The Baldy Center Podcast

Victoria Wolcott discusses the Long Civil Rights Movement and utopianism

Episode 25 features Victoria Wolcott, a professor in the Department of History at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Wolcott speaks about her upcoming book, Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement(University of Chicago Press, 2022), and her research on utopian thought and communities. She discusses Civil Rights Movement activists like Martin Luther King Jr., Father Divine, and Howard Thurman, and how their shared belief in radical pacifism holds utopian yearnings.

 

Keywords: civil rights, civil rights movement, BLM, Martin Luther King, activism, Black activism, utopia, utopianism, Marxism, socialism

Daniel Brantes Ferreira discusses sports betting and arbitration in Brazil

Episode 24 features Daniel Brantes Ferreira, a 2021-2022 Baldy Research Fellow, a professor at Universidade Cândido Mendes, and Vice-President for Academic affairs at the Brazilian Center of Arbitration and Mediation (CBMA). Dr. Ferreira discusses his research on sports betting and arbitration in Brazil, including arbitration clauses in the terms and services of online betting websites. He explains the process of arbitration and what can happen when the arbitration company listed in the terms and services is in another country entirely, speaking another language, causing difficulty for those with disputes.

Baldy Center Season 4 Trailer

Welcome to season 4 of the podcast of The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, produced at the University at Buffalo.

In Spring 2022, we are back with new episodes about Marxism and the civil rights movement, music and the great migration, the supreme court, sports betting and arbitration, and more. 

The season continues with host and producer, Edgar Girtain. Check out our old and new episodes at buffalo.edu/baldycenter and baldycenterpodcast.podbean.com.

And don't forget to follow our Twitter, @baldycenter.

Devonya Havis discusses the nature of truth and community practices for resistance

Episode 23 features Devonya Havis, a 2021-2022 UB Center for Diversity Innovation Distinguished Scholar and associate professor in Philosophy at Canisius College. Dr. Havis discusses her research examining the nature of truth and the importance of broadening the field of philosophy to include the ways in which people encountering struggle engage in critical engagement about their condition. She specifically explores community practices, black ancestral practices, as an archive or guide for practice on how to push back.

Jordan Fox Besek on climate change and life finding a way

Episode 22 of The Baldy Center Podcast features Department of Sociology Assistant Professor Jordan Fox Besek. Besek discusses his new project with Brooklyn College professor Daniel Shtob, humanity’s relationship with nature, and climate change. He explores the ways in which humans effect the environment, sometimes producing poor outcomes despite green intentions, and the ripple effect those actions have.

John Henry Schlegel and David A. Westbrook discuss “the adventure of thinking”

From the heights of his long tenure at the University at Buffalo School of Law, in Episode 21 of The Baldy Center Podcast, Distinguished Professor John Schlegel discusses US economic history, American Legal Realism, and his lived experience with legal education over the last half century, in particular, Critical Legal Studies. In this extemporaneous conversation, Del Cotto Professor David Westbrook affectionately provokes Schlegel to grapple with the necessary and complex ongoing negotiations between our concepts of adventure and stability, serious and fun, the endeavor of intellectual freedom... and the Borg.

David Herzberg discusses how the politics of whiteness has shaped the history of opioids, opioid addiction, and drug policy

Episode 20 features David Herzberg, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History, University at Buffalo. Herzberg discusses repeated waves of addiction to pharmaceutical opioids and other medicines in the 20^th and 21^st century U.S. Among other things, he examines how the predominantly white consumers labeled as “patients” were understood as innocent victims when they became addicted, while consumers who became addicted outside of medical channels were portrayed as dangerous criminals.  Herzberg is the author of a history of addictive pharmaceuticals titled White Market Drugs: Big Pharma and the Hidden History of Addiction, and co-author of a forthcoming book with Helena Hansen and Jules Netherland about how the politics of whiteness has shaped the history of opioids, opioid addiction, and drug policy in the United States.

Episode 19 Helen Drew and Marissa Egloff discuss diversity, equity, and inclusion in major sports leagues

Episode 19 features Helen Drew, Professor of Law, and Marissa Egloff, a third year JD candidate, in the University at Buffalo School of Law. Professor Drew and Ms. Egloff discuss their research examining the number of women and minorities in executive or coaching positions in professional sports.  They are exploring why, even with proactive policies such as The Rooney Rule in the NFL, women and people of color find it difficult to obtain these “front office” positions.  They are also exploring how nondiverse work environments can become toxic.

Samantha Barbas discusses her new book The Rise and Fall of Morris Ernst: Free Speech Renegade

Episode 18 features Samantha Barbas, Professor of Law and Director of The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy in the University at Buffalo School of Law. Professor Barbas discusses her new book from University of Chicago Press (2021) The Rise and Fall of Morris Ernst: Free Speech Renegade. In the 1930s and ’40s, Morris Ernst was one of America’s best-known liberal lawyers. The ACLU’s general counsel for decades, Ernst was renowned for his audacious fights against artistic censorship. He successfully defended Ulysses against obscenity charges, litigated groundbreaking reproductive rights cases, and supported the widespread expansion of protections for sexual expression, union organizing, and public speech. Yet Ernst was also a man of stark contradictions, waging a personal battle against Communism, defending an autocrat, and aligning himself with J. Edgar Hoover’s inflammatory crusades.

Athena Mutua discusses the origins and goals of ClassCrits.

Episode 15 features Athena Mutua, Professor and Law and Floyd H. & Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar in the University at Buffalo School of Law. Professor Mutua discusses the origins and goals of ClassCrits, which focuses on the heterodox, or political economy approach in law. She presents the new online journal, The Journal of Law and Political Economy and discusses ways in which ClassCrits engages with ongoing and on the ground activist work in significant social issues.

Keywords: ClassCrits; Gender, Law, and Society; Inequality; Law and Economics; Law and Society; Race, Law, and Policy