

Human Centered
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Conversations about projects and research undertaken by scholars & affiliates of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University; interviews with renowned fellows from CASBS history; and audio versions of occasional CASBS live events.
CASBS is a scholarly community like no other for collaborative, cross-disciplinary, generative research. It brings together deep thinkers to address wicked problems and significant societal challenges. It empowers them to challenge boundaries and assumptions in order to advance our understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions. As a leading incubator of human-centered knowledge, CASBS is a place that is, well…human centered.
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel
Learn more about CASBS> website: casbs.stanford.edu | X: @CASBSStanford | LinkedIn: CASBS at Stanford |
CASBS is a scholarly community like no other for collaborative, cross-disciplinary, generative research. It brings together deep thinkers to address wicked problems and significant societal challenges. It empowers them to challenge boundaries and assumptions in order to advance our understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions. As a leading incubator of human-centered knowledge, CASBS is a place that is, well…human centered.
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel
Learn more about CASBS> website: casbs.stanford.edu | X: @CASBSStanford | LinkedIn: CASBS at Stanford |
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 28, 2023 • 53min
Jonathan Jansen's Power of Craft
While you're listening to this episode, 2016-17 CASBS fellow Jonathan Jansen likely will write another few thousand words. As a scholar of education & leader of education institutions, Jansen is South Africa's most towering figure. To call him prolific is a gross understatement. He writes a steady stream of books & more books. As a public intellectual he writes a separate steady stream of columns & essays. And he's written a family memoir too. We bring 2022-23 CASBS fellow Zimitri Erasmus, a social anthropologist who is working on a book on writing praxis, in conversation with Jansen to unlock some secrets & insights into his most powerful & liberating weapon for engaging the world – writing.JONATHAN JANSENon Google ScholarJansen websiteMentioned in the episodeCorrupted: A Study of Chronic Dysfunction in South African Universities (2023)Song for Sarah: Lessons from my Mother (2017)Jansen and CASBS"Loving and Blacking" (symposium, 2017)"Higher Ed at the Crossroads" (webcast, 2020) ZIMITRI ERASMUSCASBS pageon Google Scholarat University of WitswatersrandCenter for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences(CASBS) at Stanford UniversityCASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachFollow the CASBS webcast series, Social Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Aug 1, 2023 • 1h 37min
Deploying Behavioral Science on the Front Lines of Social Protest
What are the most effective collective actions that social protest movements can or should undertake in the context of deep societal conflict and polarization? CASBS fellows Eran Halperin (2022-23) & Robb Willer (2012-13, 2020-21) compare their cross-national research findings and explore Halperin's real-time applied work with the dramatic, ongoing protests in Israel.ERAN HALPERIN links:Psychology of Intergroup Conflict and Reconciliation Lab (PCIL)Halperin on Google ScholaraChord: Social Psychology for Social ChangeROBB WILLER links:Willer's Stanford faculty pageWiller's personal web pagePolarization and Social Change LabWiller on Google ScholarArticle in JPSP, "The Activist's Dilemma" (2020)Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityCASBS:website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachFollow the CASBS webcast series,Social Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Jul 10, 2023 • 46min
Frederick Cooper's Illumination of History
Drawing upon a career of scholarship extending from studies of labor, citizenship, and the state in Africa to explorations of global empire, colonialism, and globalization, three-time CASBS fellow Frederick Cooper – in conversation with 2022-23 fellows Jean Beaman and Martin Williams – gives a master class on how critical and relational thinking serve historical inquiries that advance our understandings. Frederick Cooper, CASBS fellow 1990-91, 1995-96, 2002-03NYU faculty pageWikipedia page Fred Cooper booksCitizenship, Inequality, and Difference: Historical Perspectives (2018)Citizenship Between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945-1960 (2014)Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (2010)Cooper Books in CASBS's Ralph W. Tyler Collection:Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (2005)Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (1996)Confronting Historical Paradigms: Peasants, Labor, and the Capitalist World System in Africa and Latin America (1993)Fred Cooper article referenced in the episode"What is the Concept of Globalization Good for? An African Historian's Perspective" (2001) Jean Beaman faculty pageMartin Williams faculty page Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityCASBS:website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachFollow the CASBS webcast series,Social Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Jun 1, 2023 • 56min
