Nothing Never Happens

What role did education play in the US civil rights movement? What did it look like for anti-racist organizers to build radical schooling and organizing spaces that could evade the harsh surveillance lights of white supremacy and Jim Crow? What lessons can we learn from them today?Our March 2025 episode features journalist Elaine Weiss, who speaks about her new book, Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement, published by Simon and Schuster this month.Spell Freedom traces the educational program that was the underpinning of the civil rights movement and voter registration drives. The Citizenship Schools originated from workshops in the summer of 1954 at the Highlander Center, a labor and social justice training center, located on a mountain in Monteagle, TN, just after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. The heart of the book is Elaine's vivid retelling the stories of the four main leaders of the citizenship school movement, Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, Esau Jenkins, and one of the founders of the Highlander Center, Myles Horton. She traces the path from this mountain center to Charleston and the sea islands of South Carolina, all framed by the segregated and racist South and the leaders who rose up to organize and resist Jim Crow and create a new South. As is often said in southern movement building (from the World Social Forum in 2006), “another South is possible; another South is necessary,” and Spell Freedom connects the histories and voices of the movements that continue to be necessary today.Episode Credits:Co-hosts and co-producers: Lucia Hulsether and Tina PippinEditing and Production Manager: Aliyah HarrisIntro Music: Lance Haugen and the Flying PenguinsOutro Music: "Plato's Republic" by Akrasis

What is education for? What modes of study become possible beyond the frameworks of formal schools and universities? How does radical studying fit into the work of grassroots liberation work?As we enter the new year, educator, writer, and organizer Eli Meyerhoff brings us back to foundational questions about radical pedagogy. His book Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World rejects narrow, romanticized, disciplinary modes of education. It elaborates the concept of “modes of study” — which cracks open possibilities for how we might learn, teach, transform, and organize together. He is one of the co-collaborators on Abolition University and Cops Off Campus Research Project. Recently Eli has written important critiques of the "Antisemitism 101" trainings held by universities in response to Palestine liberation and anti-Zionist organizers.Currently, Eli currently works at Duke University at the John Hope Franklin Center Humanities Lab. He has previously worked as an adjunct instructor at the University of Minnesota and at Duke. He earned a PhD in Political Science, with a political theory focus, from the University of Minnesota in 2013. Episode Credits:Co-hosts and co-producers: Lucia Hulsether and Tina PippinEditing and Production Manager: Aliyah HarrisIntro Music: Lance Haugen and the Flying PenguinsOutro Music: Poppy / Aliyah Harris

This podcast is a dual release between Nothing Never Happens and The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism's “Unpacking Zionism” podcast.* * * * * How have the norms of mainstream educational institutions shaped how teachers and students can study and talk about Zionism? What does it mean to study Zionism critically? What does the current moment -- fourteen months into an ongoing genocide of Palestinians, when global solidarity movements persist in the face of extreme repression -- require of radical pedagogues? What knowledge, tools, and legacies of struggle should we turn to for guidance?In this dual-release episode, Tina and Lucia interview two founding collective members of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ), Dr. Emmaia Gelman and Dr. Yulia Gilich. The Institute examines the political and ideological work of Zionist institutions within and beyond their direct advocacy for Israel. Our conversation includes the genesis of ICSZ and its interventions into institutional norms around the study of Zionism, the creation of their No IHRA Toolkit (in response to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism), the weaponization of antisemitism through definitions and other repressive means, and examples of creative and critical pedagogies investigating Zionism in higher education classes. More about our guests:Emmaia Gelman has taught at NYU and Sarah Lawrence College. She researches the history of ideas about race, queerness, safety, and rights, and their production as political levers in the realm of hate crimes policy, surveillance, anti-terror measures, and war. Emmaia is at work on a critical history of the Anti-Defamation League (1913-1990). She is the co-chair of the American Studies Association Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, and a longtime activist in New York City on Palestine, policing, antiracism, and queer issues. Yulia Gilich is a media artist, theorist, and community organizer. They are a founding collective member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. They received their PhD in Film & Digital Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz where they are currently a lecturer teaching courses at the intersection of critical race and media studies.CREDITSCo-produced with the "Unpacking Zionism" podcast team -- thanks especially to Emmaia and Yulia for your back-end editing work!Co-hosts: Tina Pippin and Lucia HulsetherEditor and audio engineer: Aliyah HarrisSummer 2024 Intern: Ella StuccioTheme music by Lance Haugen and Aviva and the Flying PenguinsOutro music is "Unnervous" by AkrasisSupport Nothing Never Happens on Patreon!

How has the intersection between religious and racial politics shaped the landscape of public education in the United States? How have communities, both past and present, historically resisted covert and overt white Christian supremacy in public education? What lessons can radical pedagogues draw from these movements today?Our September 2024 episode features Dr. Leslie Ribovich, a scholar of American religion, religion, and education. Her book, Without a Prayer: Religion and Race in New York City Public Schools (NYU Press, 2024), is illuminating reading for anyone seeking to understand the entangled histories — and surprising consequences and reverberations — of the simultaneous legal desegregation and legal secularization of public school classrooms. From the moral codes underwriting racist school discipline policies, to presumptive Protestant norms governing moral education programs, to grassroots community movements to build more equitable and just public education systems, Without a Prayer offers key context to understanding contemporary battles over the future of public education policy. Read an excerpt here.Leslie Ribovich is currently the Director of the Greenberg Center for Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, where she is also an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Law and Public Policy. She is working on a second project about forms of moral and character education in modern U.S. history.CREDITSCo-hosts: Tina Pippin and Lucia HulsetherEditor, Audio Engineer, and composer of outro music: Aliyah HarrisSummer 2024 Intern: Ella StuccioTheme music by Lance Haugen and Aviva and the Flying PenguinsSupport us on Patreon!

Sometimes theories of critical pedagogy can be quite abstract. What does it look like to front concrete practices in our approaches to this tradition? How do those practices change in the context of community colleges? What can radical community college educators teach us about radical teaching and learning broadly?Our July 2024 episode features three community college educators who co-edited the recent edited collection Humanizing Collectivist Critical Pedagogy: Teaching the Humanities in Community College and Beyond (Peter Lang 2024). This book is a must-read for teachers curious about the practical applications of critical pedagogy for crafting syllabi, building more democratic classroom structures, creating socially engaged classrooms, and fighting for more just and equitable educational systems. Sujung Kim is an interdisciplinary scholar of critical pedagogy of higher education who is currently a research associate with the Futures Initiative and Humanities Alliance at CUNY Graduate Center. Leigh Garrison-Fetcher is a linguistics professor in the Education and Language Acquisition Department at LaGuardia Community College. Kaysi Holman is the Director of People and Culture at the California-based educational equity nonprofit 10,000 Degrees. Sujung, Leigh, and Kaysi met in the context of their shared work with the Mellon-funded CUNY Humanities Alliance—of which Kaysi was a key creator and leader—where they worked graduate teachers and faculty on creating social justice oriented classrooms.CREDITSCo-hosts: Tina Pippin and Lucia HulsetherEditor and Audio Engineer: Aliyah HarrisSummer 2024 Intern: Ella StuccioTheme music by Lance Haugen and Aviva and the Flying PenguinsOutro Music: “hemlock hed” by AkrasisSupport us on Patreon!

Feminist Theater of the Oppressed: What is it? How can its philosophies and methods transform our approaches to critical pedagogy? How does Feminist Theater of the Oppressed help us reflect on improvisation, experimentation, and power in our teaching and organizing contexts?Our June 2024 guest, Bárbara Santos, takes up these questions as a portal into discussion of how power shapes (and can be transformed in) our pedagogies. Barbára is an actress, performer, writer, and organizer. She is the artistic director and co-founder of KURINGA - Space for Theater of the Oppressed in Berlin, Germany. She is Founder of the Ma(g)dalena International Network, a collaborative of practitioners of Feminist Theater of the Oppressed based in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Bárbara's work as a director, performer, organizer, and writer has been instrumental in disseminating Theater of the Oppressed globally, and elevating feminist critiques and methods within its praxis. Her books include Roots and Wings of Theater of the Oppressed (Portuguese 2016, Spanish 2017, Italian 2018, English 2019); Aesthetic Paths: Original Approaches on Theater of the Oppressed (Portuguese, 2018; English and Spanish forthcoming); and Theater of the Oppressed: Feminist Aesthetics for Political Poetics (Portuguese, 2019; English, 2023). The tree of Theater of the Oppressed—images, movement, sounds, words, play—comes to life throughout Barbára's work and, in the process, honors women's lives through dialogue and political action.* * * * CREDITS:Co-hosts: Lucia Hulsether and Tina PippinAudio Production and Music: Aliyah HarrisIntro Music: Lance Haugen and Aviva and the Flying Penguins

What is anarchist pedagogy? What does it have to do with so-called “alternative” schools, where mainstream educational systems often send students they have expelled, suspended, or otherwise excluded? How can working at the intersection of anarchist pedagogical philosophy and marginalized educational spaces open up new layers for how we rearrange power and accountability in learning spaces? This episode—which features teacher, educational reform leader, and principal Rodney Powell—dives into all of these questions and more.The term “anarchist pedagogies” is not the first thing that comes to mind when we hear that someone is a high school principal. And yet this is exactly the combination at the center of this episode. Rodney Powell exposes preconceptions not only about this administrative role, but also about what “anarchy” can mean in theory and practice. Powell is the founder of EdArchy.org, described as “a youth development program committed to providing young people with the resources to imagine and create their own community-focused, authentic learning experiences.” He has his feet in two worlds: the traditional school where he pushes, when possible, for more democratic relations with his teaching staff through resistance and revolution (not reform), and the EdArchy program. Given the strictures of traditional educational systems, Powell has imagined this other space to subvert the dominant educational paradigms, where students can practice the student-centered and consented, co-designed, mutually-empowering, dream-incubating, and community-connected learning possibilities of education.Over his twenty-four years in education, Rodney Powell has led school systems in Baltimore, Hartford, and in his current role as a principal in Danbury Public Schools in Connecticut. A 2023-24 member of the Nelle Mae Foundation Speakers Bureau on racial equity in public education, he is also pursuing his doctorate at Northeastern University. There, as in all his other work, his research focuses on partnering with youth toward greater agency, consent, and justice in learning.

