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The JMCE 2018-21 EU Today podcast series features interviews with visiting speakers, scholars and Jean Monnet key faculty members. Our guests speak about their research on topics affecting the EU today. Topics range from traditional social sciences as well as UNC’s strengths in the area of health, journalism/communications, and environment-related research and exchange with EU member states.

Decorative image with a black steel gate against a sunrise or sunset sky and reflected in water.

with Professors Jennifer Fitzgerald and Mark Helbling
This podcast features guest speakers from the spring 2019 Jean Monnet panel “The Political Divides That Are Transforming the EU.”

Access the transcript for podcast 2.

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with Professor Jonathan Polk
This podcast features a guest speaker from the spring 2019 Jean Monnet “Partisan Divides” workshop.

Access the transcript for podcast 3.

Decorative clipped image of 1886 map of British Empire.

with Professors Susan Pennybacker and Cemil Aydin
This podcast features the organizers of the spring 2019 Jean Monnet panel and conference “Global Brexit and the Lost Futures of European Empires.”

Access the transcript for podcast 4.

Decorative circular photo of legs and sneakers on a railroad track.

with Professor Urban Strandberg
This podcast features a discussion on youth engagement in the EU, centering on the International Youth Think Tank.

Access the transcript for podcast 5.

Decorative circular photo of two flags where the EU's flag blends into the Pride flag.

with Professor Phillip Ayoub
This podcast features a discussion of how LGBT rights are adopted by EU member states.

Access the transcript for podcast 6.

Decorative circular photo of euro coins.

with PhD candidate Kaitlin Alper
This podcast features a discussion of economic inequality in Europe and the US, and its impact on politics in times of crisis.

Access the transcript for podcast 7.

Decorative photo of paratrooper with snowy mountains in the background.

with Atlantic Academy director David Sirakov and education manager Sarah Wagner
This podcast features a discussion of EU-US military relations. The Atlantic Academy is a Germany-based think tank located in Kaiserslautern, Germany, near Ramstein Air Base and also home to the largest community of Americans outside of the US.

Access the transcript for podcast 8.

Decorative image of the outside of the European Parliament with member state flags.

with Joseph Dunne, director of the European Parliament Liaison Office in Washington D.C
This podcast features a discussion of the European Parliament’s work in the US, including their relations with US congress and how EU and US politics have changed over the years.

Decorative photo of umbrellas held up by cables to look like they are floating.

with UNC-CH political science professors and JMCE key staff members Evelyne Huber and John D Stephens
This podcast features a discussion of different models and outcomes of welfare states in the EU and beyond, as well as professors Huber and Stephens’ ongoing project, Increasing Inequality in Post-Industrial Knowledge Economies. Evelyne Huber is the Morehead Alumni Distinguished Professor of Political Science. John D. Stephens is the Gerhard E. Lenski, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology. He is also the Director of the Center for European Studies, a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence.

Access the transcript for podcast 10.

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with UNC-CH professor and JMCE key staff member Priscilla Layne and UC Riverside faculty Sherryl Vint
This podcast features an interview of Dr. Sherryl Vint (UC Riverside) by Dr. Priscilla Layne (UNC-CH). Dr. Layne is an Associate Professor of German, Adjunct Associate Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies, and Jean Monnet Center of Excellence Key Faculty Member. Dr. Vint is is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and director of the Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science program. During their conversation, Drs. Vint and Layne discuss how sci-fi texts shape and inform understanding of contemporary biopolitical trends in Europe and the US.

Access the transcript for podcast 11.

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with UNC-CH professor and JMCE key staff member Banu Gökarıksel and conference organizers
This podcast features interviews with the organizers of the fall 2020 virtual conference “Encountering Difference, Embodying Boundaries, and Unsettling Borders: Middle Eastern Refugees and Immigrants in the European Union”. Hosted, and with introduction and conclusion, by UNC Geography faculty Dr. Banu Gökarıksel. Conference organizers include UNC Geography alumni Dr. Devran Koray Öcal and Dr. Nathan Swanson, and current students Betül Aykaç, Suad Jabr, and Lily Herbert.

Access the transcript for podcast 12“>

Decorative circular image of a crowd with EU and Polish flags and a big EU flag held up and taking up most of the top half of the photo.

with UNC-CH professor and JMCE key staff member Milada Vachudova
This podcast features an interview with Dr. Milada Vachudova, Associate Professor of Political Science at UNC–Chapel Hill and Jean Monnet Center of Excellence Key Faculty Member. Dr. Vachudova discusses her ongoing research into populist and ethnopopulist movements in the transatlantic context, as well as democratic backsliding in post-communist European countries.

Access the transcript for podcast 13.

A group waving a Ukrainian flag in the street

with Dr. Christiane Lemke
The rhetoric and reality of tectonic shifts in Europe and transatlantic relations since the Russian attack on Ukraine will be analyzed from various angles. Defense relations have been altered within Europe as well as Nato. Energy security moved front and center, altering and accelerating moves towards alternative and renewable energy sources. Despite these enormous pressures, the German traffic light coalition had difficulties adjusting its budget accordingly, while the French nuclear industry struggled to meet expectations. Beyond breathing new life into Nato (which was declared “brain dead” by President Macron and put into question by President Trump not long ago), Russia tries to influence the political discourse in the West, supporting anti-establishment groups and spreading disinformation. This major land war in Europe has changed the equation for European security cooperation and Nato as much as it has upended German and EU “Ostpolitik.” The US is asking for a stronger European pillar in Nato but is weary of any strategic autonomy. How can this and other transatlantic conundrums be resolved? What could Europe’s contributions be to a stable peace in the East?

Access the transcript for podcast 14.

with Dr. Ingo Peters

How are NATO and the EU responding to Russian aggression in Ukraine? Dr. Ingo Peters outlines implications for the transatlantic relationship and European geopolitics.
Access the transcript for podcast 15.