Podcasts about Duke University Press

In 2017, activist-scholar Robyn Maynard published her groundbreaking study, Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present.  Today, I have the privilege of talking with her about the second edition of this study, which has just been published by Duke University Press. Robyn tells us what has happened since 2017 that compelled her to revise the book and add important new materials to address the challenges of the present. At the core of this new edition is a powerful argument against reform and for abolition—Maynard details the numerous failures of police reform, and explains why precious time, resources, and lives have been spent trying to bring about authentic change via reform.  Her vision for abolition is bold, and expansive, reaching beyond Canada to examine both transnational apparatuses of surveillance, policing, and punishment, and vital global forms of resistance and solidarity.Robyn Maynard is an author and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. Her writing on borders, policing, abolition and Black feminism is taught widely in universities across Canada, the United States and Europe. The first edition of Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, published in 2017, is a national bestseller, designated as one of the “best 100 books of 2017” by the Hill Times, listed in The Walrus‘s “best books of 2018,” shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award, the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, and the winner of the 2017 Errol Sharpe Book Prize. In 2018 the book was published in French, titled NoirEs sous surveillance. Esclavage, répression et violence d'État au Canada, and won the 2019 Prix de libraires. Her second book, Rehearsals for Living, co-authored with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, is a Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and CBC national bestseller and was shortlisted for a Governor General's Award for literary non-fiction, a Toronto Heritage Award, and designated one of CBC's “best Canadian non-fiction books of 2022” and the “best 100 books of 2022” by the Hill Times. Other awards include “2018 Author of the Year” from Montreal's Black History Month and the Writers' Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQI* Emerging Writers. Her public scholarship is available at www.robynmaynard.com

Every year, hundreds of international student athletes arrive in the U.S. chasing their basketball dreams — many on F-1 student visas. But for some their journey turns into exploitation. Basketball Trafficking: Stolen Black Panamanian Dreams (Duke University Press, 2025) uncovers how dreams are sold, manipulated, and in some cases stolen — especially for young Black athletes from the Global South. This book offers a powerful call to action for educators, institutions, and sport leaders to safeguard the next generation of hoopers. Rooted in his own experience as a distinguished former Division 1 college athlete and an alumnus of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Javier has a unique perspective on the significance of sports in cultural and social movements. He procured his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Florida A&M University, followed by a PhD from The University of Texas at Austin, where he delved into the intersections of race, culture, and athletics. Javier's expertise has led him to prominent roles, including serving as a Fellow at Harvard's AfroLatin American Research Initiative, a University of Pennsylvania & University of Birmingham (UK) Immigration Fellow, and a Postdoctoral Associate and Professor at Duke University. His scholarly work has been recognized with accolades, such as the Harvard ALARI Best Dissertation on an Afro-Latin American topic in 2020 and a Preservation Merit Award from Preservation Austin. Javier has been featured in numerous media outlets such as TEDx, The Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, Vice Sports, ESPN, and CNN, marking him as a distinctive voice in his arena. His dedication to shining a light on the unsung heroes who have transformed sports into a stage for empowerment and social change remains unwavering. A committed traveler and cultural enthusiast, Javier continues to connect and promote these remarkable stories of resilience and triumph wherever his journey takes him. You can find Javier online, on Instagram, and at LinkedIn. Find Host Sullivan Summer online, on Instagram, or on Substack, where she and Javier continue their conversation. 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

Every year, hundreds of international student athletes arrive in the U.S. chasing their basketball dreams — many on F-1 student visas. But for some their journey turns into exploitation. Basketball Trafficking: Stolen Black Panamanian Dreams (Duke University Press, 2025) uncovers how dreams are sold, manipulated, and in some cases stolen — especially for young Black athletes from the Global South. This book offers a powerful call to action for educators, institutions, and sport leaders to safeguard the next generation of hoopers. Rooted in his own experience as a distinguished former Division 1 college athlete and an alumnus of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Javier has a unique perspective on the significance of sports in cultural and social movements. He procured his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Florida A&M University, followed by a PhD from The University of Texas at Austin, where he delved into the intersections of race, culture, and athletics. Javier's expertise has led him to prominent roles, including serving as a Fellow at Harvard's AfroLatin American Research Initiative, a University of Pennsylvania & University of Birmingham (UK) Immigration Fellow, and a Postdoctoral Associate and Professor at Duke University. His scholarly work has been recognized with accolades, such as the Harvard ALARI Best Dissertation on an Afro-Latin American topic in 2020 and a Preservation Merit Award from Preservation Austin. Javier has been featured in numerous media outlets such as TEDx, The Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, Vice Sports, ESPN, and CNN, marking him as a distinctive voice in his arena. His dedication to shining a light on the unsung heroes who have transformed sports into a stage for empowerment and social change remains unwavering. A committed traveler and cultural enthusiast, Javier continues to connect and promote these remarkable stories of resilience and triumph wherever his journey takes him. You can find Javier online, on Instagram, and at LinkedIn. Find Host Sullivan Summer online, on Instagram, or on Substack, where she and Javier continue their conversation. 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

Every year, hundreds of international student athletes arrive in the U.S. chasing their basketball dreams — many on F-1 student visas. But for some their journey turns into exploitation. Basketball Trafficking: Stolen Black Panamanian Dreams (Duke University Press, 2025) uncovers how dreams are sold, manipulated, and in some cases stolen — especially for young Black athletes from the Global South. This book offers a powerful call to action for educators, institutions, and sport leaders to safeguard the next generation of hoopers. Rooted in his own experience as a distinguished former Division 1 college athlete and an alumnus of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Javier has a unique perspective on the significance of sports in cultural and social movements. He procured his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from Florida A&M University, followed by a PhD from The University of Texas at Austin, where he delved into the intersections of race, culture, and athletics. Javier's expertise has led him to prominent roles, including serving as a Fellow at Harvard's AfroLatin American Research Initiative, a University of Pennsylvania & University of Birmingham (UK) Immigration Fellow, and a Postdoctoral Associate and Professor at Duke University. His scholarly work has been recognized with accolades, such as the Harvard ALARI Best Dissertation on an Afro-Latin American topic in 2020 and a Preservation Merit Award from Preservation Austin. Javier has been featured in numerous media outlets such as TEDx, The Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, Vice Sports, ESPN, and CNN, marking him as a distinctive voice in his arena. His dedication to shining a light on the unsung heroes who have transformed sports into a stage for empowerment and social change remains unwavering. A committed traveler and cultural enthusiast, Javier continues to connect and promote these remarkable stories of resilience and triumph wherever his journey takes him. You can find Javier online, on Instagram, and at LinkedIn. Find Host Sullivan Summer online, on Instagram, or on Substack, where she and Javier continue their conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In 2006, the Masdar City project was launched in the United Arab Emirates. Supported by $22 billion in state-funding, it aimed to be the world's most sustainable city. Situated 6km away from Zayed International Airport, neighbouring a Formula 1 racetrack and golf course, Abu Dhabi's eco-utopia is full of contradictions.Bertie discusses why oil-rich Gulf states like UAE and Saudi Arabia are investing in sustainability with Gökçe Günel, Associate Professor in Anthropology at Rice University. Gökçe is the author of Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi, published in 2019 by Duke University Press. Further reading: Inside COP28: A Participant's Take on Climate Diplomacy Efforts in Dubai, Gökçe Günel, Baker Institute, 2024 Horizons, Gökçe Günel, e-flux Architecture, 2022Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi, Gökçe Günel, Duke University Press, 2019  Click here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

