The Dean's Table Podcast

Ira Katznelson is the Ruggles Professor of History and Political Science at Columbia University. A prolific scholar and one of the nation's leading social scientists, Ira's work has covered a broad range of questions in the field of American politics, political history, political theory, comparative politics, and the study of race and politics. His contributions to the discipline of political science are deep and wide. Ira has twice served on Columbia's faculty. He has also taught at the University of Chicago, served as Dean of the Graduate Faculty at the New School for Social Research, has been elected to the Presidency of the American Political Science Association, led the Social Science Research Council as its president, and most recently, Ira served as Interim Provost of Columbia University. In this episode, Professor Katznelson talks to Dean Harris about how he decided to cross the Brooklyn Bridge to attend college in Morningside Heights, how he decided to pursue the study of history in graduate school, but has centered his intellectual career in the discipline of political science. I also invited Ira to reflect on his longstanding engagement with the study of liberal democratic societies and liberalism more generally.

Mario Small is the Quetelet Professor of Social Science in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. One of the most preeminent sociologists of his generation, Mario is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American academy of Political and Social Sciences, and most recently, of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most coveted academic associations in the world. A sociologist whose work focuses on urban poverty, social inequality, personal networks, and the relationship between quantitative and qualitative methods, Mario is the author of several pathbreaking books, among them are Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio, and Unanticipated Gains: The Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life. Both books received several awards, including the prestigious C. Wright Mills Award from the American Sociological Association. Mario is also the co-author of a recently published book that explores how social scientists should go about evaluating ethnographic and interview research. Sociology Professor Mario L. Small joins Dean Fredrick Harris on The Dean's Table to reflect on whether being born and raised in Panama shaped his insights as a sociologist, to discuss how and when he became interested in being a sociologist, and to talk about his intellectual contributions to the study of urban poverty, personal networks, and qualitative methods.

Josef Sorett is Professor of Religion and African American and African Diaspora Studies and Chair of the Religion Department at Columbia University. An emerging distinguished scholar in the field of African American religion, Josef is also the founder and director of the Center for African American Religion, Sexual Politics, and Social Justice. Josef is author of Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Holy Holy Black: The Ironies of an African American Secular, and, most recently, an edited volume of essays, titled The Sexual Politics of Black Churches, recently released by Columbia University Press. Professor Sorett speaks with the dean about his upbringing in Boston, attending college at an evangelical Christian school in Tulsa, his graduate work at a theological seminary and doctoral studies at Harvard, as well as his research and teaching.

Rosalind Morris is Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University and is the author of many books, among them In the Place of Origins: Modernity and its Mediums in Northern Thailand, a book that explores spirituality, performance, and mass media in Southeast Asia. Professor Morris is also the author of Accounts and Drawings from the Underground: The East Rand Proprietary Mines Cash Book, a book produced in collaboration with the South African visual artist, William Kentridge. She has been conducting field research in South Africa since 1998, where she has been writing ethnography of South Africa's dangerous gold mining communities. While conducting ethnographic research, Professor Morris has also produced creative projects in the form of documentary film, multimedia art installations, as well as photography, poetry, and she has also worked on operas. Professor Morris speaks with Dean Harris about how she decided to become an anthropologist, to reflect on her ethnographic and creative work in South Africa, to share with us how important collaboration is to research and the creative process, and to provide some insight into the joys and challenges with working in various mediums.

Mabel O. Wilson is the Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and a Professor in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, where she also serves as the Associate Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies. Her research specializes in space, politics and culture in Black America, as well as race and modern architecture and visual culture in contemporary art, media and film. She is the author of the books Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums and Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as two forthcoming books, entitled Reconstruction Architecture for America and Race and Modern Architecture. In addition to her scholarship, Professor Wilson is also a practicing architect and is a member of the architectural team tasked with designing the Memorial to Enslaved African American Laborers at the University of Virginia. In honor of her path breaking work in the field, she received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award for her work on the African diaspora.  Professor Wilson speaks with Dean Harris about how she decided on becoming an architect, reflecting on her work which explores the history of Black exhibitions and museums, and shares insights into scholarship and practice of race, space, and culture.

Miguel Urquiola is Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs and serves as chair of the Economics Department at Columbia University. His research focuses on the economics of education and his work has appeared in American Economic Review, The Review of Economics and Statistics, The Journal of Public Economics, and The Journal of Development Economics, among others. He recently published his first book, Markets, Minds, and Money: Why America Leads the World in University Research. Professor Urquiola speaks with Dean Harris about how he decided to become an economist, reflects on his work exploring whether increased school choice helps families and students choose schools, and gives insight into how the United States became a leader in producing world class research.

Manan Ahmed is Associate Professor of History at Columbia University. He is the author of two books and is working on a third. His most recent book is titled A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia and his upcoming book is titled, The Loss of Hindustan. He is also the author of Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination, a collection of blog essays. Professor Ahmed speaks with Dean Harris about the process of becoming a historian, his scholarship that challenges conventional wisdom about the origins of Muslims in South Asia, and offers some insight into how he fuses his scholarship with public engagement.

Page Fortna is the Harold Brown Professor of US Foreign and Security Policy at Columbia University. She's the author of two books, Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace, and Does Peacekeeping Work?: Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil War. Her research has appeared in leading international relations journals, including International Organization, World Politics, International Studies Quarterly, and International Studies Review. Professor Fortna speaks with Dean Harris about how she came to focus on terrorism as an area of study, what her experience has been like researching terrorism via field research, some of the policy implications of her findings, as well as her work on gender equity in the field of political science.

Andreas Wimmer is the Lieber Professor of Sociology and Political Philosophy at Columbia University. Andreas is the author of many books both in English and in German, including, Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks, Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World, and Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall Apart. Professor Wimmer speaks with Dean Harris about his research on and definitions of nationalism and ethnic exclusion, his turn from anthropology to sociology, and why he uses a wide range of methodological tools to make sense of nationalism, war and ethnicity.

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Dean Harris is joined by Farah Jasmine Griffin, the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia, and the chair of the University’s new Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. Professor Griffin is a scholar of African American literature, music, history and politics, and the author of Who Set You Flowin’: The African American Migration Narrative; If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday; Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever; and most recently Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II.

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