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Civic Renewal in America
Jack Russell Weinstein and Peter Levine
Every one of us has been encouraged to be an involved citizen, but what exactly does this mean? Every one of us has been told that small groups of thoughtful people are the only things that change the world? Is this true? Every one of us has been told that the government represents our interests, but the government doesn’t seem to know that. This episode of looks at all these puzzles and examine activism, democracy, the attempts to influence government policy.
Peter Levine is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. He has a secondary appointment in the Tufts philosophy department. Levine graduated from Yale in 1989 with a degree in philosophy. He studied philosophy at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, receiving his doctorate in 1992. From 1991 until 1993, he was a research associate at Common Cause. In the late 1990s, he was Deputy Director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal. Levine is the author of the forthcoming book We are the Ones We have been Waiting for: The Promise of Civic Renewal in America (Oxford University Press, fall 2013), five other scholarly books on philosophy and politics, and a novel. He has served on the boards or steering committees of AmericaSpeaks, Street Law Inc., the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, the Kettering Foundation, the American Bar Association Committee’s for Public Education, the Paul J. Aicher Foundation, and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.”
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The Unity of the Sciences: Is All Knowledge Connected?
Jack Russell Weinstein and Joseph Margolis
Why? Radio is, of course, a philosophy show, but our guests aren’t just philosophers. They are historians, artists, scientists, musicians, sociologists and specialists from many different fields. Are we doing something wrong? Aren’t all these disciplines different? On this episode of Why? we are going to tackle these questions. We will ask about the classic “unity of the sciences,” look at the relationship between how cultures describe knowledge and how they describe themselves.
In this episode, the guest turns the tables on Jack by forcing him to answer a different starting question. This leads the discussion into unforeseen territory and forces all of us to dive headfirst into some of the deepest and most important (and abstract!) conversation about what it means for human beings to understand one another and the world around them.
Joseph Margolis is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy of Temple University. His main interests are in the philosophy of the human sciences, the theory of knowledge and interpretation, aesthetics, philosophy of mind, American philosophy, and pragmatism. He is Past-President of the American Society for Aesthetics, Honorary President and Lifetime Member of the International Association of Aesthetics. He has lectured widely in the United States and abroad. He serves on the editorial board of many philosophical journals and is completing the third volume in a trilogy of books on contemporary American philosophy. Professor Margolis is currently participating in the Department’s Vietnamese Philosophy Exchange.
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Should There Be A National Standard For Education?
Jack Russell Weinstein and Michael W. Apple
Education in the United States has changed radically in the last twenty years – standardized tests and the new Common Core goals have changed the way students are taught. At the heart of the debate is a complex philosophical question: should there be national standards for education or should educational goals be determined on the local level? Does the federal government have the best idea of what students should learn, or do local school boards, towns, cities, and counties? Should politicians and policy makers determine standards, or should teachers and parents? On this episode we discuss the Common Core, the purpose and nature of education, necessary educational goals, and Michael Apple’s new book “Can Education Change Society?”
Professor Michael W. Apple is John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He teaches courses in curriculum theory and research and in the sociology of curriculum. His major interests lie in the relationship between culture and power in education. He has many influential publications including the books Ideology and Curriculum, The State and Politics of Education. Educating the “Right” Way: Markets, Standards, God and Inequality, Official Knowledge: Democratic Knowledge in a Conservative Age; Cultural Politics and Education; Education and Power.
Michael Apple was also one of WHY? Radio’s earliest guests. His episode titled “Ideology and Curriculum: 30 Years of A Discussion” can be found here.
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Holding the Police Accountable
Jack Russell Weinstein and Samuel Walker
Samuel Walker has spent his career asking who polices the police. His books and paper titles read like a laundry list of horror stories – police abuse of teenage girls, the unsuccessful nature of police “sweeps” – but he also expresses an optimism about community influence and citizen involvement. On this episode, we dive headfirst into the controversial and complicated world of law enforcement.
Samuel Walker is Emeritus Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He received a Ph.D. in American History from Ohio State University in 1973. He has taught at UNO since 1974. He is the author of 11 books on policing, criminal justice history and policy, and civil liberties. Professor Walker’s current research involves police accountability, focusing primarily on citizen oversight of the police and police Early Warning (EW) systems. The research on citizen oversight is published in Police Accountability.