  The transgender community has struggled to receive recognition and equality.  In this episode, we explore the history of the transgender community over the last 100 years with Dr. Susan Stryker and the life of Dr. Alan L. Hart, a transgender medical doctor working on the forefront of an urgent public health crisis, tuberculosis, in Connecticut. Hart, Director of Connecticut's Office of TB Rehabilitation, is credited with saving countless lives. My guest is Dr. Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History, the Root of Today's Revolution, published in 2017. Transgender History, Third Edition: A Resource for Today's Struggle-and Tomorrow's will be published in Febuary, 2026. Dr. Susan Stryker holds a distinguished visiting appointment at Stanford's Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, and is Professor Emerita of Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies at the University of Arizona, where she directed the Institute for LGBT Studies for many years. She is the author or editor of numerous articles, books and anthologies. A collection of previously published short works, When Monsters Speak: A Susan Stryker Reader, was published by Duke University Press in 2024. She is also an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker for Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria. In the documentary, you'll meet Dr. Stryker and some of the transgender women and drag queens who fought police harassment at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco's Tenderloin in 1966 three years before the famous riot at Stonewall Inn bar in New York City. You'll find the documentary on Amazon Prime. To contact Dr. Stryker, visit her website at www.susanstryker.net/about For more information on Dr. Alan L. Hart, go to these resources: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trailblazing-transgender-doctor-saved-countless-lives/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12328259/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272831386_Manifesting_Manhood_Dr_Alan_Hart's_Transformation_and_the_Embodiment_of_Sex_in_Early_Twentieth-Century_Sexology https://college.lclark.edu/live/news/43320-from-the-archives-dr-alan-hart   West Hartford Pride  West Hartford Pride supports, celebrates, and uplifts the LGBTQAI+ Community by providing resources, events, education, and social justice initiatives. Find out more about visiting their website at westhartfordpride.org   Preservatlon Connecticut LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Survey  Preservation Connecticut, in partnership with scholars and activists, has embarked on documenting Connecticut's LGBTQ+ sites. Interwoven through these places are stories of resilience, innovation, and the pursuit of equality that transcend the traditional boundaries of class, race, ethnicity, and religion. If you're interested in learning more or contributing to this survey project, please visit www.preservationct.org/lgbtq. Grating the Nutmeg Three-part LGBTQ+ Series 2025 Connecticut Explored magazine and our podcast, Grating the Nutmeg, have featured many of the heritage trails that mark the important histories and sites of Connecticut's people.  Preservation Connecticut has undertaken a survey of LGBTQ+ heritage sites across the state. Now, Grating the Nutmeg and Preservation Connecticut have teamed up to bring you a three-episode podcast series that pairs new research on LGBTQ+ identity and activism with accounts of the Connecticut places where history was made. The episodes include a thriving vegetarian cafe-bookstore run by lesbian feminists in a working-class former factory town, Episode 212, a transgender medical researcher working on an urgent public health issue in the center of Connecticut politics, Episode 219, and a gay, Jewish, best-selling children's book author in affluent Fairfield County, Episode 215. Connecticut Humanites The 2025 LGBTQ+ Three-part series received grant support from CT Humanities, connecting people to the humanities through grants, partnerships, and public programs. Visit our website to learn about our funding opportunities and capacity building grants. https://cthumanities.org/   ------------------------------------------ Like Grating the Nutmeg? Want to support it? Make a donation! 100% of the funds from your donation go directly to the production and promotion of the show. Go to ctexplored.org to send your donation now. secure.qgiv.com/for/gratingthenutmeg This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at www.highwattagemedia.com/   Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky. Follow executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at West Hartford Town Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!

Hello Interactors,Fall is in full swing here in the northern hemisphere, which means it's time to turn our attention to economics and economic geography. Triggered by a recent podcast on the origins of capitalism, I thought I'd kick off by exploring this from a geography perspective.I trace how violence, dispossession, and racial hierarchy aren't simple externalities or accidents. They emerge out of a system that organized itself and then spread. Capitalism grew out of dispossession of land and human autonomy and became a dominant social and economic structure. It's rooted in violence that became virtuous and centuries later is locked-in. Or is it?EMERGING ENGLISH ENCLOSURESThe dominant and particular brand of capitalism in force today originates in England. Before English landlords and the state violently seized common lands back in the 1300s, economic life was embedded in what historian E.P. Thompson called “moral economies”.(1) These were systems of survival where collective responsibility was managed through custom, obligation, and shared access to resources. Similar systems existed elsewhere. Long before Europeans arrived at the shores of what is now called North America, Haudenosaunee longhouse economies were sophisticatedly organized around economies of reciprocity. Further south, Andean ayllu communities negotiated labor obligations and access to land was shared. West African systems featured land that belonged to communities and ancestors, not individuals.Back in medieval English villages, commons weren't charity, they were infrastructure. Anyone could graze animals or gather firewood. When harvests failed, there were fallbacks like hunting and gathering rights, seasonal labor sharing, and kin networks. As anthropologist Stephen Gudeman shows, these practices reflected cultures of mutual insurance aimed at collective resilience, not individual accumulation.(2)Then landlords, backed by state violence, destroyed this system to enrich themselves.From 1348-1349, the bubonic plague killed perhaps half of England's population. This created a labor shortage that gave surviving so-called peasants leverage. For the first time they could demand higher wages, refuse exploitative landlords, or move to find better conditions.The elite mobilized state violence to reverse this. In 1351 the state passed The Statute of Labourers — an attempt to freeze wages and restrict worker movement. This serves as an early signal that reverberates today. When property and people come in conflict, the state sides with property. Over the next two centuries, landlords steadily enclosed common lands, claiming shared space as private property. Peasants who resisted were evicted, sometimes killed.Initial conditions mattered enormously. England had a relatively weak monarchy that couldn't check landlord aggression like stronger European states did. It also had growing urban markets creating demand for food and wool and post-plague labor dynamics that made controlling land more profitable than extracting rents from secure peasants.As historian J.M. Neeson details, enclosure — fencing in private land — destroyed social infrastructure.(3) When access to common resources disappeared, so did the safety nets that enabled survival outside of market and labor competition. People simply lost the ability to graze a cow, gather fuel, glean grain, or even rely on neighbors' obligation to help.This created a feedback loop:Each turn made the pattern stronger. Understanding how this happens requires grasping how these complex systems shaped the very people who reproduced them.The landlords driving enclosure weren't simply greedy villains. Their sense of self, their understanding of what was right and proper, was constituted through relationships to other people like them, to their own opportunities, and to authorities who validated their actions. A landlord enclosing commons likely experienced this as “improvement”. They believed they were making the land productive while exercising newly issued property rights. Other landlords were doing it, parliament legalized it, and the economics of the time justified it. The very capacity to see alternatives was constrained by relational personal and social positions within an emerging capitalistic society.This doesn't excuse the violence or diminish responsibility. But it does reveal how systems reproduce themselves. This happens not primarily through individual evil but through relationships and feedback loops that constitute people's identities and sense of what's possible. The moral judgment remains stark. These were choices that enriched someone by destroying someone else's means of survival. But the choices were made by people whose very selfhood was being constructed by the system they were creating.Similarly, displaced peasants resisted in ways their social positions made possible. They rioted, appealed to historical customary rights, attempted to maintain the commons they relied on for centuries. Each turn of the spiral didn't just move resources, it remade people. Peasants' children, born into a world without commons, developed identities shaped by market dependence — renting their labor in exchange for money. What had been theft became, over generations, simply “how things are.”By the mid-16th century, England had something new. They'd created a system where most people owned no land, had no customary rights to subsistence, and had to compete in labor markets to survive. This was the essence of capitalism's emergence. It wasn't born out of markets (they existed everywhere for millennia) but as market dependence enforced through dispossession. Out of this emerged accumulated actions of actors whose awareness and available alternatives were themselves being shaped by the very system they were simultaneously shaping and sustaining.REPLICATING PATTERNS OF PLANTATIONSOnce capitalism emerged in England through violent enclosure, its spread wasn't automatic. Understanding how it became global requires distinguishing between wealth extraction (which existed under many systems) and capitalist social relations (which require specific conditions).Spain conquered vast American territories, devastating indigenous populations through disease, warfare, and forced labor. Spanish extraction from mines in the 16th century — like Potosí in today's Bolivia — were worked by enslaved indigenous and African peoples under conditions that killed them in staggering numbers. Meanwhile, Portugal developed Atlantic island sugar plantations using enslaved African labor. This expansion of Portuguese agriculture on Atlantic islands like Madeira and São Tomé became a blueprint for plantation economies in the Americas, particularly Brazil. The brutally efficient system perfected there for sugar production — relying on the forced labor of enslaved Africans — was directly transplanted across the ocean, leading to a massive increase in the scale and violence of the transatlantic slave trade.Both empires generated massive wealth from these practices. If colonial plunder caused capitalism, Spain and Portugal should have industrialized first. Instead, they stagnated. The wealth flowed to feudal monarchies who spent it on palaces, armies, and wars, not productive reinvestment. Both societies remained fundamentally feudal.England, with virtually no empire during its initial capitalist transformation, developed differently because it had undergone a different structural violence — enclosure of common land that created landless workers, wage dependence, and market competition spiraling into self-reinforcing patterns.But once those capitalist social relations existed, they became patterns that spread through violent imposition. These patterns destroyed existing economic systems and murdered millions.English expansion first began close to home. Ireland and Scotland experienced forced enclosures as English landlords exported the template — seize land, displace people, create private regimes, and force the suffering to work for you. This internal colonialism served as testing ground for techniques later deployed around the world.When English capitalism encountered the Caribbean — lands where indigenous peoples had developed complex agricultural systems and trade networks — the Spanish conquest had already devastated these populations. English merchants and settlers completed the destruction, seizing lands indigenous peoples had managed for millennia while expanding the brutal, enslaved-based labor models pioneered by the Spanish and Portuguese for mining and sugar production.The plantations English capitalists built operated differently than earlier Portuguese and Spanish systems. English plantation owners were capitalists, not feudal lords. But this was also not simply individual choice or moral character. They were operating within and being shaped by an emerging system of capitalist social relations. Here too they faced competitive pressures to increase output, reduce costs, and compete with other plantation owners. The system's logic — accumulate to accumulate more — emerged from relational dynamics between competing capitalists. The individual identities as successful plantation owners was constituted through their position within the competitive networks in which they coexisted.New location, same story. Even here this systemic shaping doesn't absolve individual responsibility for the horrors they perpetrated. Enslaved people were still kidnapped, brutalized, and worked to death. Indigenous peoples were still murdered and their lands still stolen. But understanding how the system shaped what seemed necessary or moral to those positioned to benefit helps explain how such horror could be so widespread and normalized.This normalization created new spirals:This pattern then replicated across even more geographies — Jamaica, Barbados, eventually the American South — each iteration destroying existing ways of life. As anthropologist Sidney Mintz showed, this created the first truly global capitalist commodity chain.