In Perspective

Have you ever been to a Whole Foods or maybe a co-op and seen labels that say things like, "gluten-free", "non-gmo," "no antibiotics," "free-roaming," "BPA-free," and wondered to yourself, "What does this all mean?" Well, you're not alone. It's a complex, cloudy world when it comes to food these days, and sometimes it's hard to know what's good, what's bad and what you can afford (both ethically and financially) . Tom Philpott is a Food and Agriculture Correspondent for Mother Jones. While studying food and cooking traditions around the world, Tom noticed that American food traditions were being lost to fast food and food processing companies. Tom questions how we can hold onto our food traditions when so much of our food industry is controlled by a small number of companies and their lobbyists that manipulate the federal government. Tom discusses the regulation systems in place that still allow for potentially harmful additives in our food. Raj Patel is a research professor in the LBJ School of public affairs at UT Austin and the author of “Stuffed and Starved” and “The Value of Nothing.” Raj talks about the history behind globalization of food traditions, emphasizing that many food traditions evolved out of the mixing of cultures. He also focuses on issues of food and national identity, and the importance of discovering and re-discovering food together, in order to combat the development of food traditions that promote isolationism. Marla Camp is the owner and editor of Edible Austin. She is motivated to bring awareness about food back into the surrounding community and connect people back to where their food comes from. Marla emphasizes education as a way to strengthen people’s relationships to their food and to the understanding about the true value of food to our body. What is your perspective? Food traditions shift and change to adapt to the systems in place to get it to our dinner table. How will the food systems in place today affect our food traditions of tomorrow? With all the information out there about what to eat and what not to eat, how do you approach the food that ends up on your dinner table?

This episode recognizes women, gender, and sexuality with a discussion of the complexities of gender and sexuality from contemporary and historical perspectives. Our discussants share what they’ve learned from their respective research projects, while exploring how privilege and power function in constructions of gender and sexuality. Ultimately, they agree that listening with empathy to each other’s needs and desires demonstrates mutual respect and can allow us to have greater faith in our individuality. The Discussion Lisa Moore is a professor of English and Interim Director of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at UT-Austin. In Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes, she explores how women of the Eighteenth century used the natural world to create artworks that celebrated their bonds with each other. On In Perspective, Moore helps us to deconstruct the notion of “woman” as part of a vast gender spectrum. Thinking about the intersectional nature of identity, she asks: How do we determine who counts within various gender and sexuality categories? Suzy Spencer is the author of New York Times bestseller, Secret Sex Lives: A Year on the Fringes of American Sexuality. She brings frankness to the discussion of sex and desire, based on interviews with American men and women of different ages and sexual orientations regarding their experiences. Here, Spencer emphasizes the need for empathy and acceptance of alternative sex practices and unconventional attitudes about sex. Ward Keeler is a professor of Anthropology and Women’s and Gender Studies at UT-Austin. He conducts field research in Burma, studying masculinities and transgender identities. Keeler’s understanding of Burmese norms of gender and sexuality expands the conversation beyond the U.S. context in useful ways. He calls attention to the fact that in some Southeast Asian cultures, sexuality is not a central point of identification as it often can be in the United States. What’s your perspective? As we continue to struggle to achieve equal rights and protections for women and LGBTQ persons, it is necessary to have more conversations like this one about what gender and sexuality mean in the United States and internationally. The issues brought up here are not exactly new ones, but they remain urgently important if we are to develop a mutually respectful, compassionate, and empathetic society.

Race in America This month’s episode recognizes Black History Month by bringing together several scholars for a discussion of race in contemporary America. As we look back on 2014, we celebrate the achievements of African-Americans, but we also find racial inequality and abuses of power and privilege that continue to endanger and oppress non-white Americans. We must also ask ourselves: Where are we, as a nation, in our ongoing debates regarding race? Among other inquiries, host Rebecca McInroy asks these In Perspective discussants which conversations about race are most productive to pursue. The Discussion Cherise Smith is a professor of art history and Director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Smith reminds us that while the effects of racial discrimination are very real, race is also a social construction that gets piled onto other issues of power and identity, including gender, class, and education. Rich Reddick is a professor of educational administration and Faculty Director for Campus Diversity Initiatives at UT Austin. Reddick argues that we need to have more general conversations about race, rather than rely on reactionary discussions, in order to help us work through and understand ongoing institutional racism. Eric Tang is a professor of African and African diaspora studies and Asian American studies at UT Austin. For Tang, race is a set of practices, which assign values and power to certain bodies based on individual daily life, as well as policy. He brings to our attention the significance of race in how Austin has changed over time. Regina Lawrence is a professor of journalism at UT Austin and author of The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality. For Lawrence, conversations about race begin with a shared language and a greater sense of empathy—something she finds lacking in discussions driven by social media where earnest conversation can be foreclosed by a culture of shaming. What’s your perspective? Race is a sensitive issue in this country to say the least. It is a complicated social construction that keeps us divided through institutionalized means, via the daily reproduction of social conventions, and via the easy reliance on harmful stereotypes. While we engage in this discussion during Black History Month, it is clear that race impacts all our lives regardless of how we might identify and regardless of how others categorize us. When we understand race in relation to power and privilege, we begin to see how it plays out in our daily experiences. How does race impact your daily life?

