Free to Think Podcast

Free to Think talks with Christiane Schmeken, Director of the Strategy Department of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and Julia Linder, at the Center for International Academic Collaborations (KIWi) at DAAD. They discuss DAAD's new 'KIWi Compass,' a guide for institutions and leaders navigating complex security, political, economic, and cultural issues within international higher educa...

Free to Think talks with Mai El-Sadany, Managing Director and Legal and Judicial Director at the Tahir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP). El-Sadany discusses the cases of Patrick George Zaki and Ahmed Samir Santawy, two graduate students targeted by Egyptian authorities. She describes the arbitrariness of such detentions and how the global academic community can stand in solidarity. "It can...

Free to Think talks with Elizaveta Potapova , a researcher at the Public Policy and Management Institute in Lithuania. She holds a PhD from the Central European University, where she did her dissertation on academic freedom in Russia. Potapova discusses DOXA, an independent student journal which focuses on the problems of the modern academic environment in Russia and defends student rights and fre...

Free to Think  talks with Zeynep Gambetti, Associate Professor of Political Theory, and Can Candan , a documentary filmmaker and academic, both at Turkey's Bogazici University.   They discuss the collapse of institutional autonomy in Turkey, the one-year anniversary of faculty and student resistance, and how the struggle "isn't only about Bogazici, and it isn't only about Turkey... There is an enc...

Free to Think  talks with Camila Nobrega , a Brazilian journalist, fellow at the  Alice Salomon Hochschule, and PhD candidate in the political science department at the Free University of Berlin, and Dr. Débora Medeiros , a researcher at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies and researcher with the  Collaborative Research Center Affective Societies, also at the Free University.   They...

Free to Think  talks with Ali Arab, Associate Professor of Statistics at Georgetown University and board member of Hostage Aid Worldwide , which fights globally for the release of hostages while aiming to study and prevent hostage-taking against other innocent people.   Arab discusses "hostage diplomacy," "ransom creep," and the importance of sharing information across hostage cases, honoring fami...

Free to Think  talks with Dr. William Tierney , university professor emeritus and founding director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California.   He discusses his new book, Higher education for Democracy: The Role of the University in Civil Society , released by SUNY press in July 2021, in which he argues that beyond research, teaching, and preparing gradua...

University scholars and students, public intellectuals, civil society leaders and human rights defenders across Afghanistan, especially women and ethnic and religious minorities, are in fear for their lives. None of them wore a uniform or got a government paycheck, but for the better part of twenty years these talented individuals have worked for a new, rights-respecting, forward-looking, and know...

Free to Think talks with  Dr. Jo Smith Finley, a Reader in Chinese studies at Newcastle University, UK. In March 2021, Dr. Smith Finley was sanctioned by the government of the People's Republic of China, along with a group of UK politicians and peers, a legal chambers, and the entire staff of The Uyghur Tribunal. The sanctions include a ban on traveling to China, a freeze on assets, and a ban on c...

Free to Think  talks with  Dr. Prosper Maguchu , researcher, human rights lawyer and activist from Zimbabwe. He worked to defend victims of state violence before domestic and international courts, bringing vindication to his clients, but drawing threats and violence against himself. "I wanted to be on the right side of history," he said, "I was motivated each time my clients got justice in court,...

Free to Think  talks with Kyaw Moe Tun , executive director of the Parami University, the first private, non-profit, liberal arts and sciences university in Myanmar. Parami nurtures future leaders by providing students from various cultural, ethnic and economic backgrounds with skills in global citizenship and critical thinking. Dr. Kyaw Moe Tun completed his undergraduate education at Bard Colleg...

Free to Think talks with Aziz Royesh, a leading advocate for primary and secondary education in Afghanistan and the founder of the Marefat High School in Kabul, which currently serves more than 3100 Afghan students, about half of whom are girls. Royesh is a former fellow at the US National Endowment for Democracy and Yale University, and a 2014 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, which recogniz...

Free to Think talks with Sarah Stroup,  Faculty director of the Engaged Listening Project at Middlebury College. Created after protests and disruption of a visit to the campus by controversial scholar Charles Murray, the project aims "to create spaces for close listening and productive disagreements."   Stroup is an associate professor of political science at Middlebury College, where her research...

Free to Think  talks with Marvi Sirmed, a political commentator, journalist, and human rights activist from Pakistan, about the 2021 Aurat March (Women's March), violence against women, intersectionality, blasphemy accusations and the responsibility of social media companies.  Sirmed advocates for minority rights, women's rights and secular democracy. She has withstood years of threats and harassm...

Free to Think  talks with Alfred  Babo  about  Share the Platform , a new initiative to formed by a group of practitioners and scholars from refugee and non-refugee backgrounds to "center the expertise of refugees to improve policy, programs, and practice" in a wide variety of fields. Babo  is an interdisciplinary scholar in anthropology of development, political science, and African studies, curr...

Free to Think talks with Xiyue Wang, a PhD candidate in history at Princeton University, whose research focuses on Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, China and the late Ottoman Empire.  In May 2016, Wang visited Iran to do library and archival research in Tehran. Despite prior approval of his research plan by Iranian authorities, in August he was detained, falsely charged with espionage, and event...

Free to Think  talks with Asli Vatansever, a labor sociologist and author of "At the Margins of Academia: Exile, Precariousness, and Subjectivity ," which examines misconceptions and structural inequities in academic labor markets around the world, through the lens of scholars displaced from their home countries.  Vatansever was among the thousands of scholars in Turkey and abroad who signed a Jan...

Free to Think  talks with Peter Biar Ajak, scholar, civil society leader, and democracy advocate from South Sudan. As a child, Peter was one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan, who were displaced by the civil war and endured treacherous journeys to refugee camps.  Ultimately, Peter was resettled in the United States, earning degrees in international development and international studies from Harvard and...

Free to Think talks with Marcia Ross and Jeff Kaufman, the team behind NASRIN , a beautiful and inspiring new film about Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian human rights attorney.  The film shows Sotoudeh's courage and compassion, as she represents those who have been forsaken by a brutal regime:  political prisoners, religious minorities, women, and children.  Arrested in 2018, while the film was being made...