(4) Sugar produced by enslaved Africans and indigenous peoples — on their stolen land — sweetened the tea for those English emerging factory workers — themselves recently dispossessed through enclosure.At the same time, it's worth calling attention, as Historians Walter Rodney, Guyanese, and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Malawian, have point out, that African societies weren't passive.(5,6) Some kingdoms initially engaged strategically by trading captives from rival groups and acquiring weapons. These choices are often judged harshly, but they were made by people facing threats to their very existence. They were working with frameworks developed over centuries that suddenly confronted an unprecedented system of extractive violence. Historians Linda Heywood and John Thornton show that African economic strength and political organization meant Africans often “forced Europeans to deal with them on their own terms” for centuries, even as the terms of engagement became increasingly constrained.(7) This moral complexity matters. These were real choices with devastating consequences, made by people whose capacity to perceive alternatives was constrained by their eventual oppressors amidst escalating violence by Europeans.Native American scholars have documented similar patterns of constrained agency in indigenous contexts. Historian Ned Blackhawk, Western Shoshone, shows how Native nations across North America made strategic choices — like forming alliances, adapting governance structures, and engaging in trade — all while navigating impossible pressures from colonial expansion.(8) Historian Jean O'Brien, White Earth Ojibwe, demonstrates how New England indigenous communities persisted and adapted even as settler narratives and violence worked to wipe them out of existence.(9) They were forced to make choices about land, identity, and survival within systems designed to eliminate them. These weren't failures of resistance but strategic adaptations made by people whose frameworks for understanding and practicing sovereignty, kinship, and territorial rights were being violently overwritten and overtaken by colonial capitalism.Europeans increasingly controlled these systems through superior military technology making resistance futile. Only when late 19th century industrial weapons were widely wielded — machine guns, munitions, and mechanisms manufactured through capitalism's own machinations — could Europeans decisively overwhelm resistance and complete the colonial carving of Africa, the Americas, and beyond.LOCKING-IN LASTING LOOPSOnce patterns spread and stabilize, they become increasingly difficult to change. Not because they're natural, but because they're actively maintained by those who benefit.Capitalism's expansion created geographic hierarchies that persist today: core regions that accumulate wealth and peripheral regions that get extracted from. England industrialized first through wealth stolen from colonies and labor dispossessed through enclosure. This gave English manufacturers advantages. Namely, they could sell finished goods globally while importing cheap raw materials. Colonies were forced at gunpoint to specialize in export commodities, making them dependent on manufactured imports. That dependence made it harder to develop their own industries. Once the loop closed it became enforced — to this day through institutions like the IMF and World Bank.Sociologists Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy show how these hierarchies get naturalized through moral categories that shape how people — including those benefiting from and those harmed by the system — come to understand themselves and others.(10) Core regions are portrayed as “developed,” “modern,” “efficient.” Peripheral regions are called “backward,” “corrupt,” “informal.” These aren't just ideological justifications imposed from above but categories that constitute people's identities. They shape how investors see opportunities, how policy makers perceive problems, and how individuals understand their own worth.Meanwhile, property rights established through colonial theft get treated as legitimate. They are backed by international law and written by representatives of colonial powers as Indigenous land claims continue to get dismissed as economically backward. This doesn't happen through conscious conspiracies. It's because the frameworks through which “economic rationality” itself is understood and practiced were constructed through and for capitalist social relations. People socialized into these frameworks genuinely perceive capitalist property relations as more efficient, more rational. Their (our?) very capacity to see alternatives is constrained by identities formed within the system in which they (we?) exist.These patterns persist because they're profitable for those with power and because people with power were shaped by the very system that gives them power. Each advantage reinforces others. It then gets defended, often by people who genuinely believe they're defending rationality and efficiency. They (we?) fail to fathom how their (our?) frameworks for understanding economy were forged through forceful and violent subjugation.INTERRUPTING INTENSIFICATIONViewing capitalism's complex geographies shows its evolution is not natural or even inevitable. It emerged, and continues to evolve, as a result of shifting relationships and feedbacks at multiple scales. Recognizing this eventuality creates space for imagining and building more ethical derivatives or alternatives.If capitalism emerged from particular violent interactions between people in specific places, then different interactions could produce different systems. If patterns locked in through feedback loops that benefit some at others' expense, then interrupting those loops becomes possible.Even within capitalist nations, alternative arrangements have persisted or been fought for. Nordic countries and Scotland maintain “Everyman's Right” or “Freedom to Roam” laws. These are legal traditions allowing public access to private land for recreation, foraging, and camping. These represent partial commons that survived enclosure or were restored through political struggle, showing that private property needn't mean total exclusion. Even in countries that participate in capitalist economies. In late 19th century America, Henry George became one of the nation's most widely read public intellectuals. More people attended his funeral than Abraham Lincoln's. He argued that land value increases resulting from community development should be captured through land value taxes rather than enriching individual owners. His ideas inspired single-tax colonies, urban reform movements, and influenced progressive era policies. Farmers organized cooperatives and mutual aid societies, pooling resources and labor outside pure market competition. Urban communities established settlement houses, cooperative housing, and neighborhood commons. These weren't marginal experiments, they were popular movements showing that even within capitalism's heartland, people continuously organized alternatives based on shared access, collective benefit, and relationships of reciprocity rather than pure commodity exchange.Or, consider these current examples operating at different scales and locations:Community land trusts in cities like Burlington, Vermont remove properties from speculative markets. These trusts separate ownership of the land from the buildings on it, allowing the nonprofit land trust to retain ownership of the land while selling homes at affordable prices with resale restrictions. While they're trying to break the feedback loop where rising prices displace residents, gentrification and displacement continue in surrounding market-rate housing. This shows how alternatives require scale and time to fully interrupt established feedback loops.Zapatista autonomous municipalities in Chiapas, Mexico governed 300,000 people through indigenous forms of collective decision-making, refusing both state control and capitalist markets — surviving decades of Mexican government counterinsurgency backed by US military support. In 2023, after three decades of autonomy, the Zapatistas restructured into thousands of hyperlocal governments, characterizing the shift as deepening rather than retreating from their fundamental rejection of capitalist control.Brazil's Landless Workers Movement has won land titles for 350,000 families through occupations of unused land. These are legally expropriated under Brazil's constitutional requirement that land fulfill a social function. Organizing 2,000 cooperative settlements across 7.5 million hectares, this movement has become Latin America's largest social movement and Brazil's leading producer of organic food. They're building schools, health clinics, and cooperative enterprises based on agroecology and direct democracy.(11) Still, titled arable farmland in Brazil is highly concentrated into a minuscule percent of the overall population. Meanwhile, capitalist state structures continue favoring agribusiness and large landowners despite the movement's successes with organic food production.Indigenous land back movements across North America demand return of stolen territories as restoration of indigenous governance systems organized around relationships to land and other beings rather than ownership. Through the InterTribal Buffalo Council, 82 tribes are restoring buffalo herds. The Blackfeet Nation is establishing a 30,000-acre buffalo reserve that reconnects fragmented prairie ecosystems and restores buffalo migrations crossing the US-Canada border, reclaiming transnational governance systems that predate colonial boundaries.These aren't isolated utopian fantasies, and they're not perfect, but they're functioning alternatives, each attempting to interrupt capitalism's spirals at different points and places. Still, they face enormous opposition because for some reason, existing powerful systems that claim to embrace competition don't seem to like it much.Let's face it, other complex and functional economic systems existed before capitalism destroyed them. Commons-based systems, gift economies, reciprocal obligations organized around kinship and place were sophisticated solutions to survival. And extractive and exploitive capitalism violently replaced them. Most of all them. There are still pockets around the world where other economic geographies persist — including informal economies, mutual aid networks, cooperative enterprises, and indigenous governance systems.I recognize I've clearly over simplified what is a much more layered and complex evolution, and existing alternatives aren't always favorable nor foolproof. But neither is capitalism. There is no denying the dominant forms of capitalism of today emerged in English fields through violent enclosure of shared space. It then spread through transformation of existing extraction systems into engines of competitive accumulation. And it locked in through feedback loops that benefit core regions while extracting from peripheral ones.But it also took hold in hearts and habits. It's shaping how we understand ourselves, what seems possible, and what feels “normal.” We've learned to see accumulation as virtue, competition as natural, individual success as earned and poverty as personal failure. The very category of the autonomous ‘individual' — separate, self-made, solely responsible for their own outcomes — is itself a capitalist construction that obscures how all achievement and hardship emerge from relational webs of collective conditions. This belief doesn't just justify inequality, it reproduces it by generating the anxiety and shame that compel people to rent even more of their time and labor to capitalism. Pausing, resting, healing, caring for others, or resisting continue exploitation marks them as haven chosen their own ruin — regardless of their circumstance or relative position within our collective webs. These aren't just ideologies imposed from above but the makings of identity itself for all of us socialized within capitalism. A financial analyst optimizing returns, a policy maker promoting market efficiency, an entrepreneur celebrating “self-made” innovation — these aren't necessarily cynical actors. They're often people whose very sense of self has been shaped by a system they feel compelled to reproduce. After all, the system rewards individualism — even when it's toxins poison the collective web — including the web of life.Besides, if capitalism persists only through the conscious choices of so-called evil people, then exposing their villainy should be sufficient. Right? The law is there to protect innocent people from evil-doers. Right? Not if it persists through feedback loops that shape the identities, perceptions, and moral frameworks of everyone within it — including or especially those who benefit most or have the most to lose. It seems change requires not just moral condemnation but transformation of the relationships and systems that constitute our very selves. After all, anyone participating is complicit at some level. And what choice is there? For a socio-economic political system that celebrates freedom of choice, it offers little.To challenge a form of capitalism that can create wealth and prosperity but also unhealthy precarity isn't just to oppose policies or demand redistribution, and it isn't simply to condemn those who benefit from it as moral failures. It's to recognize that the interactions between people and places that created this system through violence could create other systems through different choices. Making those different choices requires recognizing and reconstructing the very identities, relationships, and frameworks through which we understand ourselves and what's possible. Perhaps even revealing a different form of capitalism that cares.But it seems we'd need new patterns to be discussed and debated by the very people who keep these patterns going. We're talking about rebuilding economic geographies based on mutual respect, shared responsibility, and a deep connection to our communities. To each other. This rebuilding needs to go beyond just changing institutions, it has to change the very people those institutions have shaped.As fall deepens and we watch leaves and seeds spiral down, notice how each follows a path predetermined by its inherited form. Maple seeds spin like helicopters — their propeller wings evolved over millennia to slow descent and scatter offspring far from competition. Their form has been fashioned by evolutionary forces beyond any individual seed's control, shaped by gusts and gravity in environments filled with a mix of competition and cooperation — coopetition. Then reflect on this fundamental difference: Unlike seeds locked into their descent, we humans can collectively craft new conditions, consciously charting courses that climb, curl, cascade, or crash.ReferencesChibber, V., & Nashek, M. (Hosts). (2025, September 24). The origins of capitalism. [Audio podcast episode]. In Confronting Capitalism. Jacobin Radio.1. Thompson, E. P. (1971). The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century. Past & Present, 50(1), 76–136.2. Gudeman, S. (2016). Anthropology and economy. Cambridge University Press.3. Neeson, J. M. (1996). Commoners: Common right, enclosure and social change in England, 1700–1820. Cambridge University Press.4. Mintz, S. W. (1985). Sweetness and power: The place of sugar in modern history. Viking Penguin.5. Rodney, W. (1972). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Bogle-L'Ouverture.6. Zeleza, P. T. (1997). A modern economic history of Africa: The nineteenth century (Vol. 1). East African Publishers.7. Heywood, L. M., & Thornton, J. K. (2007). Central Africans, Atlantic creoles, and the foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660. Cambridge University Press.8. Blackhawk, N. (2023). The rediscovery of America: Native peoples and the unmaking of US history. Yale University Press.9. OBrien, J. M. (2010). Firsting and lasting: Writing Indians out of existence in New England. U of Minnesota Press.10. Fourcade, M., & Healy, K. (2017). Seeing like a market. Socio-Economic Review, 15(1), 9–29.11. Carter, M. (Ed.). (2015). Challenging social inequality: The landless rural workers movement and agrarian reform in Brazil. Duke University Press. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Dr.Caroline Fowler is Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute. In this conversation, we discuss her most recent book, Slavery and the Invention of Dutch Art was published with Duke University Press, 2025. In this project, Dr. Fowler examines the fundamental role of the transatlantic slave trade in the production and evolution of seventeenth-century Dutch art.

