The Baldy Center Podcast

Matthew Dimick discusses income inequality, wealth redistribution, income tax, economics, Pareto optimality, and Marxism

Episode 28 features Matthew Dimick, Professor of Law in the University at Buffalo’s School of Law. Dimick explains Pareto optimality and the differences between income taxation and legal rules for wealth redistribution. He discusses capitalism, Marxism, and how economists measure the effects various methods of redistribution may have on the economy.

 

 

 

Keywords: wealth redistribution, inequality, income tax, taxation, disparity, Marxism, capitalism, economics, taxation, minimum wage

Seth Parker Woods discusses the positioning of the cello, oral and written histories, Classical music, Black composers, and performance installations

Episode 27 features Seth Parker Woods, a University at Buffalo Center for Diversity Innovation Distinguished Visiting Scholar. Dr. Woods speaks about the cello and its use in classical music and performance pieces, including the ice cello. He discusses the Fluxus movement, Black composers, and using music and performance to create pieces that reflect events and social issues such as police brutality and the emotions they cause. This episode includes two pieces at the end - Bach’s Allemande, and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay’s asinglewordisnotenough - performed by Dr. Woods. 

 

 

Keywords: cello, music, performance art, Black Lives Matter, police brutality, classical music, Black composers, Fluxus, ice cello, contemporary classical music, Seth Parker Woods

Rachael K. Hinkle discusses briefs, lawyer experience, and the influence they have on Supreme Court decisions

Episode 26 features Rachael K. Hinkle, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Hinkle speaks about her forthcoming book, co-authored by Morgan Hazelton (St. Louis University), Persuading the Supreme Court: The Significance of Briefs in Judicial Decision Making. She discusses the process of analyzing tens of thousands of briefs, who’s allowed to submit these briefs, and how these documents and who wrote them can influence Supreme Court decisions.

 

 

 

Keywords: Supreme Court, brief, amicus brief, Brandeis brief, court ruling, court decision, judicial decision

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.