Developing AI Like Raising Kids - Alison Gopnik & Ted Chiang
This episode is produced in association with the CASBS project "The Social Science of Caregiving," and draws further inspiration from the CASBS project "Imagining Adaptive Societies." Learn more about both:https://casbs.stanford.edu/programs/projects/social-science-caregivinghttps://casbs.stanford.edu/programs/projects/imagining-adaptive-societiesCASBS program director Zachary Ugolnik served as co-producer of this episode.Ted Chiang on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_ChiangTed Chiang in The New Yorker"Why Computers Won't Make Themselves Smarter" https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/why-computers-wont-make-themselves-smarter"ChatGPT is a Blurry JPEG of the Web" https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web"Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?" https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/will-ai-become-the-new-mckinsey"Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction" https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/ted-chiangs-soulful-science-fictionExplore the work of Alison Gopnikhttp://alisongopnik.com/http://www.gopniklab.berkeley.edu/alisonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Gopnikhttps://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_thinkhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-alison-gopnik-transcript.htmlLearn about CASBSwebsite|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachFollow the CASBS webcast series,Social Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

May 22, 2023 • 1h 27min
New Visions for Effective Worker Influence
This is a podcast version of a live CASBS webcast event. View video of the event here.The event was produced in association with CASBS's program on Creating a New Moral Political Economy. Learn about the program here.CASBS's moral political economy program guest-curated the Winter 2023 issue of Dædalus, a publication of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The entire issue is open access here. Panelist John Ahlquist's essay in the issue provided impetus for the organization of the event this podcast episode draws from.CASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachFollow the CASBS webcast series,Social Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Apr 27, 2023 • 1h 11min
A Different Glenn Loury
Glenn Loury on Google ScholarCoate & Loury (1993), "Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?"Loury, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (The Du Bois Lectures)The Tanner Lectures at Stanford (2007) Lecture 1 | Lecture 2Loury (2008), Race, Incarceration, and American ValuesLoury (2019), "Why Does Racial Inequality Persist?"Somanathan and Allen, eds. (2020) Difference without Domination: Pursuing Justice in Diverse DemocraciesLoury public symposium at CASBS (2016), "Racial Inequality in 21st Century America" (video)CASBS webcast (2020), "The Persistence of Racial Inequality" (video); panel featuring Glenn Loury, Joshua Cohen, Francis Fukuyama, Alondra Nelso, & Margaret LeviThe Glenn Show (YouTube)The Glenn Show (Manhattan Institute)CASBS: website|Twitter|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachFollow the CASBS webcast series,Social Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Mar 27, 2023 • 1h 8min
Interdependence & Climate Change - Robert Keohane
Robert Keohane bios: CASBS | Princeton | WikipediaComparative Politics of Climate Change Policy workshops at CASBSComplex interdependenceAfter Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy2016 Balzan Prize | prize speechDesigning Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative ResearchJohan Skytte PrizeKeohane & Ostrom, Local Commons and Global InterdependenceCASBS: website | Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn | podcast | latest newsletter | signup | outreachFollow the CASBS webcast series, Social Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Dec 6, 2022 • 53min
Bob Scott is Trending
Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral SciencesBob’s Introduction to the projectAbout the Robert A. Scott Lectureship FundThe classic mud volleyball photo (click then scroll to the bottom of the article)Human Centered episode featuring Richard WranghamCASBS in the History of Behavioral EconomicsCASBS
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Dec 2, 2022 • 1h 24min
Toward Better Evidence-Based Policymaking
Causal Inference for Social Impact LabEGAPJake BowersCarrie S. CihakDan HopkinsRuth LevinePiyush TantiaCASBS
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Sep 1, 2022 • 1h 27min
Creating A New Political Economy Framework
Moderator Debra SatzPanelistsElizabeth Anderson University of MichiganSamuel Bowles Santa Fe InstituteNobel laureate Sir Angus Deaton PrincetonAmy Kapczynski Yale Law CASBS@CasbsStanfordCreating a New Moral Political Economy program at CASBSSocial Science for a World in Crisis
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford UniversityExplore CASBS: website|Bluesky|X|YouTube|LinkedIn|podcast|latest newsletter|signup|outreachHuman CenteredProducer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |


