The Graduate Center, CUNY

Latest Episodes:

The Thought Project - Episode 48 - Interview with Anne Applebaum Mar 26, 2019

Show notes

Washington Post columnist and Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Anne Applebaum spoke at The Graduate Center in March 2019 as a panelist at “The Free Press,” part of The Graduate Center’s “Promise and Perils of Democracy” series. In this edition of the Thought Project podcast, recorded just before the panel discussion, Applebaum talks about the rise in illiberalism and authoritarianism and its implications for the future of democracy. Applebaum is currently professor of practice at the London School of Economics’ Institute of Global Affairs where she runs Arena, a program on disinformation and 21st century propaganda. A former member of The Washington Post editorial board, she has also worked as the foreign and deputy editor of The Spectator magazine in London, as the political editor of the Evening Standard, and as a columnist at Slate and at several British newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph. From 1988 to 1991, she covered the collapse of communism as the Warsaw correspondent of the Economist magazine and the Independent newspaper. Her latest book, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine was published in October 2017.

The Thought Project - Episode 47 - Interview with Camille Santistevan Mar 19, 2019

Show notes

The Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at The Graduate Center, CUNY is an internationally known center of excellence in interdisciplinary scientific research and discovery in five related areas: nanoscience, photonics, structural biology, neuroscience, and the environmental sciences. Located in Harlem, the ASRC has a mission to promote science in the public interest. Late last year, the ASRC opened its IlluminationSpace, a hands-on education center designed to enhance scientific understanding across New York City’s diverse communities. The IlluminationSpace offers an array of events and programs that make advanced scientific concepts accessible to ASRC visitors of all ages and backgrounds. To tell us more about the IlluminationSpace is Camille Santistevan, the associate director of public relations at the ASRC who runs this this new and exciting STEM education space.

The Thought Project - Episode 46 - Interview with Nancy K. Miller Mar 08, 2019

Show notes

Nancy K. Miller is a distinguished professor of English, French, and comparative literature and teaches in the M.A. Program in Women's and Gender studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including, most recently, My Brilliant Friends (Columbia University Press, 2019), which tells the story of the deep friendships she formed with Carolyn Heilbrun, Naomi Schor, and Diane Middlebrook — colleagues in the academy who tragically passed away between 2001 and 2007. During the writing of the book, Miller is confronted with her own mortality when she is diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer — perhaps confronting the end of her life without her dear friends. These friendships are complicated and interlocking, foundational to Miller’s life and her identities as a scholar and as a feminist, which were forged at the beginning of second-wave feminism during the 1970s.

The Thought Project - Episode 45 - Interview with Ervand Abrahamian Feb 28, 2019

Show notes

U.S.-Iran relations are arguably at their lowest point since perhaps the 1979 Iranian Revolution. President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the multilaterally negotiated Iran Nuclear Deal in 2017 has brought on new tensions. John Bolton, the national security advisor, directed the Pentagon late last year to prepare military options to strike Iran. Joining us to explore this relationship in more depth with historical context is Distinguished Professor Emeritus Ervand Abrahamian of Baruch College and The Graduate Center, where he taught Iranian and Middle Eastern history and politics. He is author of seven books and numerous essays and articles. Most noteworthy is his seminal book The Coup: 1953, The CIA, & Roots of Modern US-Iranian Relations, (New Press in 2013).

The Thought Project - Episode 44 - Interview with Samuel Stein Feb 25, 2019

Show notes

To explain the dynamics of gentrification and its relationship to real estate companies, city planners and labor unions and how it has taken hold in New York City and many other major cities in the United States is Samuel Stein, a geography Ph.D. candidate at The Graduate Center, CUNY and an Urban Studies Instructor at Hunter College. His work focuses on the politics of urban planning with an emphasis on housing, real estate and gentrification in New York City, which is captured in his new book: Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State (Verso, March 2019). Stein’s book tour launches this evening in New York City. Stein reflects on the failed New York City Amazon deal in The Guardian penned on Feb. 23: “New York’s Dance with Amazon Shows Us How to Fight for a City’s Future.”