Samuel Walker’s website and blog can be found here.
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Reinventing Government: Twenty Years Later
Jack Russell Weinstein and David Osborne
The American Government is a large. Many claim it is also slow to move and wasteful. In 1993, the book Reinventing Government took this monolith as its target and offered up a way to change it, to make government nimble, responsive, and efficient. In doing so, it brought the ideas of privatization and entrepreneurship out of the business world and into Democratic public policy. The Clinton Administration was one of the books most enthusiastic supporters and Vice President Gore spearheaded a reinventing government commission. On this episode, we revisit that book to ask about its solutions and its legacy.
David Osborne is the author or co-author of five books: The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis (2004); The Reinventor’s Fieldbook: Tools for Transforming Your Government (2000), Banishing Bureaucracy: The Five Strategies For Reinventing Government (1997), Reinventing Government (1992), and Laboratories of Democracy (1988). He has also authored numerous articles for the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, Harpers, The New Republic, Inc., Governing, and other publications.
He is also a senior partner of The Public Strategies Group, a consulting firm that helps public organizations improve their performance.
Two papers that David mentioned in the show (click link):
“A New Model for American Education”
“Improving Charter School Accountability: The Challenge of Colsing Failing Schools.”
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A Conversation with a Playwright
Jack Russell Weinstein and Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner is probably the most important and most influential living American playwright. At this year’s UND Writers Conference, WHY?’s host Jack Russell Weinstein had the pleasure and honor of talking to him about the Pulitzer Prize winning play Angels in America, his movie Lincoln, and writing for the theater in general. It was a remarkable conversation in front of a very large appreciative audience.
WHY? Radio would like to thank the UND Writers Conference and its donors for inviting Jack to interview Tony, and for allowing us to broadcast the discussion as a whole.
In “After Angels,” a profile of Tony Kushner published in The New Yorker, John Lahr wrote: “[Kushner] is fond of quoting Melville’s heroic prayer from Mardi and a Voyage Thither (“Better to sink in boundless deeps than float on vulgar shoals”), and takes an almost carnal glee in tackling the most difficult subjects in contemporary history – among them, AIDS and the conservative counter-revolution (Angels In America), Afghanistan and the West (Homebody/Kabul), German Fascism and Reaganism (A Bright Room Called Day), the rise of capitalism (Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Browne), and racism and the civil rights movement in the South (Caroline, or Change). But his plays, which are invariably political, are rarely polemical. Instead Kushner rejects ideology in favor of what he calls “a dialectically shaped truth,” which must be “outrageously funny” and “absolutely agonizing,” and must “move us forward.” He gives voice to characters who have been rendered powerless by the forces of circumstances – a drag queen dying of AIDS, an uneducated Southern maid, contemporary Afghans – and his attempt to see all sides of their predicament has a sly subversiveness. He forces the audience to identify with the marginalized – a humanizing act of the imagination.”
Born in New York City in 1956, and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Kushner is best known for his two-part epic, Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. His other plays include A Bright Room Called Day, Slavs!, Hydrotaphia, Homebody/Kabul, and Caroline, or Change, the musical for which he wrote book and lyrics, with music by composer Jeanine Tesori. Kushner has translated and adapted Pierre Corneille’s The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children, and the English-language libretto for the children’s opera Brundibár by Hans Krasa. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’ film of Angels In America, and Steven Spielberg’s Munich as well as Spielberg’s movie Lincoln. His books include But the Giraffe: A Curtain Raising and Brundibar: the Libretto, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. His latest work includes a collection of one-act plays, titled Tiny Kushner, featuring characters such as Laura Bush, Nixon’s analyst, the queen of Albania and a number of tax evaders, and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism & Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (which premiered at the Guthrie Theatre in May 2009, opened in New York in May 2011). During the 2010-2011 season, a revival of Angels in America ran off-Broadway at the Signature Theater in New York, winning the Lucille Lortel Award in 2011 for Outstanding Revival.
Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Oscar nomination, an Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels Award for a Mid-Career Playwright, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and a Cultural Achievement Award from The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, among many others. Caroline, or Change, produced in the autumn of 2006 at the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, received the Evening Standard Award, the London Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Olivier Award for Best Musical. In September 2008, Tony Kushner became the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the largest theater award in the US. He was also awarded the 2009 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement. He is the subject of a documentary film, Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, made by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.
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A Secular Theory of Evil
Jack Russell Weinstein and Claudia Card
Years ago, Alan Bloom wrote that Hitler was the worst thing that ever happened to ethics classes, because when philosophers asked their students for an example of evil, they would just say “Hitler” and never actually have to think about the question. He may have had a point. We all use the word evil as if we know what it means, and more often than not, we use it in a religious context. On this episode of WHY? we’ll examine the concept of evil and ask, not just what how to define it, but how we think about it as philosophers and outside religion.
Claudia Card is the Emma Goldman Professor of Philosophy in the Philosophy Department at University of Wisconsin, Madison, with teaching affiliations in Women’s Studies, Jewish Studies, Environmental Studies, and LGBT Studies.
Her books include Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide (Cambridge 2010), Genocide’s Aftermath: Responsibility and Repair, ed. with Armen Marsoobian (Blackwell 2007); The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir, ed. (2003); The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (Oxford 2002); On Feminist Ethics and Politics, ed. (Kansas 1999); The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck (Temple 1996); Lesbian Choices (Columbia 1995); and Feminist Ethics, ed. (Kansas 1991).
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The Philosophy of Poetry
Jack Russell Weinstein and Mary Jo Bang
Almost seven hundred years ago Dante Alieghieri took us on a terrifying and mesmerizing journey through the nine circles of hell. He could never have predicted that today, in that same poem, the sin of gluttony would be represented by the South Park Character Eric Cartman. This isn’t a joke, but a way of modernizing Dante’s epic, and of showing that it still speaks to us as a serious work of art. On this episode of WHY?, we’re going to take our own journey, not through hell, but through the nature and limits of poetry, of what it means, and how it speaks to us
Mary Jo Bang is a poet, translator, and professor of English at Washington University in Saint Louis. She is the author of six books of poems and a a new translation of Dante’s Inferno.
This episode was recorded at the University of 2013 University of North Dakota Writers Conference. WHY? thanks the Conference, its organizers, and donors for allowing us to interview one of their invitees.
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The Philosopher of Gardens
Jack Russell Weinstein and Stephanie Ross
While North Dakota struggles through the last months of winter, many of us dream of gardens, of digging through the soil or of biting into a fresh tomato. But what kind of gardens do we want and why are they so important to us? Do we grow them for contemplation or just a place to entertain friends? Are gardens art and what ever happened to the term “picturesque”?
Stephanie Ross is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri, St Louis. She focuses on the aesthetics the philosophy of art), and is the author of the book “What Gardens Mean.”
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The Case for Religious Moderation
Jack Russell Weinstein and William Egginton
We are, people will tell us, in the midst of a religious war. Depending on who you believe, either science is making us immoral heathens or religion is making us ignorant rubes. William Egginton, however, challenges this view. He not only claims that this dichotomy is false, he asserts that the two sides are both fundamentalists and cut from the same cloth. Egginton argues that we should all be religious moderates combining scientific truth with religious belief.
William Egginton is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and chair of the Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of In Defense of Religious Moderation, How the World Became a Stage, Perversity and Ethics, A Wrinkle in History, The Philosopher’s Desire, and The Theater of Truth. He is also coeditor of Thinking with Borges and The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy, and translator of Lisa Block de Behar’s Borges: The Passion of an Endless Quotation.
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The NCAA and its Universities
Jack Russell Weinstein and Taylor Branch
The college sports industry is worth fifty to seventy billion dollars annually and is governed by a single organization, the National Collegiate Athletics Association. What happens if they’re not fair? What happens if there are deep systematic problems that no one has the power to fix and they won’t budge? Taylor Branch noted civil-rights historian, claims that the NCAA is immoral, that it’s racist, and that it has, the “unmistakable whiff of plantation on it.” On this episode of WHY? we’ll talk about the philosophy of college sports and the controversial agency that governs how college athletes live their lives.
Taylor Branch is a Pulitzer-prize winning historian and the recipient of a McArthur Genius award. He has written numerous books but is most well-known for a three volume history of the American civil-rights movement during the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Our discussion today is based upon his book The Cartel which is, itself, an extension of his article: “The Shame of College Sports” in The Atlantic Monthly.