Disco didn't just happen—it emerged from the vibrant gay club scene of 1970s New York City. In this episode, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares explore how iconic venues like the Continental Baths, the Mineshaft sex club, and the legendary Paradise Garage became part of a musical revolution that transformed popular culture. Joining them is Lucas Hilderbrand, Professor and Chair of Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine and author of the groundbreaking book The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After (Duke University Press, 2023). Together, they trace the fascinating connections between New York's underground gay scene and the rise of legendary DJs like Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles, while uncovering how these same spaces launched the careers of mainstream superstars, including Bette Midler and Barry Manilow. From intimate bathhouses to pulsing dance floors, discover how gay culture didn't just influence disco—it created it. The conversation also touches on Hilderbrand's companion archival project, The Bars Are Archived: Primary Sources for Gay Bars in America, which is available through Alexander Street's Queer Pasts collection. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/lgbtq-studies

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel 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

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

The Theological Metaphors of Marx (Duke UP, 2024) by Enrique Dussel – A Conversation with Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and Eduardo Mendieta In The Theological Metaphors of Marx, Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx's early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital, ultimately situating Marx's philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx's underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx's thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel's historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx's critiques of political economy and politics. Enrique Dussel (1934–2023) was Emeritus Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, and the author of many books, including Twenty Theses on Politics and Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion, both also published by Duke University Press.Camilo Pérez-Bustillo is coauthor of Human Rights, Hegemony, and Utopia in Latin America.Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy and Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Anna Kornbluh on the prevalence of aesthetic immediacy and why we need climate counteraesthetics. Events (from the introduction): at the Zollo Collective: https://www.instagram.com/zollo.hamburg/?hl=en at La Band Varga: https://labandavaga.org/?page_id=102 Rethinking Economics Summer School Switzerland: https://resuso.ch/   Shownotes Anna Kornbluh's personal website (including all her publications): http://www.annakornbluh.com/ Anna at the University of Illinois Chicago: https://engl.uic.edu/profiles/kornbluh-anna/ Kornbluh, A. (2024). Immediacy, or the Style of Too Late Capitalism. Verso Books. https://www.versobooks.com/products/3031-immediacy-or-the-style-of-too-late-capitalism Kornbluh, A. (2023). We Didn't Start The Fire. Death Drive and Ecocide. Parapraxis Magazine Issue 3. https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/we-didnt-start-the-fire Kornbluh, A. (2020). Climate Realism, Capitalist and Otherwise. Mediations. Journal of the Marxist Literary Group. Vol. 33. No. 1-2. P. 99-118. https://mediationsjournal.org/articles/climate-realism Kornbluh, A. (2019). The Order of Forms. Realism, Formalism, and Social Space. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo44521006.html Groos, J., Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction. Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction on Alexis Pauline Gumbs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Pauline_Gumbs https://www.alexispauline.com/ her essay on the Maui wildfires: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a44819303/climate-crisis-maui/  on climate fiction (cli-fi): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_fiction Rebecca Saltzman: https://rebeccasaltzman.net/ Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press. https://www.dukeupress.edu/staying-with-the-trouble Tsing, A. L. (2021). The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691220550/the-mushroom-at-the-end-of-the-world on the genre of the Heist film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heist_film on “Logan Lucky”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Lucky Strange, S. (2015). Casino Capitalism. Manchester University Press. https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781784991340/ Edward Morgan Forster on Narrative: https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/04/e-m-forster-the-difference-between-story-and-plot/ on climate/eco-anxiety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-anxiety Spufford, F. (2012). Red Plenty. Graywolf Press. https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/red-plenty explanation “hypersititon”: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hyperstition on Kim Stanley Robinson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson Robinson, K. S. (2020). The Ministry for the Future. Orbit. https://store.orbit-books.co.uk/products/the-ministry-for-the-future Robinson, K. S. (2017). New York 2140. Orbit. https://store.orbit-books.co.uk/products/new-york-2140 on the Inflation Reduction Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act on the Green New Deal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal website of Daniel Aldana Cohen (including all his publications): https://aldanacohen.com/ Climate & Community Institute: https://climateandcommunity.org/ “A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” video from 2019: https://youtu.be/d9uTH0iprVQ?si=8O-M_fS2iO_AQhiL Aronoff, K., Battistoni, A., Cohen, D. A., & Riofrancos, T. (2019). A Planet to Win. Why We Need a Green New Deal. Verso Books. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2546-a-planet-to-win Klein, N., Taylor, A. (2025). The Rise of End Times Fascism. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk on the Zohran Mamdani campaign: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/ on Social Realism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_realism on Brandon Taylor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Taylor_(writer) his website: https://brandonlgtaylor.com/ on Colson Whitehead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colson_Whitehead his website: https://www.colsonwhitehead.com/ on “Succession”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_(TV_series) on “Somebody Somewhere”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Somewhere_(TV_series) on public luxury: https://communia.de/en/project/public-luxury/ https://autonomy.work/portfolio/public-luxury-in-practice/ Nunes, R. (2021). Neither Vertical nor Horizontal. A Theory of Political Organization. Verso Books. https://www.versobooks.com/products/772-neither-vertical-nor-horizontal Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò's website: http://www.olufemiotaiwo.com/ Táíwò, O. (2020). Who gets to feel secure? On Liberty, Security, and Our System of Racial Capitalism. Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/on-liberty-security-and-our-system-of-racial-capitalism Boston Review issue on “What is the State for?”: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/from-the-editors-what-is-the-state-for/ on Freud's concept of the Death drive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive Future Histories Episodes on Related Topics S3E32 | Jacob Blumenfeld on Climate Barbarism and Managing Decline https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e32-jacob-blumenfeld-on-climate-barbarism-and-managing-decline/ S03E30 | Matt Huber & Kohei Saito on Growth, Progress and Left Imaginaries https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e30-matt-huber-kohei-saito-on-growth-progress-and-left-imaginaries/ S03E23 | Andreas Malm on Overshooting into Climate Breakdown https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e23-andreas-malm-on-overshooting-into-climate-breakdown/ S03E03 | Planning for Entropy on Sociometabolic Planning https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e03-planning-for-entropy-on-sociometabolic-planning/ S03E02 | George Monbiot on Public Luxury https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e02-george-monbiot-on-public-luxury/ S02E27 | Nick Dyer-Witheford on Biocommunism https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e27-nick-dyer-witheford-on-biocommunism/ S02E18 | Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese on Half Earth Socialism https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e18-drew-pendergrass-and-troy-vettese-on-half-earth-socialism/ S01E16 | Richard Barbrook on Imaginary Futures https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e16-richard-barbrook-on-imaginary-futures/ --- If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help: Democratic planning – an information website https://www.democratic-planning.com/ Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1. https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1 Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk] https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction International Network for Democratic Economic Planning https://www.indep.network/ Democratic Planning Research Platform: https://www.planningresearch.net/ --- Future Histories Contact & Support If you like Future Histories, please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/FutureHistories Contact: office@futurehistories.today Twitter: https://twitter.com/FutureHpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurehpodcast/ Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@FutureHistories English webpage: https://futurehistories-international.com   Episode Keywords #AnnaKornbluh, #JanGroos, #Interview, #FutureHistories, #FutureHistoriesInternational, #futurehistoriesinternational, #DemocraticPlanning, #DemocraticEconomicPlanning, #FutureImaginaries, #Art, #Literature, #Representation, #Immediacy, #ClimateChange, #ClimateBreakdown, #ClimateCollapse, #Capitalism, #Economics, #Collapse, #GreenNewDeal, #ClimateAnxiety

Sexology Changed Everything: or, Why the LHMP Ends Around 1900 The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 319 with Heather Rose Jones In this episode we talk about: The historic context of the rise of sexology Sexological models and major names in sexology Gendered consequences of sexology How sexology infiltrated popular and professional culture References Bauer, Heiki. 2009. “Theorizing Female Inversion: Sexology, Discipline, and Gender at the Fin de Siècle” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 18:1 pp.84-102 Beccalossi, Chiara. 2009. “The Origin of Italian Sexological Studies: Female Sexual Inversion, ca. 1870-1900” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 18:1 pp.103-120 Black, Allida M. 1994. “Perverting the Diagnosis: The Lesbian and the Scientific Basis of Stigma.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201–16. Boag, Peter. 2011. Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 978-0-520-27062-6 Breger, Claudia. 2005. “Feminine Masculinities: Scientific and Literary Representations of ‘Female Inversion' at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 14:1/2 pp.76-106 Bronski, Michael. 2012. A Queer History of the United States (ReVisioning American History). Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0807044650 Chauncey, George, Jr. 1982. “From Inversion to Homosexuality: Medicine and the Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance” in Salmagundi 58-59 (fall 1982-winter 1983). Cleves, Rachel Hope. “Six Ways of Looking at a Trans Man? The Life of Frank Shimer (1826-1901).” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 27, no. 1, 2018, pp. 32–62. Derry, Caroline. 2020. Lesbianism and the Criminal Law: Three Centuries of Legal Regulation in England and Wales. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-35299-8 Diggs, Marylynne. 1995. “Romantic Friends or a ‘Different Race of Creatures'? The Representation of Lesbian Pathology in Nineteenth-Century America” in Feminist Studies 21, no. 2: 1-24. Duggan, Lisa. 1993. “The Trials of Alice Mitchell: Sensationalism, Sexology and the Lesbian Subject in Turn-of-the-Century America” in Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader, ed. Robert J. Corber and Stephen Valocchi. Oxford: Blackwell. pp.73-87 Ehrenhalt, Lizzie and Tilly Laskey (eds). 2019. Precious and Adored: The Love Letters of Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson Whipple, 1890-1918. Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul. ISBN 978-1-68134-129-3 Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York. ISBN 0-688-00396-6 Foucault, Michel. 1990. The History of Sexuality. Vintage Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-679-72469-8 Halberstam, Judith (Jack). 1997. Female Masculinity. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 978-1-4780-0162-1 Hindmarch-Watson, Katie. 2008. "Lois Schwich, the Female Errand Boy: Narratives of Female Cross-Dressing in Late-Victorian London" in GLQ 14:1, 69-98. Kuefler, Mathew (ed). 2007. The History of Sexuality Sourcebook. Broadview Press, Ontario. ISBN 978-1-55111-738-6 Manion, Jen. 2020. Female Husbands: A Trans History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-48380-3 Newton, Esther. “The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman” in Signs 9 (1984): 557-575. Rouse, Wendy L. 2022. Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 9781479813940 Sautman, Francesca Canadé. 1996. “Invisible Women: Lesbian Working-class Culture in Ferance, 1880-1930” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6 Skidmore, Emily. 2017. True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the 20th Century. New York University Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-4798-7063-9 Vicinus, Martha. 1984. "Distance and Desire: English Boarding-School Friendships" in Signs vol. 9, no. 4 600-622. Vicinus, Martha. 1992. "'They Wonder to Which Sex I Belong': The Historical Roots of the Modern Lesbian Identity" in Feminist Studies vol. 18, no. 3 467-497. Vicinus, Martha. 2004. Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-85564-3 Wheelwright, Julie. 1989. Amazons and Military Maids: Women who Dressed as Men in the Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness. Pandora, London. ISBN 0-04-440494-8 A transcript of this podcast is available here. Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/ Twitter: @LesbianMotif Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon Links to Heather Online Website: http://alpennia.com Email: Heather Rose Jones Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop Bluesky: @heatherrosejones Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

 “I think one must frame what happened in Iran recently in the context of what is happening in the larger Middle East, which is that Israel and the United States principally are orchestrating a kind of regional shift in their power that can only be seen in light of what happened, and it continues to happen in Gaza and the wider Palestinian Territories, which is that Israel is, by virtue of signaling an aggressive move towards Iran, suggesting that it will continue unabated to exercise its will throughout the region, and that it also is interested in destroying Iranian support for Palestinian rights in the region.”Today on Speaking Out of Place with David Palumbo-Liu, we have a special episode on Israeli attacks on Iran that resulted in 12 days of bombings and culminated with the US dropping bunker bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting this war with the genocide in Gaza and Israel's extensive wars elsewhere. At stake is both Iranian sovereignty and the calls for so-called “regime change.” We question the use of that term, delve into how the struggle for liberation in Iran rejects both the repressive Islamic state and the US/Israeli war machine. Our discussion draws the frightening parallels between Iran's stifling of dissent and imprisonment of political enemies and others with our own government's. Finally, we recall the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and build hope for international solidarity with groups working for liberation in Iran, Palestine, and elsewhere, and insist liberation will never be achieved by dropping bombs.Persis Karim is the director emeritus of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and a professor in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers.Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, was published by Duke University Press in December 2022.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

