Is The World On Fire?

Apr 05 2024

Is The World On Fire? Podcast artwork

What is your fire? It seems like everywhere you look these days, there are an endless number of challenges and injustices burning around us. But are we really worse off now than we have been in the past? Who and what works to solve these challenges? We decided to explore these questions by interviewing peacebuilders, social innovators, technical experts, academics and other individuals across the globe who are working to resolve and ameliorate these fires. "Is the World on Fire" is a podcast made by students and alumni at the Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego.

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

28: If I Don't Go, Nobody Will: Ukraine's Fight Told by a War Reporter

Apr 05 2024 30 mins

Yaroslav Trofimov is the Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent at the Wall Street Journal, where he has worked since 1999 covering the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize the last two years for his coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. An author of 3 books, his latest is "Our Enemies Will Van

27. Freedom is an Inside Job

Mar 22 2024 41 mins

Kelsey O. Daniels is a dynamic creative force and seasoned community organizer from South East San Diego. Kelsey delves into the ancestral, wellness, and liberation dimensions of dreaming. As the founder of "Check, Please!" and "The Black Dream Experiment," Kelsey curates spaces that empower authentic storytelling and celebrate the rich tapestry of Black dreamin

26. Decolonization: Changing our Brains

Mar 15 2024 45 mins

Mara Tissera Luna is an international consultant focusing on understanding the root causes of forced displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean and improving protection for displaced populations. She's a social anthropologist who specializes in Latin America and the Caribbean. She advises UNICEF, Georgetown University, the University of Edinburgh and Refugees International

25. I Speak Fluent Patriarchy, But it Isn't My Native Tongue

Mar 01 2024 43 mins

An interview with Dr. Nadine Puechguirbal, an expert with over two decades working in gender, peace, and security. The breadth of her experience ranges across a diverse landscape including gender mainstreaming, addressing sexual and gender-based violence, preventing and responding to sexual exploitation and abuse, safeguarding, diversity and social inclusion, and advocating for the

24. Prisons in America Series: Dreaming Beyond Incarceration (Part II)

Feb 11 2024 37 mins

For part 2 of our series highlighting the state of prisons in the U.S., we speak with Wehtahnah Tucker, a lawyer with more than a decade experience working in the California Department of Corrections and co-moderator of a recent lecture by Angela Davis on prison abolition. Leeya and Wehtahnah go deep on the current state of the carceral system, the Norway Model and the tricky busin

23. Prisons in America Series: It is Our Responsibility to Question Everything (Part I)

Feb 11 2024 62 mins

Legendary activist Angela Davis delivers the Kroc School's Distinguished Lecture on the history of American prisons and the urgency of prison abolition. Recorded in front of a live audience on Oct. 11, 2023, Davis speaks about the importance of convincing people that prisons are not inevitable, the role of imagination in advocating for change and how to avoid burnout in social

22. We are Not Silent

Dec 19 2023 30 mins

Part Three of our Women Peacemakers Series introduces Sveto Muhammad Ishoq, an award-winning women’s rights activist, TEDx speaker and social entrepreneur from Afghanistan. Her work on international platforms has been instrumental in amplifying Afghan womens' voices during the Taliban regime. Sveto has founded several organizations, including Ayat, a social enterprise that em

21. I Left Iran, Iran Never Left Me

Dec 18 2023 42 mins

Part Two for our Women Peacemakers Series shines a light on the work of Shadi Rouhshahbaz, a young Iranian peace builder, futurist and researcher. She shares her remarkable journey from underground activist to founder of PeaceMentors, the first young-women-led peace building initiative in Iran. In this episode she delves into the Iranian information gap, the "Women, Life, Free

20. Invisible: Burma's Forgotten Conflict

Dec 14 2023 33 mins

Part One of our Women Peacemakers Series kicks of with Kay Soe, a feminist and gender equality advocate from Burma with nearly two decades of experience in public policy, strategy development, evaluation and researchrelated to gender equality, labour migration, and peace and security. Listen as we discuss the 70 year-old civil war that her home country is undergoing, the mental tol

19. I need you to be angry: Threats to Transnational LGBTQ+ Progress

Oct 30 2023 51 mins

Tune in for this very special guest-host episode with Kroc School graduate student and Queer scholar Thomas Oliver. Thomas interviews Jack Harrison-Quintana, M.A. the Director of Grindr For Equality. Jack is a queer Latino activist, author, and researcher. He has worked with the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), the Global Trans Researc