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The Public Philosophy Experiment
Jack Russell Weinstein and Clay Jenkinson
This episode of Why? is a special one–our 50th–and to celebrate we’re changing things around. Our most frequent guest Clay Jenkinson interviews host Jack Russell Weinstein. That’s right, after almost four years of asking other people about their research, it’s his turn on the hot seat. So tune in for a s spirited and spontaneous discussion.
Clay Jenkinson is the Director of The Dakota Institute through The Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation, Chief Consultant to The Theodore Roosevelt Center through Dickinson State University, Distinguished Humanities Scholar at Bismarck State College, and a columnist for the Bismarck Tribune. A cultural commentator who has devoted most of his professional career to public humanities programs, Clay is the host of public radio’s The Thomas Jefferson Hour. He has been honored by two United States presidents for his work. On November 6, 1989, he received one of the first five Charles Frankel Prizes, the National Endowment for the Humanities’ highest award (now called the National Humanities Medal), at the nomination of the NEH Chair, Lynne Cheney. Since his first work with the North Dakota Humanities Council in the late 1970s, including a pioneering first-person interpretation of Meriwether Lewis, Clay Jenkinson has made thousands of presentations throughout the United States and its territories, including Guam and the Northern Marianas. He is also the author of numerous books
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The Moral Demands we Make On Others
Jack Russell Weinstein and Stephen L. Darwall
What allows us to make moral demands on other people? How important are relationships in ethical decision-making and why should people act ethically in the first place? Join WHY?’s host Jack Russell Weinstein and his guest Yale professor Stephen Darwall, as they ask these and your questions during an important exploration into the very foundations of morality.
Stephen Darwall is an influential ethicist whose recent work has captured the imagination of many who are looking for a new way to talk about morality. He is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is the author of numerous books including The Second-Person Standpoint and Welfare and Rational Care.
In the course of the discussion, Steve mentions the painting “The Tribute Money” by Bernardo Strozzi. Here is the painting for you to consider:
For more paintings by Strozzi, follow this link.
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Sculpture and Philosophy
Jack Russell Weinstein and Stefanie Rocknak
Stefanie Rocknak is an extraordinary sculptor. She is also an accomplished philosopher. How do the two vocations relate? Does philosophy help or hinder her creative process and how important is theory to the practice of making art? Join WHY as we look into the artistic mind and ask about the process of taking ideas and making them physically real.
Stefanie Rocknak teaches at Hartwick College. She specializes in David Hume and the philosophy of art. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and books, including Brain and Mind and Hume Studies, among others. She is also a professional sculptor. Her work has been in over 50 shows, including at the Smithsonian, the windows of Saks 5th Ave., and the Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, FL. Her sculptures have been featured in multiple publications, and in 2010, she was awarded the 10K Grand Prize in the Margo Harris Hammerschlag Biennial Sculpture Award. She was also just awarded the commission to create a public sculpture of Edgar Allan Poe for display in Boston, the city of Poe’s birth. More information can be found here; Stefanie hopes you will consider donating to the project.
Below are some examples of Stefanie’s work. More can be found at: http://www.steffrocknak.net.
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WHY? Goes to China: The View from a Private High School
Jack Russell Weinstein and Yuyan Liu
IN MAY, 2012, WHY? WAS INVITED TO CHINA TO TAKE A LOOK AROUND, INTERVIEW WHO WE COULD FIND, AND TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT A COUNTRY THAT SEEMS TO BE BLAMED FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S PROBLEMS. THE RESULT: A HALF-DOZEN SHOWS WITH GUESTS RANGING FROM CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS TO FOUR AFRICAN MUSICIANS TRYING TO MAKE IT BIG IN SHANGHAI. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE AN EXPATRIATE LIVING IN CHINA AND DO THEY HAVE MORE FREEDOM THAN CHINESE NATIONALS? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF AN ELITE CHINESE PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT IS THE STATE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE POLLUTED COUNTRY AND HOW MUCH HOLD DOES CONFUCIUS’S PHILOSOPHY HAVE OVER THE COUNTRY AND ITS POLITICIANS? ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN WHY? GOES TO CHINA!
