Podcasts about cultural politics

The thwarted Central American revolutions during the latter half of the twentieth century marked a watershed in what had become a global anti-imperialist movement striving for a more egalitarian future. Examining a range of documentary, literary, and artistic works, including Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Héctor Tobar, Jennifer Harbury, and Horacio Castellanos Moya, States of Defeat looks at how left-wing intellectuals in the United States reckoned with the fallout from these defeats through wide-ranging creative expressions of indignation, cynicism, and grief. Here, author Eric A. Vázquez is joined in conversation with Maritza E. Cardenas and Jason Ruiz.Eric A. Vázquez is assistant professor in American studies and Latina/o/x studies at the University of Iowa and author of States of Defeat: US Imaginaries of Revolutionary Central America.Jason Ruiz is director of institute for latino studies and professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire and Narcomedia: Latinidad, Popular Culture, and America's War on Drugs. Maritza E. Cardenas is director of global studies and associate professor of English at the University of Arizona. She is author of Constituting Central American-Americans: Transnational Identities and the Politics of Dislocation.EPISODE REFERENCES:Blood on the Border / Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizEmpire's Workshop / Greg GrandinThe Ruse of Repair / Patricia StuelkeLas Sandinistas! / filmJesse AlemánJennifer HarburyJean DonovanRigoberta MenchúThe Tattooed Soldier / Héctor TobarHoracio Castellanos MoyaDavid StollMaría Josefina Saldaña-PortilloDon White Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador archive at California State University NorthridgePRAISE FOR THE BOOK:"Insightful and brilliant, States of Defeat uses the defeat of the Central American revolutionaries by US–backed, brutal right-wing militaries to analyze the meaning of revolutionary failure for the United States."—María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, author of Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the United States "Eric A. Vázquez asks hard questions about what is at stake, who benefits, and what matters in the making of alliances across borders. Every chapter is rich with a nuanced account of anti-imperialist creativity and commitment."—Melani McAlister, author of Promises, Then the Storm: Notes on Memory, Protest, and the Israel–Gaza WarThe book States of Defeat: US Imaginaries of Revolutionary Central America by Eric A. Vázquez is available from University of Minnesota Press. Thank you for listening.

Ralph welcomes back Adolph Reed, Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Mount Holyoke College to discuss the latest Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. Then, Ralph and our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, talk about what ordinary citizens can do to pressure their reps to impeach Donald Trump.Adolph Reed is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Mount Holyoke College. His most recent books are The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives, No Politics but Class Politics (co-authored with Walter Benn Michaels), and Black Studies, Cultural Politics, and the Evasion of Inequality: The Farce this Time (co-authored with Kenneth W. Warren).I think the issues are a lot more complex than they seem to be or than seems to be the way that they are represented in the debate [over the Voting Rights Act]…To cut straight to the political case, I think there's a distinction between the Act's guarantee that black citizens and others (where pertinent) who live in areas where there's been a history of suppression of the right to vote have the support of the federal government to make certain that Black voters have the ability to vote for and to elect candidates of their choosing. Which is not the same thing as a right of Black individuals to be elected to office. And I think that's one of the confusions that characterizes, frankly, both sides of the debate at this point. And I think that's definitely something that needs to be clarified.Adolph ReedSome of my friends and I have been talking about this, and have been bouncing this idea back and forth since, frankly, even before the court handed down the [Louisiana v Callais] decision. In thinking about developments in black politics across the board, the idea that all that Black voters are supposed to get out of politics is the representation of people who look like them and share in the same racial identification has also fueled backward turns. Like how all of a sudden the biggest issue in Black American politics supposedly had become the racial wealth gap, which boils down to a complaint that rich Black people aren't as rich as rich white people are. So, yeah, shaking up or reshuffling the deck for how we might begin to try to determine the stakes of Black Americans' engagement in national politics is something that needs to happen. No matter what brings it about.Adolph ReedBruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.My website is www.lawofficesofbrucefein.com and my email address is Bruce@feinpoints.com. And I'll respond and give you guidance as to how you can help be part of this effort to impeach and remove by far the most dangerous President in the history of the United States. And he's most dangerous to the world as well.Bruce FeinNews 5/8/26* Our top story this week comes to us from the Bulwark, which reports that dissatisfaction with Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin is reaching a fever pitch. Martin has faced criticism over the course of his tenure for reneging on his promise to release an autopsy on the 2024 presidential campaign and for his decidedly lackluster fundraising efforts. The DNC has reportedly “spent more money than it has raised” and “has more debt than cash on hand,” while the Republican National Committee enjoys a “roughly seven-to-one money advantage.” According to this report, high-level DNC members are now privately discussing ousting Martin, only tabling these discussions “after members failed to identify an alternative candidate willing to step into the role.” Martin's failures have even led Democrats to openly wonder “whether the 178-year-old committee should even exist anymore.” Martin was elected DNC Chair last year, beating out Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler, who helped rebuild the party and raise tremendous amounts of money in that critical swing state.* Speaking of money in politics, this week POLITICO released a damning report on End Citizens United, the good-government focused 501(c)(4) that has in past years been a “fundraising behemoth” but has now faded nearly into complete irrelevancy. The issues highlighted in this piece will be familiar to many who have worked in this world. Despite raising $14.8 million, the group's PAC arm is burning through the money more quickly than it can raise it, having just $324,000 on hand at the end of March. What are they spending the money on? According to POLITICO, about $650,000 has gone to candidates and party groups and about the same amount has been bundled. Meanwhile, payments to fundraising firms have eaten up an astonishing $5.3 million. This is just another case of Democratic Party aligned consulting firms run amok and growing fat off of small dollar donations.* Another disappointing story comes to us from the Teamsters. According to Bloomberg, the union has forfeited a hard-won union foothold – the first ever unionized Chipotle – following three years of battling the company and failing to secure a contract. A Teamsters local president said in an email to the National Labor Relations Board that the union “officially withdraws and disclaims interest” at the Lansing, Michigan location. Legally speaking, this means the company will no longer be “required to recognize or negotiate with the union.” The employees of this location voted to unionize in 2022 by a margin of 11-to-3. Chipotle corporate has been decried for seeking to bust this union, with Biden NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo accusing them of employing illegal anti-union tactics like “withholding raises from the store's staff and telling workers that the union was keeping their pay frozen…[and punishing] a pro-union employee to discourage activism.” However, it was the Teamsters themselves who ultimately gave up, paving the way for the demise of the workers' heroic stand against corporate power. As the saying goes, with friends like these.* In more positive political news, during the Washington DC mayoral debate last week, the Washington Post reports democratic socialist mayoral hopeful Janeese Lewis George seemed to endorse the idea of opening municipal grocery stores in DC food deserts, including the impoverished and majority Black Wards 7 and 8. Asked about this topic, Councilmember Lewis George committed to bringing at least one more grocery store to Ward 7 and at least two more to Ward 8, noting that she would seek to shore up investor confidence with public dollars. If private options do not materialize however, she vowed that “we will work towards” a publicly-owned store. Municipally-owned grocery stores were a much publicized part of the Zohran Mamdani campaign platform and, if Lewis George is elected, his success or failure in carrying out that pledge is sure to impact her decision making on this issue.* Meanwhile, in media news, the New York Times reports Lupa Systems – the private holding company representing the interests of James Murdoch, son of conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch – is “in talks to acquire major parts of Vox Media.” Vox, founded in the 2010s by journalists Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell, now owns major media properties including New York magazine, the Verge, Eater and a podcast network featuring Kara Swisher and others. Murdoch, through Lupa, owns a “majority stake in Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival.” Additionally, the Times notes that Quadrivium, the foundation founded by Mr. Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, has financial interests in “The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom focused on gender and politics, and The Bulwark, a so-called ‘Never Trump' digital media company.” James Murdoch, along with his sister Elisabeth, are seen as far more liberal than the Murdoch patriarch and his other son, Lachlan, who together successfully ousted the other family members from control of the family trust in a recent legal battle.* Turning to international news, yet another deadlocked presidential election in Peru is looming. A new Ipsos poll, taken near the end of April, shows an exact 50-50 split between the two candidates in the runoff: the left-wing member of Congress Roberto Sánchez and Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori. This election was always going to be close – Peruvian politics have been deadlocked for years, resulting in ultra-narrow presidential victories frequently followed by impeachments. Fujimori has been a runoff candidate in every presidential election going back to 2011, losing each by extremely narrow margins. Most recently, she lost to Pedro Castillo by a margin of 50.13% to 49.87% in 2021. Castillo however was thwarted by, and ultimately ousted by, the Congress. The runoff will be held on June 7th.* In India, the Left suffered catastrophic defeats in this week's state elections, Al Jazeera reports. The state of Kerala – “the first in the world to have a democratically elected communist government” and “the last state in India where communists were in power” – will now be led by the United Democratic Front, a coalition headed by the Congress party, which won over 100 out of 140 seats. The Left bloc will likely capture around 35 seats. Beyond Kerala however, the Left has seen setbacks throughout the country, with no state now being ruled by the Left for the first time since 1977 and the national parliamentary Left bloc declining from 62 in the 2004 election to just eight seats today. Different factors are cited for the general decline of the Left in India, including an inability to adapt Marxist analysis to non class-related issues in the country, such as caste and gender, as well as the decline of industrial trade unions and a general trend towards Right-wing Hindu nationalism. Hopefully, the Left will take this electoral rout as an opportunity to rebuild itself into a viable force for 21st century Indian politics.* Turning to East Asia, the Financial Times reports North Korea has subtly revised its constitution to drop references to reunification of the two Koreas. Specifically, the new text reads “the territory of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea includes the territory bordering the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation to the north and the Republic of Korea to the south, and the territorial sea and airspace established on it”. In acknowledging the existence of the Republic of Korea, more commonly known as South Korea, experts see a move away from the long-held North Korean contention that the peninsula is a single country illegally partitioned. The revision was “disclosed by an academic at a press conference hosted by the South Korean Ministry of Unification on Wednesday.” Though this article notes that “North Korea has not made any comment on the revised constitution and the source of the text revealed by the unification ministry was not disclosed,” it highlights that Kim Jong-un has increasingly moved in this direction in recent years, renaming Tongil (“reunification”) metro station in Pyongyang and dismantling an Arch of Reunification monument.* Our last two stories have to do with the People's Republic of China. First, Reuters reports China's Commerce Ministry has issued an injunction to “block U.S. ​sanctions imposed on five Chinese refiners accused ‌of buying Iranian oil.” Hengli Petrochemical, one of the five small “teapot” refineries primarily located in China's Shandong province, was slapped with sanctions last month, when the Trump administration accused the company of purchasing billions ​of dollars in Iranian oil. The other four have been sanctioned since last year. However, the Ministry now argues that the sanctions violate “international law and ‌the ⁠basic norms of international relations,” and with the injunction in place, “the United States cannot recognize, ​implement, or comply ​with the ⁠sanctions imposed on the aforementioned five Chinese companies.” This is perhaps the most significant challenge to the American-led international sanctions regime in decades and whatever reaction issues from the U.S. will surely inform other states on just how far they can go in flouting such sanctions.* Finally, in a stunning legal decision, Fortune reports Chinese courts have ruled that “companies cannot terminate employees just to replace them with artificial intelligence systems.” The case in question hinged on whether a tech firm in eastern China had acted illegally when firing one of its workers, a “quality assurance professional…identified only as Zhou” after he “refused to take a demotion” and a 40% pay cut, when his job was automated by AI. The court found that the termination did not meet established standards, such as business downsizing or operational difficulties, and the court separately stated that “Companies cannot unilaterally lay off employees or cut salaries due to technological progress.” This stunning legal victory for workers in the face of challenges by technology is bittersweet – heartening in that it's happening at all, yet at the same time depressing because it is almost impossible to imagine an equivalent worker protection regime being implemented in the United States.This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven't Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