What does critical pedagogy offer when it comes to texts entangled with histories of oppression and disenfranchisement? How might we approach these texts so as to ask new questions and bring out different stories?In this episode, we discuss these questions with three scholars from the Institute for Signifying Scriptures. These scholars discuss how the normative ways of studying "sacred texts" -- from "religious" texts like the Bible to "secular" texts like the US Constitution -- as historical artifacts with defined origins tends to reproduce colonial logics and exclude the voices of those on the margins of class and social power. They also share methods for engaging sacred texts in ways that challenge those power dynamics and foster critical imagination.Dr. Vincent Wimbush is Director of the ISS and past president of of the Society for Biblical Literature. He is a prolific writer, whose works include White Men's Magic: Scripturalization as Slavery (2012) and Black Flesh Matters: Essays on Ranagate Interpretation (2022). He was on the filmmaking team that produced the award-winning documentary Finding God in the City of Angels (2021).Dr. Jacqueline Hidalgo is a Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. She is the author of Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement (2016).Dr. Richard Newton is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures (2020).The next meeting of the Institute for Sacred Scriptures will be held in Atlanta, GA, April 11-13, 2024. The theme for the 2024 Meeting is Marronage: A Special Meeting in Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the ISS and the 25th Anniversary of African Americans and the Bible.

How can we align our pedagogies with the Palestinian freedom struggle and other anti-colonial movements? How do we tune our minds and imaginations toward just futures--even and especially when facing retaliation for liberationist stances?In light of the reinvigorated global struggle for a free Palestine, and as we witness the state of Israel's ongoing genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, we are re-releasing our January 2021 interview with poet, scholar, teacher, and organizer Dina Omar. Dina, received her PhD in Anthropology from Yale University and who was one of the founders of the national network of Students for Justice in Palestine, speaks to us about the intersection of Palestine liberation and our pedagogical frameworks -- from our decisions about language and representation, to the exhaustion of social suffering paradigms, to the psychological effects of occupation and eliminatory violence. A thesis of this episode is that, whether or not our teaching is “about” Palestine, it cannot be separated from its struggle. This of course in part because of the alignment of many of our institutions of higher education with the Israeli state. But, as Dina explains, it is also because of how a colonial project mediates the language we use to think about, much less talk about, what is happening in Palestine and Israel. This means that, whether or not the history and politics of Palestine comes up explicitly in a lesson plan, the practice of learning to read and learning to identify narrative obfuscation, takes on higher stakes.A list of resources for further learning + organizing:-Palestine and Praxis Statement, referenced in the episode, written in 2021 and co-authored by Dina Omar.-The Palestinian Feminist Collective, a collective of Palestinian/Arab feminists working toward Palestinian liberation. See their site for resources + action toolkits.-Writers Against the War on Gaza, a coalition of culture workers organizing against the war and compiling resources for resistance.-The Dig, a podcast of Jacobin, has published a number of illuminating episodes on the Palestine, Zionism and anti-Zionism, and the larger contexts around the current catastrophe.-The Electronic Intifada is an independent news organization focusing primarily on Palestine.-Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr, recommended by Dina OmarShow Credits:Outro music is "Hemlock" by Akrasis. Find their amazing catalog here. Episode photo by Corleone Brown on Unsplash. Editing and audio production by Aliyah Harris. Production by Lucia Hulsether and Tina Pippin.

What does it mean to “teach in and for freedom”? What does it look like to create liberatory spaces centered around the lives and needs of faculty and students of color? How do we sustain and defend such feminist and anti-racist teaching against threats of institutional cooptation, censure, and exploitation?To ring out 2023, we welcome Professor Lorgia García-Peña to discuss these topics and so much more. Dr. García-Peña is currently a Professor of Latinx Studies at the Efron Center for the Study of America and the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. She has authored three books, all of which have won multiple awards. These include: The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction (Duke 2016), Translating Blacknesss: Latinx Colonialities in Global Perspective (Duke 2022), and Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color (Haymarket 2022). A co-founder of Freedom University and a leader of the movement to create an Ethnic Studies concentration at Harvard, Dr. García-Peña's labors to create more equitable, empowering institutional spaces for students and faculty of color is well-known. Community as Rebellion, which reflects on many of these projects, has been praised by Angela Davis as a “life-saving and life-affirming text” that charts a “fearless strategy” for “how our institutions might be reimagined beyond the strongholds of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy.” These strategies—and the stories, experiences, and analyses that have fueled them—are at the heart of our conversation in this episode.Credits:Co-hosted and co-produced by Tina Pippin + Lucia HulsetherAudio editing + outro music by Aliyah HarrisIntro music by Lance Hogan, performed by Aviva and the Flying Penguins.