This month’s episode of In Perspective explores what it means to be displaced or without a home. Our new roundtable participants ask: How do we define “home”? Is it a house? Is it family, a sense of community? Is it a place or a feeling? The discussants share their perspectives, from the practical concerns of living on the streets of Austin, to the role of creative production in dealing with homelessness, to challenging notions of displacement and transience as unnatural. Ultimately, the discussion turns toward the ways in which our perceptions of home and homelessness influence our views on immigration, the need for refuge, and national identity.

In this edition of In Perspective we teamed up with Views and Brews for a discussion on various elements of and debates over artificial intelligence, discussing what it actually means to think; how knowledge of computers' inner-workings affect our understanding of the human brain; and the future of artificial intelligence. Listen back as KUT's Rebecca McInroy discusses all things A.I. with philosopher Dr. Galen Strawson, computer scientist Dr. Peter Stone and novelist-poet Dr. Louisa Hall.

Two of our guests represent that museum, which commemorates the September 11 attacks of 2001 and the World Trade Center bombing of 1993. Also joining us are two distinguished faculty from The University of Texas at Austin and by a call-in guest who is an assistant professor and filmmaker from Northwestern University. The Discussion Kyle Henry, MFA, is an assistant professor at Northwestern University. He is the editor of Heather Courtney’s 2012 film, Where Soldiers Come From, among many others. His latest documentary project, Half-Life of War (2014), explores war memorials and asks the question: Do we memorialize wars to remember, or do we construct monuments and memorials so that we can forget? In this discussion, Henry describes how he works to distill emotional realities through filmmaking in order to get at larger truths. Clifford Chanin, director of education at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, discusses the significance of technology to how September 11th was experienced and how it is remembered in the museum. He addresses the question of whether or not memorials have particular life spans, and explains the dramatic change in the nature of memorials over the past several decades. Jenny Pachucki, oral historian and assistant curator at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, shares what it means to speak about tragic events and the value of listening to each other’s recollections of where they were during historical moments. She explains that the exhibits bring together a vast array of remembrances and celebrate the victims’ lives, rather than attend only to their tragic passing. Richard Flores, Ph.D., is a professor of anthropology and Mexican American studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He has written extensively on the topic of public memory, particularly in relation to Texas history and the Alamo. He helps frame the discussion of public memory and history with reference to the particular purposes served by myth-making and memorials. He explains how the distillation of events and lives toward the symbolic might also silence the voices of veterans and gloss over ongoing conflicts. Tom Palaima, Ph.D., joins us from the department of classics at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a MacArthur fellow who focuses on Aegean prehistory and early Greek language and culture. He offers examples from Greek antiquity to give context to the discussion of early war memorials in the form of songs and epics. Palaima categorizes memorials as one of two varieties: those created to benefit those affected by the war, such as veterans and their families; and those created to benefit the state and national identity. What’s your perspective? These In Perspective participants together question how we deal with the trauma of terrorism and war, how we might mourn collectively, and why we build public memorials. They seek to understand and to teach an understanding of public memory and the human costs of war. At the Texas Humanities Project, we hope that this engagement with war and public memory from a variety of points of view in the humanities will spark thoughtful discussion among listeners about the impacts of memory and memorials in your lives. Check back this time next month for our third In Perspective roundtable.

This summer’s escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come to a relative stand-still with both sides currently holding to the cease-fire signed late last month. But many say the conflict is far from resolution. In its inaugural episode, “In Perspective” invites subject matter experts from UT-Austin, New York University, and Rice University to discuss the conflict, its future and its impact on Israeli and Palestinian cultures with KUT’s Rebecca McInroy. "In Perspective" is a long-form podcast hosted by KUT's Rebecca McInroy in partnership with the Texas Humanities Project which examines cultural, political and social issues through the lens of academia, inviting professors and subject matter experts from academia in roundtable discussions. Below is background information on the experts from this episode of "In Perspective." In the United States, we often frame politics and war as two-sided battles, encouraging each other to choose sides. Our roundtable participants, however, encourage listeners to remember that the region and its conflicts involve multiple complex relationships and identities in addition to their extensive histories. Ultimately, this discussion opens up space for further exploration and poses more questions than could be addressed in the time allotted. There is much more to be said about how gender identities factor into the conflict, for instance. And the idea of the nation as a shared identity raises questions about what it means to live in an occupied or colonized community such as Gaza. We invite you to listen to "In Perspective" and comment below to keep this conversation going. Check back this time next month for our second "In Perspective" roundtable.