The history of technology is often told as a history of progress. Thomas Dekeyser turns this story on its head, leading a journey to the critical junctures where people have rejected and tried to undo, rather than adopt, new technologies. In Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine, Dekeyser challenges readers to rethink the terms of our technological present and future. Here, Dekeyser is joined in conversation with Brian Merchant and Sarah Sharma.Thomas Dekeyser is a filmmaker and lecturer in human geography at the University of Southampton and author of Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine.Sarah Sharma is acting Vice Dean, Research and Program Innovation at the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, where she is also professor of media theory at the ICCIT/Faculty of Information and director of the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology. Sharma is author of Insufferable Tools: Feminism Against Big Tech and In the Meantime: Temporality and Cultural Politics.Brian Merchant is author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech and The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. He is a reporter in residence at the AI Now Institute, former technology columnist at the Los Angeles Times, co-founder and editor of Vice's speculative fiction outlet TERRAFORM, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, and Fast Company.EPISODE REFERENCES:Donna Haraway's “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985 essay)Film: Machines in FlamesTechno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine by Thomas Dekeyser is available from University of Minnesota Press. Thank you for listening.

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we examine the enduring legacy of austerity – a policy that officially ran from 2010 to 2024, but whose cultural and political effects are still very much with us.The Labour government has made token gestures toward rolling back austerity – ending the two‑child benefit cap, for example – but the structural damage done to British society is likely unfixable without something approaching wartime levels of economic mobilisation. The real story, however, is not just about cuts. It is about how austerity was sold to the public.Drawing on Liam Stanley's *Britain Alone*, I explore how thrift became a nationalist virtue. The "keep calm and carry on" aesthetic, wartime nostalgia, and television shows like *Super Scrimper* turned prudent consumption into a marker of belonging. Those who made the "right" choices – growing vegetables, knitting, reusing leftovers – were celebrated as proper Britons. Those who didn't – often the working poor – were stigmatised as feckless, their poverty framed as a moral failing rather than a structural one.The two‑child benefit cap was never about economics. It was a weapon of class prejudice, designed to punish poor families for having "too many" children. And it worked – not because it saved money, but because it appealed to middle‑class anxieties about who deserves support.Austerity may be officially over, but its ideology of moralised consumption lives on.Topics covered:- The persistence of austerity after 2024- The two‑child benefit cap and class prejudice- Liam Stanley's *Britain Alone*- Wartime nostalgia and "austerity chic"- The "keep calm" phenomenon- TV thrift programmes and the moralisation of consumption- How consumer choices became markers of national identityExplaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Modern Egyptian art was not simply an institutional byproduct of the 20th century, but rather a profound ontological shift in how the nature of the art object was fundamentally understood. Moving beyond traditional nationalist timelines, this transformation was deeply intertwined with the physical dismantling of historic Cairo, where stripped architectural fragments were repurposed into autonomous art objects for a new elite. Today, reclaiming these narratives serves as an urgent resistance against the regional erasure and invisibility often felt in the global cultural landscape.   00:00 Introduction: Defining the Autonomous Art Object 02:28 Challenging the "East Meets West" Trope 05:28 The Ontological Shift 10:20 The Nahda Influence 13:31 Memories of Gaza and the Weight of Regional Crisis 18:03 The Urgency of Representation and Invisibility 22:22 Huda Sha'arawi: Feminist Icon and Anti-Colonial Art Patron 25:32 Disrupting Colonial Markets 30:14 Mahmoud Mukhtar & Publicly Funded Neoperonism 34:02 The Rise of Surrealist Criticism 37:06 Connectivity Across Lebanon, Syria, and the Cairo Salon 41:44 The National Salon vs. the European Cairo Salon 46:13 Confronting Pseudomorphism 51:39 Scholarly Recommendations for Re-centering Arab Art History 54:03 The Art and Liberty Group's Interruption of Futurism 56:11 Marxism, Feminism, and the Social Unconscious   Clare Davies is an associate curator at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She has contributed to a wide range of research, programming, and archival projects related to art and photography in the Middle East since serving as associate curator of the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo between 2004 and 2006. She completed her doctoral dissertation at New York University Institute of Fine Arts and was subsequently awarded the inaugural Irmgard Coninx Prize Fellowship at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin. She is the coauthor of "Robert Morris: Object Sculpture, 1960–65" and has published regularly on contemporary art from the Arab world.   Connect with Clare Davies

In this insightful interview, Amanda Lucia, Professor of Studies of Religion, discusses her book 'White Utopias' and explores the complex issues surrounding modern yoga, cultural appropriation, exoticism, and racial dynamics within the yoga community. The conversation delves into festival experiences, the impact of capitalism, and the importance of authentic cultural engagement. Main Topics: ·      Cultural appropriation in yoga ·      The role of festivals in modern yoga culture ·      Exoticism and orientalism in spiritual practices Websites: www.amandajeanlucia.com www.religionandsexualabuseproject.org Books:  Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (2014) White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals (2020) A Cultural History of Hinduism: Age of Independence (1947-2017) (2024) SUPPORT KEEN ON YOGA Become a Patron: https://www.keenonyoga.com/patrons/ Buy us a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/infoRfCONNECT WITH ADAM Website: www.keenonyoga.com Instagram:  @keen_on_yoga | @adam_keen_ashtanga In person events: https://www.keenonyoga.com/all-events/  WATCH https://www.youtube.com/@keenonyoga

This is preview — to access full episode and all New Models' content, subscribe: https://patreon.com/newmodels & https://newmodels.substack.com We're joined by media scholars Daniël de Zeeuw & Sal Hagen, who have been closely tracking the weirder end of the internet for over a decade—their research and analysis of 4chan has made them low-key legends within internet studies. As 4chan's logic is now pervasive across the social web, Daniël and Sal, together with their colleagues at the Amsterdam-based OILab, have been modeling novel ways of thinking about our current communication space that travel well beyond the network media / public sphere template to something far stranger — and more accurate. For more: https://oilab.eu/ https://salhagen.nl/ https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/z/e/d.dezeeuw/d.dezeeuw.html Hagen, S., de Zeeuw, D., & Venturini, T. (2025). Digital Rhythmanalysis: Studying Memetic and Affective Rhythms on the Post-Viral Web. Platforms & Society, 2. de Zeeuw, D., Birchall, C., & Knight, P. (2025). On Psyop Realism. Cultural Politics, 21(2), 240-257 Hagen, S. (2024) Reactionary Rhythm: Quali-quantitative studies of 4chan/pol/. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam
 Hagen, S., & de Zeeuw, D. (2023). Based and confused: Tracing the political connotations of a memetic phrase across the web. Big Data & Society, 10(1) Nepost

In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024),  Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider the significance of the cultural politics of surfing and skateboarding. It is the first academic volume to bring together leading scholars in the areas of both surfing and skateboarding studies. This episode also invites Jarret Rose to discuss his contribution to this anthology. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University, where he specializes in the cultural and interpretive study of space, behavior, and identity. His scholarship examines how designed environments shape social interaction, connectedness, and moral life across diverse settings. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His current research projects include the study of escape rooms as emotion-structured environments, temporal urban environments in rural historical towns, student experiences of hanging out and being at home while at college and university, and a more recent study on the making of rodeo. To learn more about his work, visit his personal website, Google Scholar profile, or connect with him on Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social) or Twitter/X (@ProfessorJohnst). He can also be reached directly by email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024),  Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider the significance of the cultural politics of surfing and skateboarding. It is the first academic volume to bring together leading scholars in the areas of both surfing and skateboarding studies. This episode also invites Jarret Rose to discuss his contribution to this anthology. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University, where he specializes in the cultural and interpretive study of space, behavior, and identity. His scholarship examines how designed environments shape social interaction, connectedness, and moral life across diverse settings. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His current research projects include the study of escape rooms as emotion-structured environments, temporal urban environments in rural historical towns, student experiences of hanging out and being at home while at college and university, and a more recent study on the making of rodeo. To learn more about his work, visit his personal website, Google Scholar profile, or connect with him on Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social) or Twitter/X (@ProfessorJohnst). He can also be reached directly by email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024),  Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider the significance of the cultural politics of surfing and skateboarding. It is the first academic volume to bring together leading scholars in the areas of both surfing and skateboarding studies. This episode also invites Jarret Rose to discuss his contribution to this anthology. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University, where he specializes in the cultural and interpretive study of space, behavior, and identity. His scholarship examines how designed environments shape social interaction, connectedness, and moral life across diverse settings. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His current research projects include the study of escape rooms as emotion-structured environments, temporal urban environments in rural historical towns, student experiences of hanging out and being at home while at college and university, and a more recent study on the making of rodeo. To learn more about his work, visit his personal website, Google Scholar profile, or connect with him on Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social) or Twitter/X (@ProfessorJohnst). He can also be reached directly by email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024),  Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider the significance of the cultural politics of surfing and skateboarding. It is the first academic volume to bring together leading scholars in the areas of both surfing and skateboarding studies. This episode also invites Jarret Rose to discuss his contribution to this anthology. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University, where he specializes in the cultural and interpretive study of space, behavior, and identity. His scholarship examines how designed environments shape social interaction, connectedness, and moral life across diverse settings. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His current research projects include the study of escape rooms as emotion-structured environments, temporal urban environments in rural historical towns, student experiences of hanging out and being at home while at college and university, and a more recent study on the making of rodeo. To learn more about his work, visit his personal website, Google Scholar profile, or connect with him on Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social) or Twitter/X (@ProfessorJohnst). He can also be reached directly by email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024),  Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider the significance of the cultural politics of surfing and skateboarding. It is the first academic volume to bring together leading scholars in the areas of both surfing and skateboarding studies. This episode also invites Jarret Rose to discuss his contribution to this anthology. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University, where he specializes in the cultural and interpretive study of space, behavior, and identity. His scholarship examines how designed environments shape social interaction, connectedness, and moral life across diverse settings. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His current research projects include the study of escape rooms as emotion-structured environments, temporal urban environments in rural historical towns, student experiences of hanging out and being at home while at college and university, and a more recent study on the making of rodeo. To learn more about his work, visit his personal website, Google Scholar profile, or connect with him on Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social) or Twitter/X (@ProfessorJohnst). He can also be reached directly by email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

If you find FreshEd a valuable education resource, please consider becoming a member by visiting freshedpodcast.com/support. -- Today we explore peace education as a form of global citizenship education in universities in divided settings. My guest, Kevin Kester, travelled to China/Taiwan, Cyprus, Korea, and Somalia/Somaliland to understand if peace as a form of global citizenship can be taught in universities where legacies of war, division, and colonialism remain deeply rooted. Kevin Kester is an Associate Professor of Comparative International Education and Peace/Development Studies at Seoul National University (서울대학교) and director of the Education, Conflict and Peace Lab. His latest article is entitled “Peace education as a form of global citizenship education in universities in divided settings: challenges and prospects” which was published in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. freshedpodcast.com/kester/ -- Get in touch! LinkedIn: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com

This week we're traveling back to a full century of American history with The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman! Join us as we learn about naming of enslaved people, "paddy rollers", Black communities in East Texas, and more! Sources: Sparks, Elmer E, and Celia Black. Interview with Celia Black, Tyler, Texas. Tyler, Texas, November , 10, 1974. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1975009_afs17476/. Sparks, Elmer E, and Charlie Smith. Interview with Charlie Smith, Bartow, Florida. Bartow, Florida, None , 3, 1975. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1975023_afs17510/. Jennifer Davis, "A Voice from the South: Dr. Anna Julia Cooper," LOC, available at https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2025/02/a-voice-from-the-south-dr-anna-julia-cooper/ Sean Coughlan, "Last Survivor of Transatlantic Slave Trade Discovered," BBC, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/education-52010859 Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_Miss_Jane_Pittman_(film) Creating the Emmy-Winning Old Age Makeup for The Autobiography of Miss Jane PIttman, available at https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/blog/creating-the-emmy-winning-makeup-for-the-autobiography-of-miss-jane-pittman Interview with Thomas Moore on Producing Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, available at https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/autobiography-of-miss-jane-pittman-the?chapter=9&clip=68703 African-American Cowboys with their Mounts Saddled Up, https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.9862669  Ronald Wendell II, MA Thesis, https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/92b088d1-1108-4044-8219-c7a03d5f87e5/content  Scott L. Matthews, "Documenting SNCC and the Rural South: Danny Lyon and the Cultural Politics of Civil Rights Movement Photography" https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469646473_matthews.8  Keith Rice, "The Civil Rights Movement and Steiner-Lobman Polly Brand Work Clothes," 2 September 2022, https://bradleycenterliberated.substack.com/p/denim-and-civil-rights  Sally E. Hadden, "Slave Patrols," https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469616742_ely.57  Lisa Cook, John Parman, and Trevon Logan, "The Antebellum Roots of Distinctively Black Names," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 55, 1 (2021) Recall Their Names: The Personal Identity of Enslaved South Carolinians, Charleston Time Machine, available at https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/recall-their-names-personal-identity-enslaved-south-carolinians Laura Alvarez Lopez, "Who Named Slaves and Their Children? Names and Naming Practices Among Enslaved Africans Brought to the Americas and Their Descendants With a Focus on Brazil," Journal of African Cultural Studies 27, 2 (2015)

Realignment Newsletter: https://therealignment.substack.com/Realignment Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignmentEmail the Show: realignmentpod@gmail.comLast week, Marshall interviewed Reihan Salam, President of the Manhattan Institute, at Newark's Aspen Ideas Festival: Economy. Marshall and Reihan discussed culture's impact on the economy and politics through the lens of immigration. They cover the struggles of multigenerational working-class immigrants facing a new cultural and economic landscape and the right's increasing turn against H1B visas and high-skilled immigration through the lens of Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's comments about American children choosing sleepovers over hard work. 