Many of us think of public libraries primarily as places to read and check out books—but this is only the beginning of their role in our communities. What else do libraries do? What roles do libraries and librarians play in broader movements for social democracy and educational access? How can we collectively defend our libraries from right-wing attacks on their vital work?Our November 2023 episode features one activist librarian, Oscar Gittemeier, about his journey into library work, his vision of the social justice focus of libraries, and the challenges in these politically-polarized times. Oscar is the Program Manager of Innovation and Engagement at the City of San Diego Public Library. Before turning to his vocation of Library and Information Studies (with a certificate in Leadership and Management), his background was in Sociology and Women's Studies.Oscar brings an intersectional sensitivity to his outreach work to bring libraries to the community: for example, through surveying people in detention centers and providing them with library cards upon release, creating a fundraiser calendar in Fulton County, GA libraries (“Libraries Are Such A Drag”) for a scholarship fund, and in general rethinking the space and function of libraries to meet community needs. He takes us through complex issues of providing access to all, along with other challenges and opportunities that public libraries are facing today. Oscar sends us out with encouragement to plug into a local “Friends of the Public Library” chapter, so that we can ensure the important work libraries do to create a more just world.Credits:Co-hosted and co-produced by Tina Pippin and Lucia HulsetherAudio editing + outro music by Aliyah HarrisIntro music by Lance Hogan, performed by Aviva and the Flying Penguins

What might educators learn from practitioners of conflict mediation and transformative justice? What does it look like to enact “beloved community” in our classrooms, organizations, and movements? What should teachers and learners do to better align our ideals of justice and equity with our day-to-day practices?Peace educator and nonviolence practitioner Kazu Haga joins us to reflect on these questions and more. The author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm (2020), Kazu has spent 20+ training communities in practices of conflict reconciliation, harm reduction, and nonviolent action. As the founder of the East Point Peace Academy, and now as a core member of the Ahimsa Collective and the Embodiment Project, he has taught restorative practices to high schools and youth groups, prisons and jails, and numerous activist and social movement organizations around the world. He is the recipient of several awards, including a Martin Luther King, Jr. Award from the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Gil Lopez Award for Peacemaking. His next book, Fierce Vulnerability: Direct Action that Heals and Transforms, will be published in August 2024.Credits:Co-hosted and co-produced by Tina Pippin and Lucia HulsetherAudio editor: Aliyah HarrisIntro music by Lance Hogan, performed by Aviva and the Flying PenguinsOutro music by Akrasis

What does transformative justice look like in practice? What does it mean to teach transformative justice, so that we destroy the cops in our heads and hearts, and begin to build something new? In this episode, Mia Mingus -- visionary movement builder, transformative justice organizer, and human rights + disability justice educator -- dives into these questions and more. We discuss the educational experiences that inspired Mia to her current work, Transformative Justice (TJ) frameworks for community accountability and creative intervention, pedagogies of workshopping, and Pod Mapping as a tool for organizing and movement building. More about our guest:Mia Mingus is a co-founder of the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: Building Transformative Justice Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (BATJC) and the founder and leader of SOIL: A Transformative Justice Project. Mia inspires us to consider words like dignity, love, compassion, care, and justice in ways that address harm and violence and also bring concrete repair and change. For Mia, the opening question of transformative justice is: “What are the conditions that allowed for that violence or that harm to be able to take place in the first place?” The focus is on dismantling oppressive systems and building new, liberatory structures. This justice work is done in intersectional and interdependent community. “Magnificence comes out of our struggle,” she writes. We think that Mia and the worlds she is building are magnificent, and we encourage you to check out her many published writings, many of which are collected on her blog Leaving Evidence.Credits:Co-hosted and co-produced by Tina Pippin and Lucia HulsetherAudio editor: Aliyah HarrisIntro music by Lance Hogan, performed by Aviva and the Flying PenguinsOutro music by Akrasis

What is the role of education within radical and revolutionary movements? Is the classroom a political space? How do traditions of Marxian thought and pedagogy frame those questions? In this episode, Derek R. Ford offers a crash orientation to the terrain of Marxist educational theory and practice, with a focus on its dynamic expressions in resistance movements, organizing campaigns, and more formal schooling contexts. Topics include Marxian traditions of education, dialogical pedagogy, practices of interpretation in a so-called "post-truth" era, and cultivating learning spaces where all people can experience the freedom and invitation to learn, question, explore, and build new ways of living and being.Derek Ford is an organizer, author, and teacher with deep ties to Left movement spaces. Currently an Assistant Professor of Education Studies at DePauw University, their books include Teaching the Actuality of Revolution: Aesthetics, Pedagogy, and the Sensations of Struggle (2023), Communist Study: Education for the Commons (2022), Encountering Education: Elements for a Marxist Pedagogy (2022), Inhuman Educations: Jean-Francois Lyotard, Pedagogy, Thought (2021), and many edited books and articles on eco and urban pedagogies and politics. They are also an editor at Liberation School where they help to create the Reading Capital with Comrades podcast series. Credits: Outro Music by Akrasis (Max Bowen, raps; Mark McKee, beats); audio editing by Aliyah Harris; production by Lucia Hulsether + Tina Pippin.Support us on Patreon!

