The Scholars' Circle The Scholars' Circle

What challenges and crises are the sudden death of Iran's president and his succession revealing? What's happening inside the country? What's happening with Iran internationally?

We speak with four Iranian scholars on Iran's political system, internal politics, social and political repression and alienation between state and society. How much of Iran's foreign policy is driven by domestic issues and how much of it is a reaction to external actors, most notably the United States? [ dur: 58mins. ]



Saeid Golkar is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is the author of Captive Society: The Basij Mobilization and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran" (Columbia University Press, 2015) and Personalization of Power in Iran: Regime Incompetency and Protests in Iran.

Siavush Randjbar-Daemi is Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History in the School of History at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of The Tudeh Party of Iran and the peasant question and The quest for authority in Iran: a history of the presidency from revolution to Rouhani.

Nayereh Tohidi is Professor Emerita in the Department of Gender & Women's Studies and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the author of Women's Rights and Feminist Movements in Iran.

Ervand Abrahamian is Professor Emeritus at City University of New York. He is the author of A History of Modern Iran and Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran and Syria.





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

With massive protests on university campuses over the war in Gaza, universities have chosen to aggressively and violently break up the protests putting student protesters at risk. How does non-violent protest turn to violence at the hands of the police? How have national politics driven the responses to student protests? As university space has become more contested, particularly by political forces on the right, what do violent responses to protests mean for university values of free speech?



We speak with three university professors and one student about their experiences at their respective campuses. [ dur: 58mins. ]





Jeremi Suri is Professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office and his latest book Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight For Democracy. He hosts the podcast This is Democracy.

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.

Jack Leff is Post Doc and instructor of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His PhD dissertation is An Alchemy of Smoke and Flame: The Politics of Tear Gas Use Against Social Movements in the United States. He is an active political organizer interested in prison abolition.









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

With its 1.4 billion population and a billion registered voters, India stands as the world's largest democracy and 5th largest economy. India is holding national elections, which will decide its leaders for the next five years. What are the role of its institutions in supporting democracy and how are their elections conducted? What is the state of India's democracy and what are its big challenges? [ dur: 58mins. ]



Ritu Mathur is Professor of international relations at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is the author of Civilizational Discourses in Weapons Control.

Sandipto Dasgupta is Assistant Professor of Politics at New School of Social Research. He is the author of Legalizing the Revolution - India and the Constitution of the Postcolony



Amit Ahuja is Assciate Professor of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements and Internal Security in India - Violence, Order, and the State







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

Armenia has taken legal action against Azerbaijan claiming numerous violations of international law. What legal actions have been taken at both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. What are the causes of action and what might the consequences and impacts of these legal actions be?





Armenia is under intense pressure to negotiate a permanent peace with Azerbaijan. How could this normalize and legitimize Azerbaijan’s aggression? And what does it signal to aggressors internationally about the likelihood of punishment for this aggression? [ dur: 58mins. ]



Tamara Voskanian is a cofounder of the Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ), a nonprofit organization that documents atrocities and uses the evidence to bring perpetrators to justice. Last month Tamara represented CFTJ at the UN Committee Against Torture.

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.

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.





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

Beyond asylum seekers heading north, the problems of US/Mexico Border are also about the flow of guns and drugs. How can we understand the totality of problems related to the US southern border? What are the solutions?



We speak with Ieva Jusionyte the author of a new book Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border. [ dur: 58mins. ]



Ieva Jusionyte is a legal and medical anthropologist and associate professor at Brown University. She is also the author of award-winning ethnography Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border. She has been studying borders, violence, and security in Latin America and the United States for over fifteen years.





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

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: 30mins. ]



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: 28mins. ]



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, Brandeis University; Author of The Psychology of Resolving Global Conflicts: From War to Peace

Douglas Noll, lawyer, mediator 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.