Thanks for listening to FreshEd. It's rewarding to produce for the thousands of listeners around the world. But it takes a lot of work to make regular episodes. What sustains our effort are voluntary memberships from paying supporters. If you are enjoying FreshEd and would like to join our membership community, please sign up at www.freshedpodcast.com. You can also sign up to join our 10th anniversary celebration on October 18. -- Today we explore ed-tech philanthropy inside schools in South Africa. My guest is Amy Stambach. Amy Stambach is Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her new book is The Corporate Alibi: Capitalism and the Cultural Politics of US Investments in Africa, which was published by the University of California Press. freshedpodcast.com/stambach/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: info@freshedpodcast.com

Adolph Reed, Jr., Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, and Kenneth W. Warren, University of Chicago English professor, share their new book which drops this month, “Black Studies, Cultural Politics, and the Evasion of Inequality: The Farce this Time.”Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tavis-smiley--6286410/support.

Dear Dashhounds, have you lost the ability to handle all the things? Enough that you are thinking about bringing back the streaking fad of the 70s? Before you get all hot and bothered and start taking off your clothes in front of strangers, listen to this Strange Country episode #300 about where streaking in ‘Merica originated. If you thought it was something free and fun, you are a little right, but only for a chosen few. Thanks always for listening, it is an act of love that you can do with your clothes on. Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands Cite your sources:  “CRUMP, George William.” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/C000956. Accessed 03 July 2025. KIRKPATRICK, B. (2010), “It Beats Rocks and Tear Gas”: Streaking and Cultural Politics in the Post-Vietnam Era. The Journal of Popular Culture, 43: 1023-1047. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00785.x Margoshes, Pamela. “Speaking Personally; A College Streaker Bares the Whole Naked Truth.” New York Times, 4 August 1985, https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/04/nyregion/speaking-personally-a-college-streaker-bares-the-whole-naked-truth.html. “Music: Streaking, streaking everywhere.” Time, no. March 18, 1974, https://time.com/archive/6844977/music-streaking-streaking-everywhere/. Stevens, Ray. The Streak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtzoUu7w-YM. “Streaking - Wikipedia.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaking. Accessed 3 July 2025.

Professor Yasir Suleiman-Malley speaks about the complexities of Arabic tracing his personal journey with the language, from early struggles with grammar to a deep appreciation for its richness. We explore the historical and pedagogical challenges of teaching Arabic, especially given its sacred status connected to the Quranic text and the socio-cultural resistance to modernizing its grammatical teaching methods. The conversation also delves into the dual nature of Arabic, the spoken and the written forms, their impact on education, everyday use, and the broader implications of Arabic as a cultural and identity-defining symbol in the Arab world.  00:00 Introduction 00:05 Professor Suleiman-Malley's Early Relationship with Arabic01:24 Challenges in Teaching Arabic Grammar05:34 Cultural and Historical Context of Arabic Pedagogy11:30 Arabic as a Symbol of Identity and Conflict15:43 The Health of the Arabic Language23:50 Decolonization and Language29:45 Reviving and Managing Languages38:26 The Role of Language in Identity39:19 Language as a Membership Card41:04 Diversity and Unity in the Arab World42:50 Cultural Arabness vs Racial Arabness45:39 Historical Perspectives on Arab Identity54:01 The Concept of Diglossia01:03:08 Challenges of Written vs Spoken Arabic01:07:11 The Future of Arabic Language and Identity01:13:30 Final Thoughts Professor Yasir Suleiman-Malley is Chair of the Panel of Judges, British-Kuwaiti Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies. He serves as Trustee on the Boards of Arab-British Chamber Charitable Foundation, International Prize for Arab Fiction (in association with the Man-Booker Prize), Banipal Trust for Arab Literature and is trustee of the Gulf Research Centre-Cambridge. He is also Chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World, Chair of the Centre for the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa (CIRMENA), Board Member of the Islamic Manuscript Association, Member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Evaluation and Research in Muslim Education, Institute of Education, Member of the Advisory Board of The Doha Institute, Qatar and Member of the Advisory Board of Our Shared Future. He is a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals and book series. He is also Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, formerly Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies. Hosted by Mikey MuhannaConnect directly with Mikey Muhanna

This episode explores the role of protection magic as a historically grounded response to war, oppression, and systemic violence across diverse cultural and temporal contexts.Drawing on peer-reviewed academic sources, it examines how magical practices—rituals, talismans, verbal formulae, and spirit invocations—have been used as forms of spiritual defence and political resistance. From Mesopotamian anti-witchcraft rites and Greco-Roman defensive curses to medieval Christian amulets, Renaissance grimoires, and the Magical Battle of Britain, the lecture situates protection magic within broader religious, social, and cosmological frameworks.Special attention is given to non-Western and postcolonial contexts, including the ritual technologies of Haitian Vodou during the revolution, Obeah in the British Caribbean, Yoruba warrior rites, and Andean protective ceremonies. The discussion also considers contemporary expressions of magical protection, including digital activist magic, Chaos Magic, and the esoteric disciplines of Damien Echols under carceral conditions.CONNECT & SUPPORT

Jean Mills, Associate Professor and chairperson in the English Dept. at John Jay College, and Ria Banerjee, Professor of English and Honors Program Coordinator at Guttman Community College and the Graduate Center, discuss Dr. Banerjee's book Drafty Houses in Forster, Eliot, and Woolf: Spatiality and Cultural Politics and related topics. Visit IndoorVoicesPodcast.com for more.

“Expect More Bulldozings”, the Princeton historian Matthew Karp predicts in this month's Harpers magazine about MAGA America. In his analysis of the Democrats' loss to Trump, Karp argues that the supposedly progressive party has become disconnected from working-class voters partially because it represents what he calls "the nerve center of American capitalism." He suggests that for all Democrats' strong cultural liberalism and institutional power, the party has failed to deliver meaningful economic reforms. The party's leadership, particularly Kamala Harris, he says, appeared out of touch with reality in the last election, celebrating the economic and poltical status quo in an America where the voters clearly wanted structural change. Karp advocates for a new left-wing populism that combines innovative economic programs with nationalism, similar to successful left-wing leaders like Obrador in Mexico and Lulu in Brazil and American indepedents like the Nebraskan Dan Osborne. Here are the 5 KEEN ON takeaways in our conversation with Karp:* The Democratic Party has become the party at the "nerve center of American capitalism," representing cultural, institutional, and economic power centers while losing its historic connection to working-class voters. Despite this reality, Democrats are unwilling or unable to acknowledge this transformation.* Kamala Harris's campaign was symptomatic of broader Democratic Party issues - celebrating the status quo while failing to offer meaningful change. The party's focus on telling voters "you never had it so good" ignored how many Americans actually felt about what they saw as their troubling economic situation.* Working-class voters didn't necessarily embrace Trump's agenda but rejected Democrats' complacency and disconnection from reality. The Democrats' vulnerability at the ballot box stands in stark contrast to their dominance of cultural institutions, academia, and the national security state.* The path forward for Democrats could look like Dan Osborne's campaign in Nebraska - a populist approach that directly challenges economic elites across party lines while advocating for universal programs rather than targeted reforms or purely cultural politics.* The solution isn't simply returning to New Deal-style politics or embracing technological fixes, but rather developing a new nationalist-leftist synthesis that combines universal social programs with pro-family, pro-worker policies while accepting the reality of the nation-state as the container for political change.Bulldozing America: The Full TranscriptANDREW KEEN: If there's a word or metaphor we can use to describe Trumpian America, it might be "bulldoze." Trump is bulldozing everything and everyone, or at least trying to. Lots of people warned us about this, perhaps nobody more than my guest today. Matthew Karp teaches at Princeton and had an interesting piece in the January issue of Harper's. Matthew, is bulldozing the right word? Is that our word of the month, of the year?MATTHEW KARP: It does seem like it. This column is more about the Democrats' electoral fortunes than Trump's war on the administrative state, but it seems to apply in a number of contexts.KEEN: When did you write it?KARP: The lead times for these Harper's pieces are really far in advance. They have a very trim kind of working order. I wrote this almost right in the wake of the election in November, and then some of the edits stretched on into December. It's still a review of the dynamics that brought Trump into office and an assessment of the various interpretations that have been proffered by different groups for why Trump won and why the Democrats lost.KEEN: You begin with an interesting half-joke: given Trump's victory, maybe we should use the classic Brechtian proposal to dissolve the people and elect another. You say there are some writers like Jill Filipovic, who has been on this show, and Rebecca Solnit, who everybody knows. There's a lot of hand-wringing, soul-searching on the left these days, isn't there?KARP: That's what defeat does to you. The impulse to essentially blame the people, not the politicians—there was a lot of that talk alongside insistences that Kamala Harris ran a "flawless" campaign. That was a prime adjective: flawless. This has been a feature of Democratic Party politics for a while. It certainly appeared in 2016, and while I don't think it's actually the majority view this time around, that faction was out there again.The Democratic Party's TransformationKEEN: It's an interesting word, "flawless." I've argued many times, both on the show and privately, that she ran—I'm not sure if even the word "ran" is the right word—what was essentially a deeply flawed campaign. You seem to agree, although you might suggest there are some structural elements. What's your analysis three months after the defeat, as the dust has settled?KARP: It doesn't feel like the dust has settled. I'm writing my piece now about these early days of the Trump administration, and it feels like a dust cloud—we can barely see because the headlines constantly cloud our vision. But looking back on the election, there are several things to say. The essential, broader trend, which I think is larger than Harris's particular moves as a candidate or her qualities and deficits, has to do with the Democratic Party as a national entity—I don't like the word "brand," though we all have to speak as if we're marketers now.Since Obama in particular, and this is an even longer-running trend, the Democratic Party's fortunes have really nosedived with voters making less money, getting less education, voters in working-class and lower-middle-class positions—measured any way you slice it sociologically. This is not only a historic reversal from what was once the party of Roosevelt, which Joe Biden tried to resurrect with that giant FDR poster behind him in the White House, but it represents a fundamental shift in American politics.Political scientists talk about class dealignment, the way in which, for a long time, there essentially was no class alignment between the parties. These days, if anything, there's probably a stronger case for the Republicans to be more of a working-class party just from their coalition, although I think that's overstated too. From the Democratic perspective, what's striking is the trend—the slipping away, the outmigration of all these voters away from the Democrats, especially in national elections, in presidential elections.The Party of CapitalKEEN: You put it nicely in your piece—I'm quoting you—"The fault is not in the Democrats' campaigns, it's in themselves." And then you write, and I think this is the really important sentence: "This is a party that represents the nerve center of American capitalism, ideological production and imperial power." Some people might suggest, well, what's wrong with that? America should be proud of its capitalism, its imperial power, its ideological production. But what's so surreal, so jarring about all this is that Democrats don't acknowledge that. You can see it in Harris, in her husband, in San Francisco and in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where you live. You can see it in Princeton, in Manhattan. It's so self-evident. And yet no one is willing to actually acknowledge this.KARP: It's interesting to think about it that way because I wonder if a more candid piece of self-recognition would benefit the party. I think some of it is there's a deep-seated need, going back to that tradition of FDR and especially on the part of the left wing of the party—anyone who's even halfway progressive—to feel like this is the party of the little guy against the big guy, the party of marginalized people, the party of justice for all, not just for the powerful.That felt need transcends the statistics tallied up in voting returns. For the media and institutional complex of the Democratic Party, which includes many politicians, that reality will still be a reality even if the facts on the ground have changed. Some of it is, I think, a genuine refusal to see what's in front of you—it's not hypocritical because that implies willful misleading, whereas I think it's a deeper ideological thing for many people.The Status Quo PartyKEEN: Is it just cyclical? The FDR cycle, Great Society, New Deal, LBJ—all of that has come to an end, and the ideology hasn't caught up with it? Democrats still see themselves as radical, but they're actually deeply conservative. I've had so many conversations with people who think of themselves as progressives and say to me, "I used to think I'm a progressive, but in the context of Trump or some other populist, I now realize I'm a conservative." None of them recognize the broader historical meaning. The irony is that they actually are conservative—they're for the status quo. That was clear in the last election. Harris, for better or worse, celebrated the old America, and Trump had a vision of a new America, for better or worse. Yet no one was really willing to acknowledge this.KARP: Yes, institutionally and socially, the Democrats have become the party of the status quo. People on the left constantly lambaste Democrats for lacking a bold reform agenda, but that's sort of not the point. Some people will say Joe Biden was the most progressive president since FDR because he spent a lot of money on infrastructure programs. But my view is that enhanced government spending, which did increase the federal budget as a share of GDP to significant levels, nevertheless didn't result in a single reform program you can identify and attach to Biden's name.Unlike all these progressive Democratic presidents past—even Obama had Obamacare—it's not really clear what Biden's legacy is other than essentially increasing the budget. None of those programs, none of that spending, improved his political popularity because that money was so diffuse, or in other cases so targeted that it went to build this one chip plant in one town in Ohio. If you didn't happen to be in that county, it made no difference to you. There wasn't anything like healthcare reform, structural family leave reform, or childcare reform—something that somebody could say, "This president actually changed the way my life operates for the better."Cultural Politics and ClassKEEN: Let's talk about cultural politics. Thomas Frank has sometimes been accused, if not of racism, certainly of being a kind of conservative populist, even if he sees himself from the left. Is one of the reasons why the Democratic Party has lost the support of much of the American working class attributable to cultural politics, to the new left victory in the '60s and its control of the Democratic agenda, which is really manifested in many ways by somebody like Kamala Harris—a wealthy lawyer running as a member of the diverse underclass?KARP: Look, I don't want to say the Democrats lost because of "woke." I think there were larger issues in play, and the principal one is this economic question. But you can't actually separate those issues. What people have intuited is that the Democrats have become a party that has retained, if anything advanced, this cultural liberalism coming out of the new left. As recently as 2020, there was a very new left-like insurgency of street protests focused on police brutality and structural racism.I don't actually think Americans are broadly hostile to civil rights equality and, in substance, a lot of the Democratic positions on those issues. But when you essentially hollow out your party's historic core connection to the working class and to economic reform, and in a hundred different ways from Clinton to Obama to Biden take so much off the table in terms of working-class politics, then it's no wonder that a lot of people come to think these minority populations are essentially the clients of very powerful patrons.Paths ForwardKEEN: You note in a tweet that the Democrats are what you call "politically pathetic." In your piece, you write about Dan Osborne, an independent union steamfitter who ran for Senate in Nebraska. Are guys like Osborne the fix here? The solution? A new way of thinking about America, perhaps learning from right-wing populism—a new populism of the left?KARP: Absolutely. I don't think they're a silver bullet. There are a lot of institutional and social obstacles to reconstituting some kind of 19th-century style or mid-twentieth century style working-class project, whether it's organizing labor unions or mass parties of the left. That being said, the Osborne campaign absolutely represents an electoral road forward for people who want real change.He wildly outperformed not just Kamala Harris but the other Democrat running for Senate. His margins were highest precisely in the places where Democrats have struggled the most. In the wealthy suburban districts around Omaha where Harris actually won, Osborne more or less held serve. But where he really ran up the score was further out in rural areas and among workers. I would bet a lot of money that he way overperformed with voters with lower education levels and lower incomes.Looking to the FutureKEEN: Finally, is there an opportunity in a structural sense? You're still presenting the old America, a federal state. But the Trump people, for better or worse, are cutting this. They're attacking it on lots of levels. Are there really radical ideas, maybe not traditional left-wing ideas or even progressive ideas, certainly associated with technology—you talked about universal basic income, decentralization, even what we call Web3—which might revitalize progressives in the 21st century, or is that simply unrealistic?KARP: We've got to keep our eyes open. My little faction of the sort of dissident left is often accused of being overly nostalgic by opponents on the left. I take the criticism that the vision I've laid out risks being nostalgic, towards the middle decades of the 20th century when union density was higher, industrial America was stronger, and you had healthy families and good jobs.I'm very leery of technological quick fixes. I don't think the blockchain is going to resurrect socialism. I do think there is a political opportunity that would represent a more conscious break with the liberal leftism that has been in the water of the Democratic Party and the progressive left since 1968. We need to move away from this sort of championship of small groups and towards a more universal, family-centered, country-centered approach.I think the current is flowing towards the nation-state and not towards the globe. So I'm okay with tariff politics, with the celebration of the national, and to some extent with this impulse to get control of the border. That doesn't mean mass deportations, but it does mean having some actual understanding of who is coming into the country and some orderly procedure. Every other country in the world, including those lefty social democracies, has that.The successful left-wing leaders have all been nationalists of one kind or another. Look at AMLO in Mexico or Lula in Brazil. There are welfare policies that are super popular that can be branded not as some airy-fairy Nordic social democracy thing, but as a pro-family, pro-worker, pro-American sensibility that you can easily connect to traditional values and patriotic sentiment. It's the easiest thing in the world, at least ideologically, to imagine that formulation. What it would run afoul of is a lot of entrenched institutional connections within the Democratic Party and broadly on the left, within the NGO world, academia, and the media class, who are attached to the current structure of things.Matthew Karp is a historian of the U.S. Civil War era and its relationship to the nineteenth-century world. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and joined the Princeton faculty in 2013. His first book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy(Link is external) (Harvard, 2016) explores the ways that slavery shaped U.S. foreign relations before the Civil War. In the larger transatlantic struggle over the future of bondage, American slaveholders saw the United States as slavery's great champion, and harnessed the full power of the growing American state to defend it both at home and abroad. This Vast Southern Empire received the John H. Dunning Prize from the American Historical Association, the James Broussard Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, and the Stuart L. Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Karp is now at work on two books, both under contract with Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. The first, Millions of Abolitionists: The Republican Party and the Political War on Slavery, considers the emergence of American antislavery mass politics. At the midpoint of the nineteenth century, the United States was the largest and wealthiest slave society in modern history, ruled by a powerful slaveholding class and its allies. Yet just ten years later, a new antislavery party had forged a political majority in the North and won state power in a national election, setting the stage for disunion, civil war, and the destruction of chattel slavery itself. Millions of Abolitionists examines the rise of the Republican Party from 1854 to 1861 as a political revolution without precedent or sequel in the history of the United States. The second book, a meditation on the politics of U.S. history, explores the ways that narratives of the American experience both serve and shape different ideological ends — in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century, and today.Named as one of the "100 most unconnected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's least known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four poorly reviewed books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two badly behaved children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of The afikra Podcast, host Mikey Muhanna chats with Dr Taous Dahmani, a London-based art historian, writer, and curator. She discusses her career, her ties to Tunis, and curating the exhibitions Unstable Point and Assembly at Jaou Tunis. She explores the socio-political themes in these works, the challenges of political expression in art, and fostering dialogue among artists from Africa and Southwest Asia, reflecting on their impact amid global issues.00:00 Introduction 02:01 Connection to Tunis and Curatorial Challenges04:02 Unstable Point Exhibition06:40 Curatorial Process and Artist Selection20:35 Political Context and Art27:21 Emotional and Political Dimensions of Art35:16 Featured Artists at Jaou Tunis and Their Work48:31 Upcoming Projects and Final ThoughtsDr Taous R. Dahmani is a historian of photography, researcher, and writer, who divides her time between London and Marseille. Her PhD focused on the intersection of political actions and photographic practices. She is also editor and content advisor at The Eyes, a trustee of the Photo Oxford Festival, and is on the editorial board of MAI: Visual Culture and Feminism.Connect with Taous