Is Chinese education a mindless brainwashing free of critical thinking or is it a modern, pragmatic, well-rounded experience preparing world leaders for the future? Is it a single-monolithic entity treating all citizens alike, or is it more like America where people can choose their own way? Join WHY? and our guest Dr. Yuyan Liu, principal of the Camford Royal School in Beijing, China, as we look at Chinese education from the perspective of the reformer.
Dr. Yuyan Liu, the principal of Camford Royal School, holds a PhD from Cambridge University, where he attended as an Overseas Distinguished Scholar. Dr. Liu is also a high-ranking research fellow of the Royal Society. Over the course of ten years studying, teaching and conducting research at Cambridge, Dr. Liu became intimately familiar with the Cambridge educational philosophy. Upon his return to China, Dr. Liu was inspired to establish a leading advanced study program based upon the Cambridge system. The goal of Dr. Liu’s program is to increase the number of opportunities offered to Camford graduates in terms of acceptances to high quality Western colleges and universities.
WHY?’s trip to China was supported in part by The American Culture Center – Shanghai at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, through a partnership between USST and the University of North Dakota, supported by the US Department of State.
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WHY? Goes to China: Young, Female, and Upwardly Mobile in Shanghai
Jack Russell Weinstein, Catherine Gao, and Sheryl Jiang
IN MAY, 2012, WHY? WAS INVITED TO CHINA TO TAKE A LOOK AROUND, INTERVIEW WHO WE COULD FIND, AND TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT A COUNTRY THAT SEEMS TO BE BLAMED FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S PROBLEMS. THE RESULT: A HALF-DOZEN SHOWS WITH GUESTS RANGING FROM CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS TO FOUR AFRICAN MUSICIANS TRYING TO MAKE IT BIG IN SHANGHAI. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE AN EXPATRIATE LIVING IN CHINA AND DO THEY HAVE MORE FREEDOM THAN CHINESE NATIONALS? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF AN ELITE CHINESE PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT IS THE STATE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE POLLUTED COUNTRY AND HOW MUCH HOLD DOES CONFUCIUS’S PHILOSOPHY HAVE OVER THE COUNTRY AND ITS POLITICIANS? ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN WHY? GOES TO CHINA!
Catherine and Sheryl are in the early twenties, studying at a major university, and are ready to take on the world. They are two Chinese women with every opportunity in the world, and they, like everyone their age, want to know how to proceed. How does it feel to be the hope of a nation, the first generation to experience economic security and freedom of movement? Join WHY? as we ask what it’s like to grow up amidst the fastest changes in Chinese history.
WHY?’s trip to China was supported in part by The American Culture Center – Shanghai at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, through a partnership between USST and the University of North Dakota, supported by the US Department of State.
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WHY? Goes to China: Music Without Borders
Jack Russell Weinstein and Noukilla
IN MAY, 2012, WHY? WAS INVITED TO CHINA TO TAKE A LOOK AROUND, INTERVIEW WHO WE COULD FIND, AND TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT A COUNTRY THAT SEEMS TO BE BLAMED FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S PROBLEMS. THE RESULT: A HALF-DOZEN SHOWS WITH GUESTS RANGING FROM CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS TO FOUR AFRICAN MUSICIANS TRYING TO MAKE IT BIG IN SHANGHAI. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE AN EXPATRIATE LIVING IN CHINA AND DO THEY HAVE MORE FREEDOM THAN CHINESE NATIONALS? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF AN ELITE CHINESE PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT IS THE STATE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE POLLUTED COUNTRY AND HOW MUCH HOLD DOES CONFUCIUS’S PHILOSOPHY HAVE OVER THE COUNTRY AND ITS POLITICIANS? ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN WHY? GOES TO CHINA!
Music crosses cultures, but how about the messages it imparts? How do you get an audience to dance, laugh, or even think, when you sing to them in a different language? And what if the music that one person thinks of as a relaxing party-soundtrack is actually regarded as dangerous and revolutionary? Join WHY? as we talk with the Shanghai band Noukilla and ask how five African musicians are breaking ground new ground in the Chinese world music scene while remaining true to their own roots, experiences, and music.