Is universal design even possible? What does harm reduction look like in a classroom or on a syllabus? What role have university centers for teaching and learning played in supporting radical pedagogy--and when and where have they interrupted projects of liberation? We address these questions in the second part of our series with Sarah Silverman. Sarah E. Silverman, feminist instructional designer and disability studies scholar, breaks down these questions and their reverberant implications. Dr. Silverman is a leading voice in the multi-front movement to resist remote proctoring and educational surveillance technologies, as well as to promote authentic assessment and universal design for learning (UDL). A generous critic and prolific writer—especially on her extraordinarily useful blog—Dr. Silverman was until very recently based at the Hub for Teaching and Learning Resources at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Currently, she is working as an independent scholar and lecturer. She holds a PhD in Entomology and Demography from the University of California, Davis.This is the second part of a two-part series:Part 1 maps the terrain of academic surveillance tech and introduces universal design as a specifically feminist approach to pedagogy, with concrete examples from Sarah's own practice.Part 2 digs deeper into these issues, as we discuss principles of the “non-abusive syllabus," classroom practices of harm reduction, and the ambivalent institutional role of university centers for teaching and learning.Credits: Outro Music by Akrasis (Max Bowen, raps; Mark McKee, beats); audio editing by Aliyah Harris; production by Lucia Hulsether + Tina Pippin.Support us on Patreon!

How can we prioritize multiplicity and accessibility when designing learning activities? What does an “inclusive” pedagogy entail? Can design ever be universal? And how can teachers and learners make the most of digital tools while also resisting the creep of academic surveillance technologies into our classrooms, homes, and bodies?Sarah E. Silverman, feminist instructional designer and disability studies scholar, breaks down these questions and their reverberant implications. Dr. Silverman is a leading voice in the multi-front movement to resist remote proctoring and educational surveillance technologies, as well as to promote authentic assessment and universal design for learning (UDL). A generous critic and prolific writer—especially on her extraordinarily useful blog—Dr. Silverman is currently based at the Hub for Teaching and Learning Resources at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. She holds a PhD in Entomology and Demography from the University of California, Davis.Our conversation is divided into two parts. Part 1 maps the terrain of academic surveillance tech and introduces universal design as a specifically feminist approach to pedagogy, with concrete examples from Sarah's own practice.Part 2 (coming soon!) digs deeper into these issues, as we discuss principles of the “non-abusive syllabus," classroom practices of harm reduction, and the ambivalent institutional role of university centers for teaching and learning.Credits: Outro Music by Akrasis (Max Bowen, raps; Mark McKee, beats); audio editing by Aliyah Harris; production by Lucia Hulsether + Tina Pippin.Support us on Patreon!

What becomes possible when we anchor our pedagogical praxes in frameworks of reproductive justice and intersectional feminist care? What coalitions grow? What visions are revealed, and what worlds become more possible?Teacher, organizer, storyteller, and freedom-fighter Loretta Ross shares her wisdom on these questions and so much more. From judicial attacks on reproductive autonomy, to politicized teaching in a democratic classroom, to the history of Black women's organizing, to creative and effective protest tactics, to the "rotating international favorites" served at the West Point Military Academy dinner club.Loretta Ross is a movement visionary recently recognized as a Class of 2022 MacArthur Genius Fellow. After working at the Center for Democratic Renewal in Atlanta, she went on to found and then become the National Coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. She has taught very widely, in and out of the university, as Founder of the National Center for Human Rights Education, as Program Director of the National Black Women's Health Project, and now as the Associate Professor in the Program on Women and Gender at Smith College.She is a prolific author, whose authored and co-authored works include Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (2017), Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique (2017), and Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice (2004). Her forthcoming book, Calling In the Calling Out Culture, will be out in 2023.Credits: Outro Music by Akrasis (Max Bowen, raps; Mark McKee, beats); audio editing by Aliyah Harris; production by Lucia Hulsether and Tina Pippin.Support us on Patreon!

How can we ground our classrooms in praxes of environmental justice? How can teachers and learners build ethical connections to local communities mobilizing against climate emergency and structural abandonment? Scholar-activist https://ams.ua.edu/people/ellen-spears/ (Ellen Spears) joins us to discuss these questions and more. Prof. Spears is a Professor of American Studies at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. She is a prolific author, whose most recent books include the award-winning https://uncpress.org/book/9781469627298/baptized-in-pcbs/ (Baptized in PCBs: Race, Religion, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town) (2014) and https://www.routledge.com/Rethinking-the-American-Environmental-Movement-post-1945/Spears/p/book/9780415529587 (Rethinking the American Environmental Movement Post-1945) (2019). She was part of the Task Force on History, Slavery, and Civil Rights at the UA-Tuscaloosa. Her courses range from comparative ecologies, to environmental ethics and policy, to environment and film. Co-Hosts: Lucia Hulsether and Tina Pippin Music by https://akrasis.bandcamp.com/album/children-singing-in-hell (Akrasis) Image by https://unsplash.com/@djbullet (LL Sammons) via Unsplash

As calls to decolonize education multiply across contexts and institutions, we must push this issue beyond optics and return to the question: what does commitment to decolonization demand? What risks and struggles? What experiments and solidarities? https://www.education.pitt.edu/people/lpatel (Leigh Patel) guides us as we embark on a deep dive into these urgent questions as they ramify across scales. Refusing to partition study from struggle, Patel exposes the settler colonial processes that continue to shape higher education, even as she lifts up radical projects of education otherwise. Leigh Patel is Professor of Educational Foundations, Organizations, and Policy in the University of Pittsburgh School of Education. Her most recent book is http://www.beacon.org/No-Study-Without-Struggle-P1632.aspx (No Study without Struggle: Confronting Settler Colonialism in Higher Education).