 “I think one must frame what happened in Iran recently in the context of what is happening in the larger Middle East, which is that Israel and the United States principally are orchestrating a kind of regional shift in their power that can only be seen in light of what happened, and it continues to happen in Gaza and the wider Palestinian Territories, which is that Israel is, by virtue of signaling an aggressive move towards Iran, suggesting that it will continue unabated to exercise its will throughout the region, and that it also is interested in destroying Iranian support for Palestinian rights in the region.”Today on Speaking Out of Place with David Palumbo-Liu, we have a special episode on Israeli attacks on Iran that resulted in 12 days of bombings and culminated with the US dropping bunker bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting this war with the genocide in Gaza and Israel's extensive wars elsewhere. At stake is both Iranian sovereignty and the calls for so-called “regime change.” We question the use of that term, delve into how the struggle for liberation in Iran rejects both the repressive Islamic state and the US/Israeli war machine. Our discussion draws the frightening parallels between Iran's stifling of dissent and imprisonment of political enemies and others with our own government's. Finally, we recall the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and build hope for international solidarity with groups working for liberation in Iran, Palestine, and elsewhere, and insist liberation will never be achieved by dropping bombs.Persis Karim is the director emeritus of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and a professor in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers.Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, was published by Duke University Press in December 2022.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

 “I think one must frame what happened in Iran recently in the context of what is happening in the larger Middle East, which is that Israel and the United States principally are orchestrating a kind of regional shift in their power that can only be seen in light of what happened, and it continues to happen in Gaza and the wider Palestinian Territories, which is that Israel is, by virtue of signaling an aggressive move towards Iran, suggesting that it will continue unabated to exercise its will throughout the region, and that it also is interested in destroying Iranian support for Palestinian rights in the region.”Today on Speaking Out of Place with David Palumbo-Liu, we have a special episode on Israeli attacks on Iran that resulted in 12 days of bombings and culminated with the US dropping bunker bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting this war with the genocide in Gaza and Israel's extensive wars elsewhere. At stake is both Iranian sovereignty and the calls for so-called “regime change.” We question the use of that term, delve into how the struggle for liberation in Iran rejects both the repressive Islamic state and the US/Israeli war machine. Our discussion draws the frightening parallels between Iran's stifling of dissent and imprisonment of political enemies and others with our own government's. Finally, we recall the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and build hope for international solidarity with groups working for liberation in Iran, Palestine, and elsewhere, and insist liberation will never be achieved by dropping bombs.Persis Karim is the director emeritus of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and a professor in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers.Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, was published by Duke University Press in December 2022.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

Today on Speaking Out of Place we have a special episode on the war in Iran. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting this war with the genocide in Gaza and Israel's extensive wars elsewhere. At stake is both Iranian sovereignty and the calls for so-called “regime change.” We question the use of that term, delve into how the struggle for liberation in Iran rejects both the repressive Islamic state and the US/Israeli war machine.  Our discussion draws the frightening parallels between Iran's stifling of dissent and imprisonment of political enemies and others with our own government's.  Finally, we recall the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and build hope for international solidarity with groups working for liberation in Iran, Palestine, and elsewhere, and insist liberation will never be achieved by dropping bombs.                Persis Karim teaches in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. She was the creator and director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies during its entire existence there. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers. Before coming to San Francisco State, she was a professor of English & Comparative Literature at San Jose State where she was the founder and director of the Persian Studies program, and coordinator of the Middle East Studies Minor. She has published numerous articles about Iranian diaspora literature and culture for academic publications including Iranian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asian, African and Middle East Studies (CSSAMES), and MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States. “The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life,” is her first film project (co-directed and co-produced with Soumyaa Behrens). She received her Master's in Middle East Studies and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UT Austin. She is also a poet.Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, was published by Duke University Press in December 2022.  She has published widely including in American Quarterly, Journal of Asian American Studies, Scholar & Feminist online, and Women's Studies Quarterly. She is a founding member of the Raha Iranian Feminist Collective and on the editorial board of the Jadaliyya.com Iran Page. 

The Loft was a dance party series organized by DJ David Mancuso in his Manhattan warehouse apartment at 647 Broadway from Valentine's Day 1970 to June 1974. The parties offered an alternative to New York's commercial nightclub scene. The invitation-only events featured an egalitarian space for music and dance with a top-of-the-line sound system, eclectic musical selections, and a racially inclusive and gay-friendly mix of guests. Attendees included the city's leading disc jockeys such as Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, and Frankie Knuckles, who launched their careers in next generation clubs like the Paradise Garage, The Gallery, Chicago's Warehouse, and The Saint—  all influenced by the Loft.  In the premiere episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell introduces co-host Kristie Soares, in conversation with music and dance historian Tim Lawrence, to contextualize David Mancuso's Loft. Lawrence is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London's School of Arts and Digital Industries. He is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003), Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92 (Duke University Press, 2009) and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83 (Duke University Press, 2016). Outside of academia, Lawrence hosts his own dance party series called All Our Friends, as well as a podcast about music history called Love Is The Message.  The opening anecdote draws from Tim Lawrence's Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003).  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

The Loft was a dance party series organized by DJ David Mancuso in his Manhattan warehouse apartment at 647 Broadway from Valentine's Day 1970 to June 1974. The parties offered an alternative to New York's commercial nightclub scene. The invitation-only events featured an egalitarian space for music and dance with a top-of-the-line sound system, eclectic musical selections, and a racially inclusive and gay-friendly mix of guests. Attendees included the city's leading disc jockeys such as Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, and Frankie Knuckles, who launched their careers in next generation clubs like the Paradise Garage, The Gallery, Chicago's Warehouse, and The Saint—  all influenced by the Loft.  In the premiere episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell introduces co-host Kristie Soares, in conversation with music and dance historian Tim Lawrence, to contextualize David Mancuso's Loft. Lawrence is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London's School of Arts and Digital Industries. He is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003), Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92 (Duke University Press, 2009) and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83 (Duke University Press, 2016). Outside of academia, Lawrence hosts his own dance party series called All Our Friends, as well as a podcast about music history called Love Is The Message.  The opening anecdote draws from Tim Lawrence's Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

The Loft was a dance party series organized by DJ David Mancuso in his Manhattan warehouse apartment at 647 Broadway from Valentine's Day 1970 to June 1974. The parties offered an alternative to New York's commercial nightclub scene. The invitation-only events featured an egalitarian space for music and dance with a top-of-the-line sound system, eclectic musical selections, and a racially inclusive and gay-friendly mix of guests. Attendees included the city's leading disc jockeys such as Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, and Frankie Knuckles, who launched their careers in next generation clubs like the Paradise Garage, The Gallery, Chicago's Warehouse, and The Saint—  all influenced by the Loft.  In the premiere episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell introduces co-host Kristie Soares, in conversation with music and dance historian Tim Lawrence, to contextualize David Mancuso's Loft. