Talas Asad

Tariq Ali

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes writer and journalist Tariq Ali for a discussion of Pakistan and it relations with the United States. He places the present crisis in its historical context exploring the origins of the Pakistani state, the failure to forge a national identity, the inability and unwillingness of Pakistani leaders to address the country's poverty and inequality, and the role of the military in the country's spiral toward violence and disunity. In this context, Tariq Ali highlights the significance of the U.S. relationship throughout Pakistan's history and he analyzes current US policy and it implications for stability in the region.

Manuel Castells

On this edition of Conversations with History, UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler welcomes social theorist Manuel Castells, Professor of Sociology and Professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, to discuss identity and change in the network society.

By wikipedia Raised primarily in Barcelona as part of a conservative family, Castells became politically active in the student anti-Franco movement as a teenager. His political activism necessitated fleeing the country: he finished his degree at the age of twenty in Paris. After completing a doctorate in Sociology at the University of Paris, he taught at the university between 1967 and 1979, first at the Nanterre Campus, from which he was expelled after the 1968 student protest, and then, from 1970 to 1979, at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. In 1979, he was appointed Professor of Sociology and Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2001, he also became a research professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Barcelona. In 2003, he left UC Berkeley to join the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communication as a professor of communication and the first Wallis Annenberg endowed Chair of Communication and Technology. He is a founding member of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and a senior member of the Center's Faculty Advisory Council. Castells is also a member of the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication. He received numerous honorary doctorates and other honours in recognition of his work.

Theory

During the 1970s, Castells played a key role in the development of a Marxist urban sociology. He emphasised the role of social movements in the conflictive transformation of the urban landscape. In this he followed in the footsteps of Alain Touraine who Castells has described as his intleectual "father." ^[1] He introduced the concept of "collective consumption" (public transport, public housing, et cetera) to frame a wide range of social struggles, displaced from the economic to the political field by state intervention. Abandoning the strictures of Marxism in the early 1980s, he began to focus on the role of new technologies in economic restructuring. In 1989, he introduced the concept of the "space of flows", by which he meant the material and immaterial components of the global information networks through which more and more of the economy was coordinated, in real time across distances. In the 1990s, he combined both strands of his research into a massive study, Information Age, published as a trilogy between 1996 and 1998. In response to the critical reception of that work at a number of large seminars held at universities across the world, a second edition was published in 2000. According to Castells, the 2000 edition is "40% different" from the 1996, although it is unclear what he means by differen

Amira Hass

Amira Hass is left-wing Israeli journalist known for her columns in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz. She is particularly recognized for her reporting on Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza.She not only report but live among the palestian 'The Palestinians, as a people, are divided into subgroups, something which is reminiscent also of South Africa under apartheid rule

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University, for a discussion of the interplay of economic theory and political philosophy in his work on public choice, development, and freedom. Sen recalls his own intellectual odyssey, commenting on some of the factors that shaped his thinking

Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, discusses his experiences covering Middle East wars for the last 30

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, discusses his experiences covering Middle East wars for the last 30 thirty years

David Harvey.Capital accumulation

David Harvey (born 1935) is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).Distinguished geographer David Harvey joins host Harry Kreisler for a discussion of how the analytic tools of geography and Marxism can contribute to our understanding of the new imperialism. Series: "Conversations with History"

Harry Kreisler interviews distinguished individuals about their lives and work.

On this edition of Conversations with History, UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler is joined by linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky to discuss activism, anarchism and the role the United

States plays in the world today. Series: "Conversations with History"

Conversations Host Harry Kreisler welcomes philosopher Martha Nussbaum for a discussion of women and human development, religious freedom, and liberal education. Series: "Conversations with History"

Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Steve Walt of Harvard University

"Domestic Politics and International Relations"

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Steve Walt of Harvard University for a discussion of how domestic politics influences the making of U.S. policy on the Middle East.

Conversations with History: Shirin Ebadi

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi for a discussion of her remarkable odyssey as a human rights lawyer in Iran under the rule of the mullahs. She discusses the effects of revolutionary change in Iran, on her career as a lawyer, her role as a mother, and her work as an advocate and crusader for the rights of children, women, and victims of political oppression and religious intolerance. The interview was conducted in English and Farsi

Conversations With History: Iran Israel and U.S.

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Trita Parsi,President of the National Iranian American Council, for a discussion of the struggle for power in the Middle East. Drawing on the perspective of the Realist School of International Relations Theory, he focuses on the region's dominant powers--Israel and Iran--and examines the evolution of their relations with each other and with the United States, the world's only superpower.