Amid the newest wave of attacks on public education and inclusive learning, there are stories of hope and resistance. In this episode we talk with a high school social studies teacher at the front of the fight for antiracist, liberatory K-12 classrooms. Anthony Downer teaches Africana Studies, social studies, and civics at Frederick Douglass High School in the Atlanta Public School system. We talk to Anthony about how he and his students are working together to create a trauma-informed, healing-centric classroom. More about our guest: Anthony attended public schools in Gwinett County, Georgia, attained an undergraduate degree in Political Science at the University of Chicago, followed by a masters in teaching social studies education at Georgia State University, and then he returned to teach in Gwinett before moving to Fredrick Douglass High School. On this journey Anthony came to connect with his students and teacher colleagues and parents, and to organize for a more liberating, teacher and student controlled educational model. Anthony is a co-founder and vice president of Georgia Educators for Equity and Justice, the founder and lead learner in his Liberation Learning Lab, and the host of his podcast “Wat Dat Wednesday: Conversations on Education and Liberation” on Educational Entities (on Youtube and Instagram Live: @thenawfstar). On this podcast Anthony shares his abolitionist toolkit, his political organizing work, what and who inspires him, where he and his scholars find joy, and his freedom dreams.

The common workplace issues of low pay, toxic environment, understaffing, corporate greed, wage theft, union busting, and high turnover also exist in institutions of higher education. Undergraduate students typically earn low wages at campus jobs. In this podcast we explore the concept that students are workers, due just wages and benefits and voice. Beginning in 2016, undergraduate students at Grinnell College in Iowa have worked to form the first union of undergraduate student workers, the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW). Union leaders, senior Keir Hichens and sophomore Malcolm Galpern Levin, are with us to give us the history of the movement, along with details of their organizing strategies. The union's description is as “the only independent undergraduate labor union in the country, UGSDW fights for fair pay and benefits for workers at UGSDW.” Keir and Malcolm describe the context, the organizing process, the setbacks, the networks and coalitions, the victories, and the future expansion of the union. Students at Grinnell are discovering what collective power can do. As they work for transparency and accountability from their supervisors and the administration, they also address issues of food insecurity on campus. Keir and Malcolm provide insights on the value of undergraduate labor organizing to their own lives, to campus culture, and to the labor movement broadly.

What happens to grassroots movements when they get access to normative power? How does one resist capture? What traditions, theories, and cautionary tales should we reference? Critic Roderick Ferguson joins us to discuss these themes, and much more, in our May 2022 episode. This episode is for all who know that tough moral or political bind: between intellection and administration; between creative risk and bureaucratic necessity; between holding a radical critique of power and resisting cooptation in everyday life.

Get ready for a master class in Theater of the Oppressed! This month we welcome playwright, director, and author https://cardboardcitizens.org.uk/our-news/article/adrian-jackson-to-step-down-as-artistic-director/ (Adrian Jackson). Adrian is best known his role as the founder and longtime artistic director London-based theater and arts company https://cardboardcitizens.org.uk/who-we-are/manifesto/ (Cardboard Citizens), which is dedicated to working with and for people who have experienced homelessness and poverty. Come for the raucous theater games, stay for the organic wisdom and transformative potential that they unlock. Co-hosts: Tina Pippin and Lucia Hulsether Outro music by https://akrasis.bandcamp.com/ (Akrasis) (Max Bowen raps; Mark McKee beats)

How should we collectively defend classrooms from the neoliberal assault on democratic praxis and critical pedagogies? What histories, traditions, and alliances should shape our tactics? Renowned critical pedagogue and prolific theorist https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/ira-shor (Ira Shor), Professor Emeritus at CUNY Graduate Center, joins us to discuss these questions--and to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Nothing Never Happens. Ira Shor has produced several foundational works in the practice of critical pedagogy. Some of his books include Culture Wars, Critical Education and Everyday Life, Empowering Education, When Students Have Power, and, with Paulo Freire, A Pedagogy for Liberation. Ira has supported this podcast since he agreed to be our first-ever guest back in March 2017. Music by Aviva and the Flying Penguins, Paul Myhrie, Aliyah Harris, and Akrasis (aka Mark McKee + Max Bowen). Logo design by Emily Vinick. Co-hosted and co-produced by Tina Pippin and Lucia Hulsether.

What does it look like for pedagogy to begin with the stories, hopes, and critiques that are already present in the classroom? How has this approach to education been practiced in movements for social transformation? What are its demands on teachers and learners? In our January 2022 episode, teacher and author Stephen Preskill joins us to talk these questions and much more. Topics include balancing discrete political paradigms with democratic methods, the difference between integrative democratic practices and one-off pedagogical "tricks," and Preskill's new book Teaching in Black and White: Myles Horton and the Highlander Center's Vision for Social Justice. Support this podcast

What are the implicit "agreements" structuring our teaching and learning practices? How might we create new agreements for educational justice and collective healing? Professor Emerita Laura Rendón talks college access, contemplative teaching, and practices for survival and connection in our December 2021 episode. Music credit: "Water's Edge" by Aliyah Harris Photo credit: @jrkorpa at Unsplash Support this podcast

How is public higher education implicated with settler colonial dispossession and genocide? What are methods to visualize, teach, and encourage continual investigation and intervention into these continually unfolding histories? Project team leaders behind Pulitzer Prize-winning https://www.landgrabu.org/ (Land Grab University) research project and database join us to talk these questions and more in our November 2021 episode of Nothing Never Happens. Speakers: Tristan Ahtone (Kiowa), Margaret Pearce (Citizen Potowatomi), Bobby Lee. Hosts: Tina Pippin and Lucia Hulsether Support this podcast

How can we align our pedagogies with the Palestinian freedom struggle and other movements for indigenous liberation? Scholar, teacher, and poet Dina Omar joins us to follow this question into the many others it opens up -- from decisions about language and representation, to the exhaustion of social suffering paradigms, to the psychological effects of occupation and eliminatory violence. We urge listeners to read and adopt the commitments outlined in the open letter "Palestine and Praxis," which our guest co-authored and which is linked below. Open letter: https://palestineandpraxis.weebly.com/ (https://palestineandpraxis.weebly.com/) Outro music is "Hemlock" by Akrasis. Find their amazing catalog https://akrasis.bandcamp.com/album/unemployed-apologist (here). Episode photo by https://unsplash.com/@wugod1852?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText (Corleone Brown) on Unsplash. Support this podcast

When does a university cease to serve a public good? What would it look like for universities to work toward justice and solidarity with the cities they call home? In the second episode of this two-part series, historian and critic Davarian Baldwin gives us more tools for understanding the dynamics of race and capital structuring urban higher education in the United States--from campus police forces, to university medical complexes, to the low-wage labor on which they depend. We then turn to the community movements and pedagogical interventions that are envisioning, and enacting, alternative visions of city learning and urban life. Support this podcast

What do you get when you cross a school, a real estate tycoon, a hedge fund, a regional medical complex, a massive transit system, a private police force, a low-wage employer, and tax-exemption? Answer: an urban university. In this two-part series, accomplished historian and cultural critic Davarian Baldwin breaks down the relations of pillage, dispossession, and private profit that are increasingly prominent in the U.S. higher education landscape. Support this podcast

What do we need to learn to save the planet? Tina and Lucia discuss climate crisis, ecopedagogy, and liberatory teaching about environmental justice with critical pedagogue Greg Misiaszek. Support this podcast

What happens when Theater of the Oppressed meets the prison industrial complex? Wende Ballew, Executive Director of Reforming Arts, shares their work to bring arts-centered liberal education to women who must make their lives in and through contexts of state carceral control. We discuss how Wende came to this work, institutional tightropes they walk, and what intentional space for creativity and critique can make possible (hint: a lot, but this isn't an it-gets-better story).

This month's episode features two accomplished leaders in the movement to decolonize higher education. Graduates Leah Trotman and Catherine Morkel share their work to establish a more anti-racist, decolonial liberal arts curriculum at Agnes Scott College,. We analyze institutional responses to student leaders who demand that institutions make good on their surface commitments to diversity, … Continue reading "No Tokens: Students Decolonizing the Curriculum" The post No Tokens: Students Decolonizing the Curriculum appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

Our April 2021 guest is Jodi Melamed, Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies at Marquette University. We spill tea on gestures of liberation that are not liberative, institutional multiculturalisms, and practices of anti-racist pedagogy. About our guest: Jodi Melamed is Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies at Marquette University. Her first book Represent … Continue reading "Ordinary Violence: Higher Ed’s Racial Capitalism" The post Ordinary Violence: Higher Ed’s Racial Capitalism appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

This month we welcome Prof. Felicia Rose Chavez, award-winning educator and author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom. We dig into the history of writing programs, a vision of decolonized writing classrooms, intersections of activism and teaching, specific pedagogical strategies, and more. About Our Guest Felicia Rose Chavez has an … Continue reading "Product to Process: The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop" The post Product to Process: The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

Our February 2021 episode features Theresa Ronquillio and Tikka Sears, who joined us for a conversation about using Theater of the Oppressed across pedagogical medium. They offer insights on fostering embodied practice, social change, and community building in virtual spaces. Through these theater pedagogies, Tikka and Theresa welcome participants to bring their whole selves into … Continue reading "Acting Out: Embodied Pedagogy, Online and Off" The post Acting Out: Embodied Pedagogy, Online and Off appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

We are ringing in 2021 in style with a podcast featuring Eleni Schirmer, a scholar of labor, social movements, and the political economy of education.  We talk about the debt crisis in higher education as it affects not only students but institutions; the history of teacher unions; how to bring democratic practices from the street … Continue reading "Flipping the Covenant: Debt, Labor, Public Education" The post Flipping the Covenant: Debt, Labor, Public Education appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

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Dr. Bali is the author of many articles and blogs that push the boundaries of pedagogical theory and praxis, and in particular online teaching and learning. She is an editor at Hybrid Pedagogy and editorial board member of Teaching in Higher Education, Online Learning Journal, Learning, Media and Technology, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher … Continue reading "Nurturing Student Agency: A Conversation with Maha Bali" The post Nurturing Student Agency: A Conversation with Maha Bali appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

Our November 2020 podcast features Dr. Jan Willis, acclaimed teacher of religion and author of the lauded memoir Dreaming Me: An African American Buddhist Journey. We talk to her about how engaged Buddhism shapes her pedagogy, the models of teaching that have influenced her, what transformative responses to racist violence look like, and much more. … Continue reading "Learning Should Be Sweet: Jan Willis on Engaged Buddhist Pedagogy" The post Learning Should Be Sweet: Jan Willis on Engaged Buddhist Pedagogy appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

Our October 2020 podcast features fearless and visionary co-directors of Project South, Emery Wright and Steph Guillod. Founded in 1986 as the Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide and based in Atlanta, GA, Project South is firmly rooted in the dynamism and creativity of the Black freedom tradition. It is a center for … Continue reading "Never Alone: Building Movements with Project South" The post Never Alone: Building Movements with Project South appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

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Our September podcast features Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris, whose voices in the field of hybrid and digital pedagogy have been beyond clutch for many of us thrown into this field by the pandemic context. In Act 1, we talk to Jesse and Sean about how they came to the work of critical pedagogy, … Continue reading "No Tricks: Critical Pedagogy for Hybrid Teaching" The post No Tricks: Critical Pedagogy for Hybrid Teaching appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

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Our July 2020 features the UC Santa Cruz wildcat strikers, who are fighting for a cost of living adjustment (#COLA), and for higher education that is premised not on wealth-hoarding and austerity, but on critical praxis toward transformative justice. The post #COLA Now: A Conversation with UCSC Wildcat Strikers appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

We delve deeper into the status of critical pedagogy in hybrid and online teaching. The transition to remote modalities raises many issues: surveillance of students and teachers, the reproduction of capital for private tech corporations, issues of course adaptation, and the accessibility of online formats. What does a concept like “radical hope” actually mean in … Continue reading "Stories for Better Futures: A Conversation with Kevin Gannon, Act 2" The post Stories for Better Futures: A Conversation with Kevin Gannon, Act 2 appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

Tina and Lucia talk to Kevin Gannon in June 2020, on the heels of a spring term in which we saw a mass pandemic-fueled shift to online teaching. Kevin describes the experiences and histories that led him to the field of critical pedagogy and introduces his hot-off-the-press book Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. He talks us … Continue reading "Hope in Pandemic Times: A Conversation with Kevin Gannon, Act 1" The post Hope in Pandemic Times: A Conversation with Kevin Gannon, Act 1 appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

For our April podcast, Lucia and Tina interview Wayne Yang of UC San Diego. Prof. Yang writes in A Third University is Possible, “To be very clear, I am not advocating for rescuing the university from its own neoliberal desires but rather for assembling decolonizing machines, to plug the university into decolonizing assemblages.” In Act 1, we … Continue reading "Of Decolonization and Its Metaphors: A Conversation with K. Wayne Yang, Act 1" The post Of Decolonization and Its Metaphors: A Conversation with K. Wayne Yang, Act 1 appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

The University of California San Diego is on Kumeyaay land. The chancellor’s house is on an indigenous burial ground. How do universities move beyond guilt and toward a rematriation of the land? How do we teach, and train teachers, in these places with such violent history? How do we live and teach sustainably on this … Continue reading "A Third University Is Always Happening: A Conversation with K. Wayne Yang, Pt. 2" The post A Third University Is Always Happening: A Conversation with K. Wayne Yang, Pt. 2 appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

Prof. Shirley Steinberg speaks with us amid a global pandemic. For some of us, this pandemic has exposed what we already new about neoliberal higher education: the proliferation of the banking model of education, top-down power relations, undemocratic classrooms and departments, etc. In her work in critical pedagogy, Steinberg has long been challenging and resisting the … Continue reading "Teaching as Bricolage: A Conversation with Shirley Steinberg, Pt. 1" The post Teaching as Bricolage: A Conversation with Shirley Steinberg, Pt. 1 appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.

In Act 2 of our April podcast, Shirley Steinberg talks further about the Freirean foundations of her education theory and practice. She calls on teachers and students to live out righteous indignation in our educational systems and how to create resistance and change. “We have to be in stealth,” says Steinberg, and shed light on how … Continue reading "Righteous Indignation for Change: A Conversation with Shirley Steinberg, Part 2" The post Righteous Indignation for Change: A Conversation with Shirley Steinberg, Part 2 appeared first on Nothing Never Happens.