This is Democracy

At year’s end, we want to share some of the voices from our podcast that exemplify the diversity and dynamism of our democracy today. The energy of change and reform is all around us. We can see many promising pathways to renew our democracy.  Please listen and get involved.

Jeremi sits down with Professor Kennedy to discuss the status of Brexit and how it will change the dynamic relationships between countries within the U.K. and its peoples. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “England 2019.” Dane Kennedy teaches courses in British imperial, modern British, and world history at George Washington University. He is the author of six books, the most recent being The Imperial History Wars: Debating the British Empire (2018), Decolonization: A Very Short Introduction (2016) and The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Australia (2013) and editor or co-editor of three others, including How Empire Shaped Us (2016) and Reinterpreting Exploration: The West in the World (2013). Kennedy was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003-04 and a National Humanities Center Fellowship in 2010-11. He was president of the North American Conference of British Studies from 2011-13. He currently directs the National History Center.

This week Jeremi sits down with Professor Richard Reddick to about the disparities in opportunity in higher education among various demographics. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Protagonists Prospective.” Dr. Richard J. Reddick is an award-winning Associate Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy, where he serves as coordinator of the Program in Higher Education Leadership, with courtesy appointments in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, and the Warfield Center of African and African American Studies. Dr. Reddick is also the Assistant Director of the Plan II Honors Program in the College of Liberal Arts, and serves as a faculty fellow in the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis, all at The University of Texas at Austin. Reddick is a Spring 2018 Visiting Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and serves as the faculty co-chair of the Institute for Educational Management (IEM) at Harvard. In 2016, he served on the steering committee and as Education Working Group co-chair of the Mayor’s Task Force on Institutional Racism and Structural Inequity (IRSI) for the City of Austin.

This week Jeremi and Zachary sit down with Professor Manisha Sinha to talk about the first presidential impeachment of Andrew Jackson and reflect on what lessons we can take from the events of the past that apply to our political and societal climate today. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Lessons from the 19th Century.” Manisha Sinha is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut and a leading authority on the history of slavery and abolition and the Civil War and Reconstruction. She was born in India and received her Ph.D from Columbia University where her dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft prize. She is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, which was named one of the ten best books on slavery in Politico in 2015 and recently featured in The New York Times’ 1619 Project. Her multiple award winning second monograph The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition was long listed for the National Book Award for Non Fiction. It was named the book of the week by Times Higher Education to coincide with its UK publication and one of three great History books of 2016 in Bloomberg News. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including two yearlong research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2018, she was a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris, Diderot and was elected to the Society of American Historians. She is a member of the Board of the Society of Civil War Historians and of the Council of Advisors of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg, New York Public Library. She taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for over twenty years, where she was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest recognition bestowed on faculty. She is currently writing a book on the “greater reconstruction” of American democracy after the Civil War, which is under contract with Basic Books.

This week, Jeremi sits down with Brian Roberts to talk about the development of campaign finance in a historical context. As always, Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Money Have Mercy.” Brian Roberts is a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. His fields of interest are American Political Institutions, Interest Groups, and Positive Political Economy, with a focus on politics and financial markets, corporate political participation, and distributive politics. He has published papers in the fields of political science, economics, and finance.

Zachary’s poem this week asks, “What are the Rules?” Brett Hurt is the CEO and co-founder of data.world, a Public Benefit Corporation (and Certified B Corporation®) that is the platform for modern data teamwork and the world’s largest collaborative data community. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, data.world was honored on the “Best for the World” list by B Lab, placing the company in the top 10% of all B Corps globally. Brett is also the co-owner of Hurt Family Investments (HFI), alongside his wife, Debra. HFI are involved in 73 startups, 21 VC funds, and multiple philanthropic endeavors. In 2017, Brett was given the Best CEO Legacy Award by the Austin Business Journal. Brett Hurt began programming at age seven and doing so on the Internet at age eighteen. Brett finished his free book, “The Entrepreneur’s Essentials”, in August 2019.

Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Miha Vindis to discuss naturalized citizenship in the United States. Zachary’s sets the scene with his poem, “America in the Face.” Miha Vindis is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on leadership and entrepreneurship. When not teaching, Miha works as a consultant helping organizations create and implement strategic planning processes and train their next generation of leaders. He also serves as a board member for Habitat for Humanity Texas. Prior to moving to Texas, Miha worked for Shell Oil in The Netherlands and also worked with entrepreneurs in Europe, a passion which he has continued in Texas. He is originally from Slovenia and has lived in Thailand, Germany, Poland, and The Netherlands. Miha earned his master’s degree in Global Policy Studies and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Jeremi and Zachary sit down with Robert Hutchings to discuss the fall of the Berlin Wall and the impact it has on us today. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Berlin: 30 Years.” Robert Hutchings is the Walt and Elspeth Rostow Chair in National Security and professor of public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, and he served as dean of the school from 2010 to 2015. Before coming to UT, he was a diplomat in residence at Princeton University, where he also served as assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and as faculty chair of its Master in Public Policy program. His combined academic and diplomatic career has included service as Director for European affairs with the National Security Council, special adviser to the secretary of state with the rank of ambassador, and chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council. Ambassador Hutchings served earlier in his career as deputy director of Radio Free Europe and on the faculty of the University of Virginia. He is author or editor of six books, including American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War, along with many articles and book chapters on U.S. foreign policy and European affairs. His most recent book, written and edited with Jeremi Suri, is Modern Diplomacy in Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2020). He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Jeremi and Zachary sit down with David Judson to discuss the evolution of Turkey as well as the current controversies surrounding Turkey’s relationship with the United States. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Images of Turkey.” David Judson spent many years in Turkey. He first went there as a high school and later college student in the 1970s. He was to return in 2000, joining Turkey’s largest media group in 2003. First, he was managing editor of the Dogan Media Group’s Turkish language business daily, Referans. In 2006, he became editor in chief of Hurriyet Daily News, the group’s English language newspaper founded in 1961. In 2013 he left Turkey to return to the United States as editor in chief of Stratfor Geopolitical Forecasting, based in Austin. Judson left Stratfor in 2018 and now divides his time between the San Francisco-based forecasting firm Global Foresight where is a senior advisor and an Austin-based media start-up focused on the emerging role of cities as geopolitical actors. From the late 1980s to 2000, Judson was a political correspondent in Washington D.C., for Gannett Newspapers, America’s largest newspaper chain. He is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles.

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary discuss the Puerto Rico U.S. statehood movement with Prof. Alberto Martinez. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “To Puerto Rico.” Alberto Martinez is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Most recently, he is the author of Burned Alive: Giordano Bruno, Galileo & the Inquisition (Reaktion, 2018). He is also the author of four other books: The Cult of Pythagoras: Math and Myths (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), on the evolution of myths in the history of mathematics. Science Secrets: The Truth About Darwin’s Finches, Einstein’s Wife, and Other Myths (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). And previously, he published Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), and Negative Math: How Mathematical Rules Can Be Positively Bent (Princeton University Press, 2005).