The Thought Project - Episode 43 - Interview with Eric Lott Feb 06, 2019

Show notes

Last week it was revealed that Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of the state of Virginia had been featured in his 1984 medical school yearbook with photos of one man in black face and another in a Klu Klux Klan white hood and robes outfit. In the wake of its revelation Northam initially apologized calling the photos “shocking,” but by the next day during a bizarre press conference with his wife at his side, he denied that he was in the photos. All major figures in the Democratic party, including the party chair Tom Perez have called on Northam to resign. He has thus far refused to step down. To help us unpack these layers of racism as depicted in “Black Face” and its continued reappearances, now in politics as well, is Distinguished Professor Eric Lott, a cultural historian and author of Black Mirror: The Cultural Contradictions of American Racism, Harvard University Press, 2017 and Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, Oxford University Press (1993 and 2013), which won many awards. Some of the language used to discuss this subject matter is sensitive and can be offensive.

The Thought Project - Episode 42 - Interview with Lynn Chancer Feb 01, 2019

Show notes

The Women’s movement for equal rights has been under continual siege by right-wing forces since the US Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision in making access to first trimester abortions legal in 1993. Progress in equal pay has been slower, despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, thus resulting in Congressional efforts that passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009. Arguably, the women’s movement and feminism itself was rebooted in the aftermath of the 2016 election when Hillary Clinton, considered one of the most qualified persons to ever run for the presidency, was defeated by Donald Trump, a candidate who ran for office noted for his personal denigration of women. In the shocking aftermath of this election, the women’s march took place in January 2017, the largest demonstration in US history that went global. Professor Lynn S. Chancer, a lifelong feminist scholar, sociologist and faculty member at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, examines these issues and more, by putting them into context in her newly released book: After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism: Taking back a Revolution, published by Stanford University Press, 2019.

The Thought Project - Episode 41 - Interview with Elizabeth Wissinger Jan 30, 2019

Show notes

To explain the fashion world and some of the recent controversies involving racism during an age when fashion trend setting Michelle Obama, one of the most prominent African American woman on the planet, we are joined today by Elizabeth Wissinger, professor of Sociology at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and The Graduate Center, CUNY where she teaches Fashion Studies and sociology. Professor Wissinger’s research focuses on technology, fashion and embodiment. Her current research of how wearable technology genders bodies, research though which she is affiliated with the think tank, Data and Society. She is author of This Year’s Model: Fashion, Media and the Making of Glamor (NYU Press 2015). During the podcast Professor Wissinger points to changes in the fashion “industry [that] has been trying to catch up with the changes in what is considered beautiful and fashionable that came about before social media was a force...fashion blogging made a space for totally different images to be fashionable that were not endorsed by Vogue…”

The Thought Project - Episode 40 - Interview with Joshua Brumberg Jan 24, 2019

Show notes

Featured in this podcast is Joshua Brumberg, dean for the sciences at The Graduate Center, CUNY and also a professor of neuroscience in psychology at Queens College. Dean Brumberg is spearheading the GC’s Sciences initiative as projected in its strategic plan. Brumberg said: “World class science happens at CUNY and you can come to CUNY and become world class scientist.”

The Thought Project - Episode 39 - Interview with Margaret Chin Jan 15, 2019

Show notes

Professor Margaret Chin is a faculty member at Hunter College and The Graduate Center of The City University of New York where she has been engaged at the center of debate on affirmative action in the Harvard legal case and the New York City elite high school testing controversy as a result of her research and advocacy. Chin is a professor of sociology. She received her B.A. from Harvard University and her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Chin is also a faculty associate of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, a member of the CUNY Mapping Asian American New York consortium, and a trustee of the Tenement Museum. Professor Chin said: “In general, Americans really believe Asian Americans as a whole have done really well, therefore all these other things—the undocumented, mental health issues, just getting into regular everyday schools, not the elite schools—all of these things are actually of concern to Asian Americans. It’s not just about doing the best, getting the best jobs; it’s not about getting into the best schools, although those are issues too. But Asian Americans are a diverse group, and that image has actually hurt many Asian Americans; and that is one of the reasons why you do not see them listed among the undocumented.”

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