Noukilla are five friends from the Island of Mauritius, who came to Shanghai/China in 2005. While playing cover songs with different bands in the city and working as session musicians at the same time, they regularly came together to play tunes from their far away home. Under the name of Gymga – Gilbert, Yan, Macleen, Giovani and Alain – they recorded their first CD with Reggae cover songs.
Their unconditional love for music led to the birth of Noukilla (meaning ‘Here we are!’) in 2010, bringing original songs and their own style of Sega/Seggae-Fusion to the fans, who find words like “sunny, exotic, colorful, warm, happy, energetic, good mood” to describe the band. The mixture of their different ethnicities and backgrounds (African/Indian/British/French) reflects in their music with lyrics in Creole, French and English. Right now the band is preparing their first official release for summer this year. Listen to their music at www.noukilla.com.
WHY?’s trip to China was supported in part by The American Culture Center – Shanghai at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, through a partnership between USST and the University of North Dakota, supported by the US Department of State.
Jack interviewed the band at a club, before a gig. Here are some scenes from the discussion:
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WHY? Goes to China: Environmentalism Without Protest
Jack Russell Weinstein, Lynn King, and Irving Steel
IN MAY, 2012, WHY? WAS INVITED TO CHINA TO TAKE A LOOK AROUND, INTERVIEW WHO WE COULD FIND, AND TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT A COUNTRY THAT SEEMS TO BE BLAMED FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S PROBLEMS. THE RESULT: A HALF-DOZEN SHOWS WITH GUESTS RANGING FROM CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS TO FOUR AFRICAN MUSICIANS TRYING TO MAKE IT BIG IN SHANGHAI. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE AN EXPATRIATE LIVING IN CHINA AND DO THEY HAVE MORE FREEDOM THAN CHINESE NATIONALS? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF AN ELITE CHINESE PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT IS THE STATE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE POLLUTED COUNTRY AND HOW MUCH HOLD DOES CONFUCIUS’S PHILOSOPHY HAVE OVER THE COUNTRY AND ITS POLITICIANS? ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN WHY? GOES TO CHINA!
In the United States, when we think of environmentalism we thing of Greenpeace, demonstrations, and boycotts. But what would environmentalism look like without protests? How can people be inspired to change their ways without petitions and social pressure, and how do you clean up a massive, industrial, over-polluted nation where food safety is a neglected concern? Join WHY? as we continue our exploration of modern China with guests Lynn King and Irving Steel. This episode was recorded live before an audience at the American Culture Center at the University Shanghai for Science and Technology.
Lynn King is the Founder & Managing Director of SageVision: ReInventing Cities and the Director of Moving Eco Forum: Best of Expo Eco-Innovations. A leadership and management trainer, consultant, and coach since 1989, Lynn is also a founding member of China’s first chapter of NetImpact, a global network organization of professionals and students interested in social responsibility. Lynn has a Certificate in Organization and Systems Development (OSD) from The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, a Master’s Degree in Organization Development from The Fielding Institute, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Princeton University.
American Irving Steel LEED AP is the most promising young entrepreneur in Shanghai. He is Co-Founder and Development Director at innovative e8 Resources which is Driving Environmental Technologies For China. He is also the Founder & Membership Director at Green Drinks China as well as a Founding Member of the Green Building Professional Partnership – China (GBPP China). With thousands of followers, Irving has led the expansion in conferences, forums and partnerships with countless organizations. Having already been in China for close to 4 years, he clearly understands the needs of the market and has instigated relationships to create enormous positive impact. As a result of the network, Irving has developed a breadth of contacts to accelerate e8 in China and throughout Asia. Irving is fluent in English, French & Mandarin.
WHY?’s trip to China was supported in part by The American Culture Center – Shanghai at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, through a partnership between USST and the University of North Dakota, supported by the US Department of State.
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Lies My Teacher Told Me
Jack Russell Weinstein and James W. Loewen
In 1995, James Lowen published Lies My Teacher Told Me, a powerful critique of how American history is taught in schools. He surveyed twelve leading textbooks and found, in his words, ”an embarrassing amalgam of bland optimism, blind patriotism, and misinformation pure and simple, weighing in at an average of four-and-a-half pounds and 888 pages.” His book won the American Book Award, the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, and the AESA Critics’ Choice Award. The book has sold over 1,250,000 copies.
On this episode of Why? we will take another look at Loewen’s arguments and ask whether his critique still stands. More philosophically, we will ask how we should teach history. Do we present famous figures as heroes or flawed people? Do we write from the perspective of the victors or the losers? Do we investigate America as a multicultural land or as one people, undivided?
James Loewen taught race relations for twenty years at the University of Vermont. Previously he taught at predominantly black Tougaloo College in Mississippi. He now lives in Washington, D.C., continuing his research on how Americans remember their past. He has also written: Lies Across America, Sundown Towns, Teaching What Really Happened, and The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader. He has been an expert witness in more than 50 civil rights, voting rights, and employment cases.
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Are Corporations People?
Jack Russell Weinstein and Stephen M. Bainbridge
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations should be considered persons. They have the same rights as individuals, including the freedom to fund political campaigns. This led to a firestorm of debate with advocates arguing both sides, each pointing to the absolute necessity of their positions.
On this episode of WHY?, we will ask what it means for a corporation to be a person, how collective action affects agency, and how these large companies are to be considered legally and morally accountable for their actions.
Stephen Bainbridge is the William D. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles. He is a prolific scholar, whose work covers a variety of subjects, but with a strong emphasis on the law and economics of public corporations. He has written over 75 law review articles and numerous books. He has been a Salvatori Fellow with the Heritage Foundation and in 2008, he was named by Directorship magazine to its list of the 100 most influential people in the field of corporate governance.
Stephen’s blog can be found here.
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WHY? Goes to China: An Interview with host, Jack Russell Weinstein
Jack Russell Weinstein and Bill Thomas
IN MAY, 2012, WHY? WAS INVITED TO CHINA TO TAKE A LOOK AROUND, INTERVIEW WHO WE COULD FIND, AND TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT A COUNTRY THAT SEEMS TO BE BLAMED FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S PROBLEMS. THE RESULT: A HALF-DOZEN SHOWS WITH GUESTS RANGING FROM CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS TO FOUR AFRICAN MUSICIANS TRYING TO MAKE IT BIG IN SHANGHAI. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE AN EXPATRIATE LIVING IN CHINA AND DO THEY HAVE MORE FREEDOM THAN CHINESE NATIONALS? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF AN ELITE CHINESE PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT IS THE STATE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE POLLUTED COUNTRY AND HOW MUCH HOLD DOES CONFUCIUS’S PHILOSOPHY HAVE OVER THE COUNTRY AND ITS POLITICIANS? ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN WHY? GOES TO CHINA!
Originally an episode of Hear it Now, Bill Thomas, Director of Radio at Prairie Public interviews WHY?’s host Jack Russell Weinstein about the WHY? Trip to China. Listen to behind the scenes details, hear about how the events played out, and get Jack’s personal reactions to the trip, the different culture, and China in general.
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WHY? Goes to China: Confucius and Today’s China
Jack Russell Weinstein and Daniel A. Bell
IN MAY, 2012, WHY? WAS INVITED TO CHINA TO TAKE A LOOK AROUND, INTERVIEW WHO WE COULD FIND, AND TAKE A FRESH LOOK AT A COUNTRY THAT SEEMS TO BE BLAMED FOR ALL OF AMERICA’S PROBLEMS. THE RESULT: A HALF-DOZEN SHOWS WITH GUESTS RANGING FROM CHINESE COLLEGE STUDENTS TO FOUR AFRICAN MUSICIANS TRYING TO MAKE IT BIG IN SHANGHAI. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE AN EXPATRIATE LIVING IN CHINA AND DO THEY HAVE MORE FREEDOM THAN CHINESE NATIONALS? WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF AN ELITE CHINESE PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT IS THE STATE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE POLLUTED COUNTRY AND HOW MUCH HOLD DOES CONFUCIUS’S PHILOSOPHY HAVE OVER THE COUNTRY AND ITS POLITICIANS? ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN WHY? GOES TO CHINA!
Confucian philosophy plays an important role in the Chinese family, but what role does it play in politics? Chinese is a traditional society, but modern China is built on a break from the past. China holds dearly to its own past, but is experiencing more change than ever before. Join us for a discussion about how tradition works in a changing China and the importance of cities in moral life. This interview was recorded at The American Culture Center at The University of Shanghai for Science and Technology before a live audience.
