The Scene

Risa Lieberwitz on the University's Role in Supporting the Public Good: On October 4th, 2023, a group of Cornell faculty condemned the current proposal for falling grievously short of Cornell's obligations to its constituencies and communities, and the broader public interest. Risa Lieberwitz, a professor at Cornell's Industrial and Labor Relations School, places the MakeCornellPay campaign in the broader context of her analysis of the role of higher education in a democratic society, and how it has been weakened by the privatization of the university. Professor Lieberwitz also discusses the role of academic freedom in permitting faculty and student organizing around issues like MakeCornellPay and her work with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in defending academic freedom.

In 2021 and 2022, workers at all three Starbucks locations in Ithaca, New York, had voted to unionize. By 2023, Starbucks had shut down every one of those locations. International labor law expert Desiree LeClercq breaks down the 2023 National Labor Relations Board proceeding that held the Ithaca store closures by Starbucks to be in violation of federal protections for organizing workers, and discusses the larger contexts in national and international worker rights. 

Saida Hodzic, a Professor in the Anthropology Department and the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at Cornell University, discusses her work the fields of asylum and refugee studies from studies of refugees to critical studies of refuge, and her spring 2023 symposium, Displaced, Detained, Undeterred: The Violence of Uncertain Refuge. 

Judge Patrick Robinson, of the International Court of Justice, discusses a powerful and comprehensive new report on the scale of compensation owed for transatlantic chattel slavery; the forms that reparations should and should not take and how reparations might emerge in the wake of the demise of affirmative action as a deeper and more historically grounded justice movement; and how his experience growing up in Jamaica inspired his commitment to the cause.

Activist and philanthropic grantmaker Prachi Patankar talks about her lifelong relationship to justice work – connecting the LGBTQ+ and women’s justice commitments and causes she supports, through her international foundation work in South and Southeast Asia, with her upbringing in a family deeply involved in grassroots social change through anti-caste, feminist and peasant movements in rural India.

Photographer and art professor Dan Torop discusses his recent work in the exhibitions Falling Water and Three Rainbows, the science and technology that he has used in rendering images of the physical world, and the social and cultural histories that accompany and shape the tools of photography and other forms of visual rendering.  

Literary and legal scholar Elizabeth Anker contends in her new book, On Paradox: The Claims of Theory, that faith in the logic of paradox has formed the cornerstone of left intellectualism since the second half of the twentieth century — and that reasoning through paradox has become deeply problematic, undercutting the commitments to social justice that should guide theory in the humanities and law.

Visual artist and educator Jill Lavetsky discusses her artwork reflecting on the subject of human connection through themes of motherhood, relationships, vulnerability, and tenderness, personified through the “tangling of bodies and the interlacing of limbs” in her watercolors, paintings and collages.

Michael Sliger, attorney for Sachem Sam George and an adjunct professor at Cornell Law School, discusses the context of the Halftown dispute over the leadership of the Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) Nation, and the challenges of defending tribal sovereignty under federal Indian law.

Sachem Sam George discusses the challenge that he and other Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) Nation elders have mounted to the leadership of Clint Halftown, currently recognized by the the Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) Nation’s authorized representative; Attorney Michael Sliger provides additional background.

Judge Dennis Davis, legal scholar and jurist of the High Court of Cape Town, South Africa, discusses the reasons for the continuing and pervasive inequality and insecurity of today’s South Africa, almost thirty years after the country’s triumphant defeat of apartheid and embrace of democracy.

The former Director of Sustainability for the City of Ithaca, Luis Aguirre-Torres, discusses his work with the Green New Deal, the roadmap to achieving climate policy change that is equitable, and the centrality of transforming our economic models through expansion.

Financial and economic regulation expert Bob Hockett discusses how the November 2022 midterm elections might affect the Biden Administration’s ability to implement its economic policies; and how to interpret rising inflation in light of record corporate profits. 

Artist and photography professor Al-An deSouza discusses their exhibition, Elegies of Futures Past, at Cornell University’s Johnson Museum of Art, and its meditations on family memory, colonial empire and diasporic identity.

Artist and curator Nathaniel Hendrickson, currently in residence at the Soil Factory, discusses how they are designing ways of making art that shift away from individualism, and that embrace collaboration with human and non-human others, as a way of responding to ecological challenges of our time. 

The Scene broadcasts on WRFI Community Radio. For more information, visit https://www.wrfi.org/wrfiprograms/the-scene/.

Contact Info: thesceneaudiomagazine@gmail.com

Original air date: October 21, 2022

The members of New York City-based new music chamber group loadbang (Andy Kozar on trumpet(s), William Lang on trombone, Adrian Sandi on bass clarinet, and Tyler Bouque on baritone voice) speak about mixing and making new music from classical and contemporary genres and sounds.

The Scene broadcasts on WRFI Community Radio. For more information, visit https://www.wrfi.org/wrfiprograms/the-scene/.

Contact Info: thesceneaudiomagazine@gmail.com

Original air date: October 7, 2022

Human rights and constitutional law professor Tawab Danish speaks about life in his home country of Afghanistan following the seizure of power by the Taliban, and about the personal and communal upheaval brought about by regime change.

The Scene broadcasts on WRFI Community Radio. For more information, visit https://www.wrfi.org/wrfiprograms/the-scene/.

Contact Info: thesceneaudiomagazine@gmail.com

Original air date: August 26, 2022

Art and cultural heritage lawyer and professor Leila Amineddoleh speaks about the law and ethics of recovering looted art in situations ranging from British conquest to the Nazis.

The Scene broadcasts on WRFI Community Radio. For more information, visit https://www.wrfi.org/wrfiprograms/the-scene/.

Contact Info: thesceneaudiomagazine@gmail.com

Original air date: August 26, 2022

The vote to unionize three Starbucks locations in Ithaca was followed by an abrupt shutdown. Pete Myers of the Tompkins County Workers Center discusses the Starbucks workers movement and gives updates on the local campaign for a living wage.

Tompkins County Workers Center website: https://www.wrfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/WC-logo-banner-1.jpeg

The Scene broadcasts on WRFI Community Radio. For more information, visit https://www.wrfi.org/wrfiprograms/the-scene/.

Contact Info: thesceneaudiomagazine@gmail.com

Original air date: August 12, 2022