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Huda Fakhreddine and Anthony Alessandrini about the unique manners in which literature can disclose the human significance of the historical and ongoing genocide in Palestine. Such revelation has to fight at least two things—the sheer brutality and inhumanity of this violence, and the active silencing of Palestinian voices by institutions that, ironically, profess to champion the humanities. Here, once again, we find a pernicious instantiation of the Palestine Exception. Despite these efforts to censor and silence, Huda and Tony delve deeply into the power of Palestinian poetry through translations and readings of some of the most remarkable literature in the world.Anthony Alessandrini teaches English at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn and Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is also a member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. He is the author of Decolonize Multiculturalism and of Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics; the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives; and the co-editor of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey. He has also published a poetry chapbook, Children Imitating Cormorants. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, is on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association, is on the faculty of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, is a co-convener of the International Solidarity Action Research Network, serves as chair of his union's Academic Freedom Committee, and is a proud member of CUNY Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. Huda J. Fakhreddine is a writer, translator, and Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition (Brill, 2015) and The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), as well as the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry (Routledge, 2023). Her creative writings include a work of creative nonfiction, Zaman Ṣaghīr Taḥt Shams Thāniya (A Brief Time Under a Different Sun), published by Dar al-Nahda, Beirut, in 2019, and a forthcoming collection Wa Min Thammata al-‘Ālam… (And Then, the World…), to be published by Manshurat Marfa', Beirut, in 2025. She serves as co-editor of Middle Eastern Literatures and as an editor for the Library of Arabic Literature.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Huda Fakhreddine and Anthony Alessandrini about the unique manners in which literature can disclose the human significance of the historical and ongoing genocide in Palestine. Such revelation has to fight at least two things—the sheer brutality and inhumanity of this violence, and the active silencing of Palestinian voices by institutions that, ironically, profess to champion the humanities. Here, once again, we find a pernicious instantiation of the Palestine Exception. Despite these efforts to censor and silence, Huda and Tony delve deeply into the power of Palestinian poetry through translations and readings of some of the most remarkable literature in the world.Anthony Alessandrini teaches English at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn and Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is also a member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. He is the author of Decolonize Multiculturalism and of Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics; the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives; and the co-editor of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey. He has also published a poetry chapbook, Children Imitating Cormorants. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, is on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association, is on the faculty of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, is a co-convener of the International Solidarity Action Research Network, serves as chair of his union's Academic Freedom Committee, and is a proud member of CUNY Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. Huda J. Fakhreddine is a writer, translator, and Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition (Brill, 2015) and The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), as well as the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry (Routledge, 2023). Her creative writings include a work of creative nonfiction, Zaman Ṣaghīr Taḥt Shams Thāniya (A Brief Time Under a Different Sun), published by Dar al-Nahda, Beirut, in 2019, and a forthcoming collection Wa Min Thammata al-‘Ālam… (And Then, the World…), to be published by Manshurat Marfa', Beirut, in 2025. She serves as co-editor of Middle Eastern Literatures and as an editor for the Library of Arabic Literature.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Huda Fakhreddine and Anthony Alessandrini about the unique manners in which literature can disclose the human significance of the historical and ongoing genocide in Palestine. Such revelation has to fight at least two things—the sheer brutality and inhumanity of this violence, and the active silencing of Palestinian voices by institutions that, ironically, profess to champion the humanities. Here, once again, we find a pernicious instantiation of the Palestine Exception. Despite these efforts to censor and silence, Huda and Tony delve deeply into the power of Palestinian poetry through translations and readings of some of the most remarkable literature in the world.Anthony Alessandrini teaches English at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn and Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is also a member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. He is the author of Decolonize Multiculturalism and of Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics; the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives; and the co-editor of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey. He has also published a poetry chapbook, Children Imitating Cormorants. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, is on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association, is on the faculty of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, is a co-convener of the International Solidarity Action Research Network, serves as chair of his union's Academic Freedom Committee, and is a proud member of CUNY Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. Huda J. Fakhreddine is a writer, translator, and Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition (Brill, 2015) and The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), as well as the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry (Routledge, 2023). Her creative writings include a work of creative nonfiction, Zaman Ṣaghīr Taḥt Shams Thāniya (A Brief Time Under a Different Sun), published by Dar al-Nahda, Beirut, in 2019, and a forthcoming collection Wa Min Thammata al-‘Ālam… (And Then, the World…), to be published by Manshurat Marfa', Beirut, in 2025. She serves as co-editor of Middle Eastern Literatures and as an editor for the Library of Arabic Literature.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

Today on Speaking Out of Place I am honored to welcome Huda Fakhreddine and Anthony Alessandrini to talk about the unique manners in which literature can disclose the human significance of the historical and ongoing genocide in Palestine. Such revelation has to fight at least two things—the sheer brutality and inhumanity of this violence, and the active silencing of Palestinian voices by institutions that, ironically, profess to champion the humanities. Here, once again, we find a pernicious instantiation of the Palestine Exception.  Despite these efforts to censor and silence, Huda and Tony delve deeply into the power of Palestinian poetry, through  translations and readings of some of the most remarkable literature in the world. Anthony Alessandrini teaches English at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn and Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is also a member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. He is the author of Decolonize Multiculturalism and of Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics; the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives; and the co-editor of “Resistance Everywhere”: The Gezi Protests and Dissident Visions of Turkey. He has also published a poetry chapbook, Children Imitating Cormorants. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, is on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association, is on the faculty of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, is a co-convener of the International Solidarity Action Research Network, serves as chair of his union's Academic Freedom Committee, and is a proud member of CUNY Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.   Huda J. Fakhreddine is a writer, translator, and Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition (Brill, 2015) and The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), as well as the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry (Routledge, 2023). Her creative writings include a work of creative nonfiction, Zaman Ṣaghīr Taḥt Shams Thāniya (A Brief Time Under a Different Sun), published by Dar al-Nahda, Beirut, in 2019, and a forthcoming collection Wa Min Thammata al-‘Ālam… (And Then, the World…), to be published by Manshurat Marfa', Beirut, in 2025. She serves as co-editor of Middle Eastern Literatures and as an editor for the Library of Arabic Literature. 

Khushi and Katharine discuss Nepal's community-based road-building initiatives, examining how these projects reveal the complex relationships between citizens, the state, and socio-economic systems. The conversation begins with a field memo from Katharine's recent research and offers an anthropological perspective on how local cultural values, political dynamics, historical context, and social meanings influence perceptions of corruption, governance, participation, and rule-breaking. Katharine Rankin is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Cultural Politics of Markets: Economic Liberalization and Social Change in Nepal, among other influential works focused on the politics of planning and development, comparative market regulation, feminist and critical theory, neoliberal governance, and social polarization. Her recent article, Between Eating and Being Fed: Competing Ethics of Community-Based Road Building in Nepal, co-published with Shyam Kunwar, Lagan Rai, Elsie Lewison, and Sarah Shniederman, delves into the local ethical logics underpinning Nepal's community-driven road-building programs. The paper challenges conventional discourses of corruption by highlighting the contested legitimacy of rules and presenting competing visions of rural infrastructure, offering a more complex understanding of community engagement in development. If you liked the episode, hear more from us through our free newsletter services, PEI Substack: Of Policies and Politics ( ⁠⁠https://policyentre.substack.com/welcome⁠⁠ ), and click here ( ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/podsbypei⁠⁠ ) to support us on Patreon!!  

Hair Metal: The Soundtrack of Suburban Rebellion The term "hair metal" is often loaded with contradictory emotions. For some, it carries a pejorative tone, evoking images of overproduced, superficial music that prioritized style over substance. For others, it symbolizes a golden era of hedonism and carefree excess—a nostalgic portal to the cultural climate of the 1980s. Whether you're a Gen X'er reliving the glory years of 1981-1987 or a Gen Z'er discovering the era's flamboyant spectacle for the first time, hair metal offers an intriguing entry into a bygone cultural zeitgeist. Origins and Influences: A Hybrid of Excess Hair metal is best understood as an amalgamation of diverse influences: the shock rock theatrics of Alice Cooper and KISS, the virtuosic intensity of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), and the pop hooks reminiscent of 70s classic rock. The genre's genesis can be traced to Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, amid the decline of hardcore punk and new wave. Unlike the disaffected rebellion of punk or the cerebral stylings of new wave, hair metal embraced a more commercial, hedonistic ethos that resonated with suburban youth. Key Players and Early Success Van Halen's meteoric rise in the late 70s, driven by Eddie Van Halen's guitar innovation and David Lee Roth's charismatic theatrics, laid much of the groundwork. Yet, it was Quiet Riot that first achieved mainstream success with 1983's Metal Health, the first metal album to reach #1 on the Billboard charts. Their cover of Slade's “Cum on Feel the Noize” exemplified the blend of hard rock bombast and pop sensibility that defined the genre. Simultaneously, Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard of Ozz (1980) featuring Randy Rhoads, redefined what metal could be—dark and heavy, but also catchy and accessible. This formula of blending metal's aggression with pop hooks became the template for hair metal's commercial domination. The Cultural Politics of Hair Metal Unlike punk's overt challenge to conservative politics, hair metal offered rebellion as a commodified spectacle. It was less about collective resistance to authority and more about personal indulgence. The Reagan and Thatcher years saw the rise of neoliberal individualism, and hair metal became the soundtrack to this ethos: drugs, sex, and flashy excess. Bands like Mötley Crüe, with albums such as Shout at the Devil (1983), exemplified this aesthetic, blending occult imagery with glam decadence. However, by the late 80s, the genre began to cannibalize itself. Bands influenced by early hair metal—such as Poison—were producing sanitized versions of the form. By 1988, hair metal had become a bloated commercial enterprise. Simultaneously, the rise of bands like Guns N' Roses and Faster Pussycat, who rejected the cartoonish glam aesthetic, signaled a shift. Mötley Crüe's 1987 album Girls, Girls, Girls symbolized this transition—gone were the lace and makeup, replaced by leather and a grittier image. The Decline: From Cultural Dominance to Nostalgia The genre's decline was swift, for many hastened by the rise of grunge and alternative rock in the early 90s. While I don't discount the raw authenticity of bands like Nirvana, and how it  stood in stark contrast to the excesses of hair metal; By 1987 most of the “hair metal” songs were pop music with distorted guitars. Def Leppard's 1983 Pyromania was to be their “Thriller”. This was less an authentic genre, and more a media moniker, and everyone with a Marshall stack and hair spray wanted to use that moniker to get in the business.  By the early 90s, the genre was relegated to nostalgia tours and retro compilations, a relic of a pre-grunge world. Mötley Crüe playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2AYeS0yG88ymhk7Lrb09Kr...   Check out our new bi-weekly series, "The Crisis Papers" here: https://www.patreon.com/bitterlakepresents/shop   Thank you guys again for taking the time to check this out. We appreciate each and everyone of you. If you have the means, and you feel so inclined,   BECOME A PATRON! We're creating patron only programing, you'll get bonus content from many of the episodes, and you get MERCH!   Become a patron now https://www.patreon.com/join/BitterLakePresents?   Please also like, subscribe, and follow us on these platforms as well, (specially YouTube!)   THANKS Y'ALL   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG9WtLyoP9QU8sxuIfxk3eg Twitch: www.twitch.tv/thisisrevolutionpodcast www.twitch.tv/leftflankvets​ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thisisrevolutionpodcast/ Twitter: @TIRShowOakland Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland   Read Jason Myles in Sublation Magazine https://www.sublationmag.com/writers/jason-myles   Read Jason Myles in Damage Magazine https://damagemag.com/2023/11/07/the-man-who-sold-the-world/          

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constructs their identity as a devotee and that of the star as a deity. Extending her research from India to the US, Kakar highlights the transnational dimensions of this phenomenon to demonstrate the degree to which devotional fan practices (fan-bhakti) and fan artifacts can help us rethink art, religion, and politics. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book addresses how fan-bhakti is performed in the global landscape, in the process augmenting new religious models and identities based on the idea of the “cinematic sacred.” For more information, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

What do philanthropist Jane Stanford, author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln have in common? They all conducted séances. Spiritualism was popular in the Gilded Age, and Lily Dale, NY is the epicenter of the movement. From the voices that gave you Dig: A History Podcast comes Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Seances in Lily Dale. One of the authors - Dr. Elizabeth Garner Masarik - joins the show to discuss their new book.Essential Reading:Averill Earls, Sarah Handley-Cousins, Marissa Rhodes, and Elizabeth Garner Masarik, Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Seances in Lily Dale (2024).Recommended Reading:Robert S. Cox, Body and Soul: A Sympathetic History of American Spiritualism (2003).Molly McGarry, Ghosts of Futures Past: Spiritualism and the Cultural Politics of Nineteenth-Century America (2008).Bret E. Carroll, Spiritualism in Antebellum America (1997).Cathy Gutierrez, Plato's Ghost: Spiritualism in the American Renaissance (2009). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Erin Hutchinson on her award-winning article, “Gathering the Nation in the Village: Intellectuals and the Cultural Politics of Nationality in the Late Soviet Period” in the January 2023 issue of the Russian Review. The post Soviet DIY Folk Museums appeared first on The Eurasian Knot.

Stephanie Brown delves into the dangerous world of women laughing in this conversation with Maggie Hennefeld about her new book Death By Laughter: Female Hysteria and Early Cinema. Covering everything from 19th-century obituaries blaming giggle fits (rather than girdle fits) for women's deaths to the modern-day political power of a vice presidential cackle, we're certain this episode will entertain you … just short of killing you.

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at The University of Buckingham and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science. He directs Buckingham's new MA in the Politics of Cultural Conflict and PhD in Cultural Politics as well as its open online course on Woke: the Origins, Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology. He is the author of Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution (Forum Press/Bombardier Books May 2024), Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities (Penguin 2018/ Abrams 2019), Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth (Profile Books 2010), The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America (Harvard 2004), and The Orange Order (Oxford, 2007) He is co-editor, among others, of Political Demography (Oxford 2012) and editor of Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities (Routledge 2004). In addition to 45 peer-reviewed articles, he has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Newsweek, National Review, New Statesman, Financial Times, Unherd and other outlets. He is affiliated with the Manhattan Institute, Policy Exchange, the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the University of Austin. He can be found on X @epkaufm There is a supplementary document to go with this interview here https://paulawright.substack.com/p/vane-tempest-podcast-interview-with    -------------------------------------- Email the show with your thoughts, suggestions, guest ideas, or interview requests: thevanetempest@gmail.com or, DM our Exec-Producer Greg on Twitter (@GregZesq) IMPORTANT LINKS: VTPod on YouTube VTPod on Apple & Spotify Paula's Substack Paula's Twitter/X Paula's Instagram Paula's Academic Writings  

In this episode Scott talks with authors David Shields and Josh Rosenblatt about the cultural politics of the WNBA. Much has been made of the coverage of two of the WNBA's prominent stars: Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. What are the racial and political implications of the coverage of these two athletes? What do they tell us about wider American culture as a whole in a tense election season? Special Guests: David Shields and Josh Rosenblatt.

Puerto Rico has had a huge impact on the world's music scene, in comparison to its size. And on this week's episode, host Aislyn Greene travels to the island to find out why. She explores bomba and plena, two of the earliest forms of music that emerged from Puerto Rico's African ancestors. Discovers jibaro music, or “hillbilly” music, though this style of music is incredibly complex and improvisational. Found the source of danza music, watched salsa musicians urge people to their feet, and met with reggaetón artists. And though we couldn't possibly capture all of the complexities of the island's music in one episode, we hope it does reveal what she found: a place that is singularly committed to art and music. As one of her guides, Nory, put it: “We are artisans, we are painters, we are all musicians. That's actually the identity of a Puerto Rican.” Meet this week's guests Margarita “Tata” Cepeda, owner of Puerto Rico Is Bomba, a dance and music school Maribel Martinez, guide at House of the Troubadour Luis Miranda “Pico de Oro” Melina Aguillar, owner of Isla Caribe Tours Norymar Maldonado, Isla Caribe tour guide Angelina Villapiano Luna, musician, dancer, and salsa teacher Petra Rivera Rideau, author of Remixing Reggaetón: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico RaiNao, urbano musician  Herson Guerrero, professor, photographer, and musician  Resources Read the full transcript of the episode.  Listen to the playlist. Read Petra's Bad Bunny Syllabus Listen to the La Brega podcast. Explore club 58 at La Concha resort. Follow the podcast to ensure you don't miss an episode.  Subscribe to Afar's YouTube channel for a full video of the conversation.

This episode, we talk with Jennifer Lynn Stoever–editor of the influential sound studies blog Sounding Out!–about her new book, The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (NYU Press, 2016). We tend to think of race and racism as visual phenomena, but Stoever challenges white listeners to examine how racism can infect our ears, altering the sound of the world and other people. We discuss the history of American prejudicial listening since slavery and learn how African American writers and musicians have pushed back against this invisible “sonic color line.” Works discussed include Richard Wright's Native Son and music by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Fishbone, and Lena Horne. Additional music by Graeme Gibson and Blue the Fifth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

This episode, we talk with Jennifer Lynn Stoever–editor of the influential sound studies blog Sounding Out!–about her new book, The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (NYU Press, 2016). We tend to think of race and racism as visual phenomena, but Stoever challenges white listeners to examine how racism can infect our ears, altering the sound of the world and other people. We discuss the history of American prejudicial listening since slavery and learn how African American writers and musicians have pushed back against this invisible “sonic color line.” Works discussed include Richard Wright's Native Son and music by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Fishbone, and Lena Horne. Additional music by Graeme Gibson and Blue the Fifth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This episode, we talk with Jennifer Lynn Stoever–editor of the influential sound studies blog Sounding Out!–about her new book, The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (NYU Press, 2016). We tend to think of race and racism as visual phenomena, but Stoever challenges white listeners to examine how racism can infect our ears, altering the sound of the world and other people. We discuss the history of American prejudicial listening since slavery and learn how African American writers and musicians have pushed back against this invisible “sonic color line.” Works discussed include Richard Wright's Native Son and music by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Fishbone, and Lena Horne. Additional music by Graeme Gibson and Blue the Fifth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Join the dialogue - text your questions, insights, and feedback to The Dignity Lab podcast.In this episode, Dr. Jennifer Griggs and producer Vanessa Aron explore the ways we respond when our dignity is violated and how we can reclaim it. They discuss the physical, emotional, and behavioral reactions to dignity violations, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and naming these responses. Jennifer introduces the concepts of Mouse, Monster, and Island to describe different coping mechanisms.Vanessa and Jennifer reflect on their own experiences and stress the significance of compassionate companionship in overcoming shame and isolation. They also highlight the role of resistance in both small daily actions and larger acts of standing up for oneself and others.The conversation touches on restorative practices and the importance of transforming grievance stories into empowering narratives. Jennifer and Vanessa discuss the power of joy, wonder, and gratitude in the healing process, setting the stage for deeper explorations into advocacy, accountability, and reclamation of dignity in the upcoming season.Episode ResourcesForgive for Good by Dr. Fred LuskinYearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics by Bell HooksDignity by Donna HicksTakeaways:Understanding the physical and emotional responses to dignity violations.Recognizing and naming emotions to facilitate healing.The role of compassionate companionship in overcoming shame.The importance of resisting negative reactions and fostering positive change.Transforming grievance stories into empowering narratives.The significance of joy, wonder, and gratitude in reclaiming dignity.Exploring what it means to live and lead with dignity at work, in our families, in our communities, and in the world. What is dignity? How can we honor the dignity of others? And how can we repair and reclaim our dignity after harm? Tune in to hear stories about violations of dignity and ways in which we heal, forgive, and make choices about how we show up in a chaotic and fractured world. Hosted by physician and coach Jennifer Griggs.For more information on the podcast, please visit www.thedignitylab.com.For more information on podcast host Dr. Jennifer Griggs, please visit https://jennifergriggs.com/.For additional free resources, including the periodic table of dignity elements, please visit https://jennifergriggs.com/resources/.The Dignity Lab is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will receive 10% of the purchase price when you click through and make a purchase. This supports our production and hosting costs. Bookshop.org doesn't earn money off bookstore sales, all profits go to independent bookstores. We encourage our listeners to purchase books through Bookshop.org for this reason.

How can culture be authentic in the modern world? In The Poet's Song: Folk and its Cultural Politics in South Asia (Rouitledge, 2023), Dr Priyanka Basu, a Lecturer in Performing Arts at Kings College London, explores the history and practice of the folk performance Kobigaan. The book draws on rich archival and historical analysis, as well as fieldwork in West Bengal and Bangladesh, to tell the story of how Kobigaan has evolved over time, how it has been preserved, how it has changed media and changed practice, and how the struggles over to whom Kobigaan belongs play out today. A fascinating and engaging text, the book will be of interest to scholars across the humanities, as well as for anyone interested in arts and culture! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Nov 2023, Prime ads expected to “reach 115M viewers per month.” Aral Balkan (Small Tech Foundation): “We didn't lose control. It was stolen.” Isabel Wilkerson's Caste (2020) is now a film. Marjorie Kelly: Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today's Crises. Marjorie with Laura Flanders (Dec 2023). Toni Morrison's “A Humanist View”, The Source of Self-Regard (Knopf, 2019). Transcript and audio. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs at the United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit, 2021. The wealth of one billionaire compared to average US household income ($65K). Techcrunch (June 2023): US intel confirms it purchases US citizens' personal data. Prof. Shoshana Zuboff (Harvard Business School) defines surveillance capitalism. Wangari Maathai describes the Green Belt Movement in her 2004 Nobel Lecture. How emotions shape our identities, cultures, and societies: “The Cultural Politics of Emotion” (Sara Ahmed). “The Body Keeps The Score” (Bessel van der Kolk) educates on the impact of emotional pain and trauma on our physical bodies. “Whitey On The Moon”: Gil Scott-Heron on The Revolution Begins.

In episode 1556, Jack and Miles are joined by writer, speaker, social justice educator, and co-host of BFF: Black, Fat, Femme, Dr. Jon Paul Higgins, to discuss… Speaking of Trump And The UAW, GOP FIGURED OUT HOW TO STAND WITH WORKERS!!! AAAAHGGGGHGHHH, Oh Yeah There Was a GOP Debate... It Was A Sh*tshow! D.A.R.E. Is Somehow Still A Thing and more! Donald Trump Campaign Offered Actors $50 to Cheer for Him at Presidential Announcement Did Donald Trump pay actors to attend Michigan rally? Sign holder makes confession GOP FIGURED OUT HOW TO STAND WITH WORKERS!!! AAAAHGGGGHGHHH Republicans Suddenly Desperate to Seem Pro-Union D.A.R.E. Is Somehow Still A Thing Sheriff: Kenosha County D.A.R.E.-based program to warn high school students of fentanyl threat in Kenosha County Roanoke City Sheriff's Office sergeant talks importance of D.A.R.E. program A brief history of DARE, the anti-drug program Jeff Sessions wants to revive The DARE Program Is Back in Some School Districts — Here's What to Know Drug Prevention Placebo: How DARE wastes time, money, and police DARE to Say No: Police and the Cultural Politics of Prevention in the War on Drugs Flashy Cars Taken From Drug Dealers Go To D.A.R.E. Officers DARE Marks a Decade of Growth and Controversy : Youth: Despite critics, anti-drug program expands nationally. But some see declining support in LAPD. Why the D.A.R.E. Program Failed LISTEN: Kimumbu by Akofa AkoussahSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.