Converging Dialogues

Cristina Florea, historian and Cornell professor specializing in Central and Eastern Europe, discusses Bukovina as a contested imperial borderland. She covers its Habsburg origins, multilingual and multiethnic makeup, shifting 20th-century borders and populations, the Orthodox Church’s role, wartime upheavals and postwar divisions, and contemporary debates over identity, migration, and regional politics.

Manus M. Patten, evolutionary biologist at Georgetown who studies conflict in organisms, and J. Arvid Ågren, evolutionary biologist exploring within-organism conflicts, discuss how selfish parts coexist inside bodies. They cover origins of multicellularity, cancer and pregnancy as clinical examples, genomic imprinting, transmission versus trait-distorting elements, and links to philosophy and applied biology.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Sari van Anders about gender/sex and sexual configurations theory. They talk about the sex binary and understanding a wider landscape, gender/sex, sexual configurations theory, endocrine system and hormones, neural correlates of hormones, mental health challenges, future of gender/sex research, and many more topics. Sari van Anders teaches at Queen’s University as the Canada 150 Research Chair in Social Neuroendocrinology, Sexuality, and Gender/Sex, and Professor of Psychology, Gender Studies, and Neuroscience. Her work and lab has been recognized with over 80 awards, including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation & Gender Diversity, the APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions, as well as election to the Royal Society of Canada. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Marinos Sariyannis about the Supernatural in the Early and Middle Ottoman periods. They discuss the differences between the natural, supernatural, and preternatural, Islam and the supernatural, magic, occult, and divination. They talk about the relationship between natural science and supernatural, Lettrism, Jinn, limits of supernatural belief, Sufism, hell and purgatory, witchcraft and divination, preternatural, and many more topics. Marinos Sariyannis is Research Director at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH in Rethymno, Greece. He has led research projects on the history of Ottoman political thought and on the Ottoman perceptions of the supernatural. He has published several books, articles and chapters on Ottoman social, cultural and intellectual history. He is the author of the recent book, Ottomans and the Supernatural: Nature and the Limits of Knowledge in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, which you can find available for free through open access. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Megan Kate Nelson about the American West. They discuss the frontier myth, Sacajawea, shared history in the Southwest, Maria Gertrudis Barcelo and her wealth, Jim Beckwourth and shifting stories. They also talk about the 1862 Homestead Act, Ovando Hollister and his paradox, Chinese-American immigrants, Little Wolf, and many more topics. Megan Kate Nelson is a writer and historian based in Boston, Massachusetts. She has written about US western history, the Civil War, and American culture for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate, Time, and Smithsonian Magazine. Nelson earned her BA in history and literature from Harvard University and her PhD in American studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of many books, including her most recent, The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Chloe Drulis & Carly Trissler about the neurobiology of executive functioning in therapy. They talk about the importance of understanding executive functioning, interpersonal neurobiology framework, three system model of executive functioning, clinical use of the model, the model with ADHD, Attachment theory and styles, Gottman’s four horsemen, social media, and many other topics. Chloe Drulis is an associate marriage and family therapist practicing in Santa Monica and a writer specializing in interpersonal neurobiology.Carly Trissler is a Phoenix—based writer with expertise in Interpersonal Neurobiology. She holds an MA in psychology from Pepperdine University. Both of them (along with Louis Cozolino) are co-authors of the book, Executive Functioning and Psychotherapy: The New Neuroscience of Adaptive Intelligence. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Sam Dalrymple about the five partitions of modern Asia. They provide an overview of the five partitions, Pakistan as a Muslim state, the first partition of Burma, the 2nd partition of the Arabian Peninsula, the 3rd partition of Pakistan, the 4th partition of Princely India, India and Pakistan in the 50s and 60s, and the war of 1971 with the 5th partition of Bangladesh. Sam Dalrymple is a historian, filmmaker, and cofounder of Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 partition of India. He graduated from the University of Oxford as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar. He is the author of the book, Shattered lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia. Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with James Traub about education and democracy. They talk about the distinctness of American education, history evolving into social studies, the Classical model, and charter schools. They discuss the 1619 Project, “Wokeness” in schools, “Anti-wokeness” in schools, Hirsch’s core model, and many more topics. James Traub is a journalist and scholar specializing in international affairs. He is a columnist and contributor to the website foreignpolicy.com. He worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker from 1993 to 1998 and as a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine from 1998 to 2011. He has also written extensively about national politics, urban affairs, and education. He has written many books, such as, True Believer: Hubert Humphrey’s Quest For A More Just America and the most recent, The Cradle of Citizenship: How Schools can help save our Democracy. He teaches classes on American foreign policy and on the history of liberalism at NYU Abu Dhabi and at NYU. He is a fellow of the Center on International Cooperation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.Substack: James Traub Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe

Kathryn Paige Harden, a behavioral genetics professor and author, reflects on how genetics intersects with moral responsibility and human behavior. The conversation touches on luck versus blame, religion’s shaping of moral intuition, therapy and selfhood, cooperation’s costs and benefits, and ethical questions around embryo selection and eugenics.

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Uğur Ümit Üngör about genocides and the recent Syrian Civil War. They define genocide, buildup to genocide, and the Armenian genocide. They also talk about the Syrian gulags, different types of Syrian intelligence agencies and prisons, Tadamon massacre, Syria’s transition government and future, and many more topics. Uğur Ümit Üngör is Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam and NIOD. His main areas of interest are the global history and sociology of genocide and mass violence, with a particular focus on the modern and contemporary Middle East. He has written many books including, Genocide: New Perspectives on its Causes, Courses, Consequences, Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950, and The Syrian Gulag. Website: https://www.ungor.nl/ Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe