RevDem Podcast Review of Democracy

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Michael S. Roth sketches the main ways of being a student since ancient times; reflects on the process of learning “to be free”; explores the reasons behind
the politicization of universities in the United States; considers what might be new about the adversarial relationship between students and university
administrators these days; and sketches what “safe enough spaces” might look like in our turbulent
times.

Michael S. Roth is a historian, curator, author, and public advocate for liberal education. He has acted as President of Wesleyan University since 2007. He is the founding
director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute. He formerly acted as the associate director of the Getty
Research Institute in Los Angeles and as president of the
California College of the Arts. He is the author of eight books. The Student: A Short History is his newest book.

The Student: A Short History is published by Yale
University Press.

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Michael S. Roth sketches the main ways of being a student since ancient times; reflects on the process of learning “to be free”; explores the reasons behind
the politicization of universities in the United States; considers what might be new about the adversarial relationship between students and university administrators these days; and sketches what “safe enough spaces” might look like in our turbulent
times.

Michael S. Roth is a historian, curator, author, and public advocate for liberal education. He has acted as President of Wesleyan University since 2007. He is the founding
director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute. He formerly acted as the associate director of the Getty
Research Institute in Los Angeles and as president of the
California College of the Arts. He is the author of
eight books. The Student: A Short History is his newest book.

The Student: A Short History is published by Yale University Press.

In this conversation with the Review of Democracy, Ho-fung Hung shares his eye-opening analysis of the internal contradictions and external limitations
plaguing China’s export-led development model and offers novel insights into the difficulties its political leadership is encountering in challenging US hegemony and extending its global sphere of influence. While acknowledging China’s impressive achievements, Hung emphasizes China’s technological dependency and chronic industrial overcapacity, the impact of the rise of
protectionism, the hegemony of the US dollar, and China’s lack of confidence in its military capabilities. At the same time, he forecasts the intensification of US-Chinese rivalry in connection with the gradual decoupling of the US and Chinese economies.

 

Ho-fung Hung is Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy at the Sociology Department of the Johns Hopkins University. His scholarly interests include global political economy, protest,
nation-state formation, social theory, and East Asian Development. He is the author of the award-winning Protest with Chinese Characteristics (2011, Columbia UP), The China Boom: Why China Will not Rule the World (2016, Columbia UP) and the Clash of Empires: From “Chimerica” to the “New Cold War” (2022, Cambridge UP).

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Joshua Leifer – author of the new book Tablets Shattered. The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future
of Jewish Life – analyzes the unravelling of the postwar American Jewish consensus and the reemergence of
oppositional Jewish politics; discusses what he sees as the four main political-religious tendencies in our times and how his own relationship to them has evolved over the years; explores the radical potential of traditional
Judaism; and reflects on how the diasporic double bind may be navigated today.

Joshua Leifer is a journalist, editor, and translator whose essays and reporting have appeared widely in international publications, including The New York Review of Books,
The New Statesman, and The Nation. Joshua is a member of the Dissent editorial board and is currently pursuing a PhD at Yale University which focuses on the history of modern moral and social thought. Tablets Shattered is Joshua Leifer’s first book.

Tablets Shattered. The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life will be
released in August. It is published by Dutton.

 

The conversation was conducted by Ferenc Laczó. The
recording has been edited by Lilit Hakobyan.

What are the most important legal and political challenges in rebuilding the Rule of Law in Poland? Polish Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar highlighted them in his lecture at the CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest.

On May 27 the CEU Democracy Institute Rule of Law clinic was launched with an inaugural lecture from the Minister for Justice of Poland Adam Bodnar. The event provided a unique opportunity to hear a sitting member of an anti-illiberal government explain how the Rule of
Law will be restored after nearly a decade of backsliding under the previous government. The key theme of the lecture was the endorsement of incrementalism over revolution as a means to rebuild a ‘sustainable’ Rule of Law.

In this conversation, Jannis Panagiotidis and Hans-Christian Petersen – authors of the new book Antiosteuropäischer Rassismus in Deutschland. Geschichte und Gegenwart
(Racism Against East Europeans in Germany. History and the Present Day) – show why racism is an appropriate category when discussing stereotypes and prejudices
against East Europeans; explain why there is a need for “an Eastern enlargement of the racism debate”; discuss how the most extreme, National Socialist forms of racism relate to what came before and after; consider how racism against East Europeans might be embedded in the larger, more global system of prejudices and domination; and reflect on the current stakes of their scholarly intervention.

 Jannis Panagiotidis is the Scientific Director of the Research Center for the History of Transformations (or RECET), an institute of advanced research in Vienna.

Hans-Christian Petersen is a staff member at the Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe (BKGE), which is based in the city of Oldenburg.

Antiosteuropäischer Rassismus in Deutschland. Geschichte und Gegenwart has been published by Beltz Juventa.

The conversation was conducted by Ferenc Laczó. Ádám Hushegyi and Lilit Hakobyan edited the audio recording.