Daniel A. Bell (贝淡宁)has been teaching political theory in China for sixteen years. He is currently professor at Tsinghua University (Beijing) and Jiaotong University (Shanghai). He has published six books on East Asian politics and philosophy with Princeton University Press. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and other media outlets. His webpage is www.danielabell.com.
WHY?’s trip to China was supported in part by The American Culture Center – Shanghai at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, through a partnership between USST and the University of North Dakota, supported by the US Department of State.
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Does Science Give Us Truth?
Jack Russell Weinstein and Jan Golinski
For thousands of years, people have looked to science to reveal the truth about nature – to conquer it or to discover its secrets. But there are others who think that this approach is deeply mistaken. Science, they say, tells us about our culture and reveals the ideas we bring to the laboratory. Is there such a thing as objectivity or does science just describe what we ourselves bring into the laboratory? On this episode of WHY? we are going to examine these questions and wade deep into what some philosophers call “the science wars.”
Jan Golinski is Professor of History and Humanities at the University of New Hampshire where he teaches the history of European sciences since the Renaissance. He has published articles on the history of chemistry, on problems of method in the history of science, and on the social history of science in Britain in the long eighteenth century. He is the author of three books, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760-1820, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science, and British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment.
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Love, Hate or Eat: How Humans Relate to Animals
Jack Russell Weinstein and Hal Herzog
Why do some cultures eat dogs and others invite them into their bedrooms? Why do some people find spiders disgusting but others consider them a delicacy? Who enjoyed a better quality of life—the chicken on a dinner plate or the rooster who dies in a Saturday-night cockfight? What can we really learn from experiments on mice?
On the next episode of WHY? we’ll talk with author Hal Herzog about human attitudes towards animals, examine how rational we are when it comes to pets, and ask what all this tell us about ourselves. Drawing on more than two decades of research in the emerging field of anthrozoology, the new science of human–animal relations, Hal offers surprising answers to these and other questions related to the moral conundrums we face when considering the creatures with whom we share our world.
Hal Herzog is Professor of Psychology at Western Carolina University. He has been investigating the complex psychology of our interactions with other species for more than two decades. He is particularly interested in how people negotiate real-world ethical dilemmas, and he has studied animal activists, cockfighters, animal researchers, and circus animal trainers. An award-winning teacher and researcher, he has written more than 100 articles and book chapters. His research has been published in journals such as Science, The American Psychologist, The Journal of the Royal Society, The American Scholar, New Scientist, Anthrozoös, BioScience, The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, and Animal Behavior. His work has been covered by Newsweek, Slate, Salon, National Public Radio, Scientific American, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune and many other newspapers.
Hal’s blog “Animals and Us” can be found here.
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When do we talk about when we talk about economics?
Jack Russell Weinstein and Deirdre N. McCloskey
Everywhere we look there are “economic indicators.” We talk about the jobless rate and the national debt. We learn about the first quarter and evaluate movies by how much they earn on opening weekend. In the end, life insurance companies determine our “worth.” Does any of this make sense?
On the next episode of WHY?, we’ll talk with economic historian Deirdre McCloskey about what these figures tell us and what they leave out. We’ll ask where the human experience is in the midst of all these numbers and investigate economic assumptions that claim human beings are self-interested, and that happiness or desires can be quantified. We’ll even ask whether economics is, itself, a science that leads to objective information.
Deirdre McCloskey is a Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is also a Professor of Economic History, Gothenburg University in Sweden. She is interested in the rhetoric of economics and wider literary matters, such as literary and social theory. Her main project for is writing a six-volume series on “The Bourgeois Era.” The first two volumes The Bourgeois Virtues, Ethics for An Age of Commerce and Bourgeoisie Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World, have already been published. Deirdre describes herself as is a free-market economist and explains that her project is a defense of capitalism that is fair to both the right and the left. She is the author of numerous other books other than her six-volume project. Her webpage and examples of her work can be found here.
Airing since 2009, Why? Radio is a philosophical podcast hosted by Professor Jack Russell Weinstein. It aims to show that all philosophy is relevant to our day-to-day lives and that everyone is doing philosophy all the time, we just don’t know it. This collection archives all episodes from its inception to the present day.
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