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Faculty Insight: Islam in the West – a clash of civilizations?

Note: This interview was broadcast on WGBH radio, Boston’s NPR station for news and culture, on April 17, 2011!

Faculty Insight is produced in partnership with ThoughtCast and Harvard University Extension School. This third interview of the series is with Jocelyne Cesari, a level-headed yet astute specialist in contemporary Islamic society. Muslims who live in the Western world today face multiple challenges — suspicion, isolation, ignorance, fear. And post-9/11, of course, they carry the weight of that violent attack. So how are we to move forward, in an enlightened, inclusive manner? How ought we to apply our secular, humanist and individualistic values at such a time?

For starters, let’s listen to Jocelyne Cesari. She might not have all the answers, but as the director of the inter-faculty Islam in the West Program, she’s clearly the right person to ask. She is also an associate at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for European Studies at Harvard, and teaches in Harvard’s Department of Government, its Divinity School and its Extension School. This video of our interview is only an introduction, so….
Click here to hear the entire conversation! (16 minutes)

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Faculty Insight: Nuclear strategy in the post-cold war world

Note: This interview was broadcast on WGBH radio, Boston’s NPR station for news and culture, on April 17, 2011!

Faculty Insight is produced in partnership with Harvard University Extension School. This second interview of the series is with nuclear strategist Thomas Nichols, who is a professor at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island, a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a lecturer at Harvard Extension School. He speaks with ThoughtCast’s Jenny Attiyeh about the conflict with North Korea, the potential for nuclear terrorism, and the reduction of nuclear stockpiles in the post-cold war world.

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The Promise of Open Media

(Note: This program is featured on the Socialbrite and P2P Foundation websites — thanks for that!)

At the first ever Open Video Conference, held at New York University in Manhattan, participants pondered the significance of the open media movement, at a time when its tools are being put to use by protesters in Iran.  The social networking tools Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have revolutionized communication, and impacted events as they unfold.

ThoughtCast spoke with Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing fame, Peter Kaufman, the CEO of Intelligent Television, and Dean Jansen with the Participatory Culture Foundation, among others, about the potential of this movement to effect social change.

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The Economic Pits with James Poterba

Note: this interview was broadcast on the WGBH public radio affiliate WCAI, on the Cape and Islands!

What is the right expression to describe today’s economic nightmare? I’m sick of “mess” and “crisis” is too bland. What about “cesspool”? Well, I compromised with “pits” — feel free to add your own juicy descriptions in ThoughtCast’s comments section!
Either way, I dived into the “pool” with MIT’s Mitsui Professor of Economics James Poterba, who’s also the head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the think tank in charge of determining when recessions start … and end. Wouldn’t that be nice? Headlines proclaiming the “end” of this rather inordinate business cycle.
Are these ups and downs indeed just a part of capitalism’s inevitable booms and busts? Ought we to accept them as natural, rather than resist them? Or ought we to scrap the “system” and rebuild? You tell me…
But first, listen to this: (15:30 minutes).

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Reading List for Obama – your thoughts?

Scott McLemee, who pens the Intellectual Affairs column for Inside Higher Ed, asked a few of us for a suggested reading list for the president-elect.

Other contributors were James Marcus, the editor-at-large for the Columbia Journalism Review; Claire Potter, a professor of history and American studies at Wesleyan University; and James Mustich, editor of The Barnes & Noble Review.

Feel free to elaborate in the comments section, below.

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The Future of Europe – with Alberto Alesina

Note: a portion of this interview was broadcast on the WGBH public radio affiliates WCAI/WNAN!
Whither the European Union? This is not a question we (in America) often ask ourselves. But perhaps we should. As we now live in an era of borderless commerce – and threats – it might be wise for us to know a bit more about how our key ally, Europe, is faring. Is the EU more than just a powerful economic bloc? Does it have political clout as well? What about a common foreign policy, and the means to back it up?

Harvard economist Alberto Alesina has devoted himself to these questions. In a book he co-authored with Francesco Giavazzi, he asks: The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline??
Click here: to listen. (27 minutes)