a unique and important position within the United States. [ dur: 32mins. ]

• 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.
• Richard  Arnold is a associate professor of political science at Muskingum University. He’s the author of Russian Nationalism and Ethnic Violence, Symbolic Violence, Lynching, Pogrom, and Massacre and co-author of The Last Push from the South. Explaining the spread of Russia’s Cossack Movement.

And a look at how the unconscious mind and biological predispositions effect political outcomes, waging war and prejudice biases. [ dur: 26 mins. ]

• Shankar Vedantam is a science correspondent with NPR. He is the author of The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elects Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives.
• Guillermo Jiménez is an Associate Professor of International Trade at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He is the author of Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

COP 29 in Azerbaijan has just ended. These annual meetings are intended to advance the cause of combating climate change. And while the meetings did result in an agreement, there has been intense criticism both within the attendees and critics from outside the halls of the meetings about this agreement. And of course the United States just elected a President who considers climate change to be a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. On this show, we explore what developed at COP 29, and what this means for global action on climate change. [ dur: 58mins. ]

• Shannon Gibson is Associate Professor of Political Science, International Relations, and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. She’s also the author of a recent article in the Conversation Throwing soup on a Van Gogh and other ways young climate activists are making their voices heard over Egypt’s climate summit protest suppression and State-led social boundary change: Transnational environmental activism, ‘ecoterrorism’ and September 11.
• Amy Below, Associate Professor of International Relations and Comparative Politics at California State University East Bay. She specializes in environmental and climate politics and foreign policy with a regional emphasis in the Americas. She is author of Environmental Politics and Foreign Policy Decision Making in Latin America Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and The Missing Link: Regionalism as a First Step Toward Globalizing U.S. Environmental Security Policy.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

The small Southeastern European nation of Moldova sits at a crossroads.  Once a part of the former Soviet Union, the nation has long ties to Central Europe (and in particular Romania). And recent political developments expose this tension. In October, the nation -reelected President Maia Sandu, despite allegations of Russian interference to aid her opponent Alexandr Stoianoglo. And the nation passed a referendum advocating membership in the European Union, but with a very slim majority. And it has seen ongoing conflicts that has separated a significant part of its Eastern territory, which has declared itself the breakaway republic of Transneister. So on today’s show, we will explore the nation of Moldova, its politics, its challenges and its human rights profile. [ dur:34mins. ]

• Ecaterina Locoman is Senior Lecturer of Political Science at Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Moldova’s Critical Decision Between Europe and Russia Narratives of conflict: Russian media’s evolving treatment of Ukraine (2013–2022)
• Christian Cantir is Associate Professor of Political Science at Oakland University. She is the author of ‘On the front line of the battle for reunification’: Nationalism and Romania’s identity paradiplomacy in Moldova and “Goodbye Moscow, Hello Brussels”: The City Diplomacy of Chișinău Mayor Dorin Chirtoacă.
• Isabelle DeSisto is fourth-year PhD candidate in Politics at Princeton University. She is co-author of “Moldova chooses Europe again as Sandu wins re-election,” and “The high stakes in Moldova’s 2024 election,”

Following the re-election of Maia Sandu and the passage of a referendum on membership in the European Union, the nation’s human rights profile is particularly important. Membership in the EU requires substantial monitoring of human rights and a commitment to democracy. And while the election of October 2024 looks promising, the nation faces significant challenges. So we will discuss those challenges and the human rights commitments of the nation. [ dur: 24mins. ]

• Nicolae Panfil is Program Director and Head of Election Observation Missions at Promo-LEX Association – an NGO dedicated to the advancement of human rights and democratic processes in the Republic of Moldova.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

In the 2024 election, voters reaffirmed the right to abortion in many states while the nation still elected an anti-abortion president, and anti-abortion majority in both the senate and the house of representatives. What does this mean for abortion rights in the US.

• Aziza Ahmed is Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. She is the author of The Future of Facts: The Politics of Public Health and Medicine in Abortion Law, Informed Decision Making and Abortion: Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Informed Consent, and the First Amendment, and Medical Evidence and Expertise in Abortion Jurisprudence .
• Carole Joffe is Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe v. Wade, Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients and the Rest of Us and co-author of Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America.
• Robin Marty is Executive Director for the West Alabama Women’s Center and a freelance reporter. She’s the author of Handbook for a Post-Roe America and co-author of The End of Roe v. Wade: Inside the Right’s Plan to Destroy Legal Abortion.
• Rachel Rebouché is the Interim Dean of Temple University Beasley School of Law and the James E. Beasley Professor of Law. She is the author of Abortion Rights as Human Rights, co-author of “Eugenic Abortions” and the Problematic Popularity of the Reason-Based Ban and The New Abortion Battleground.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.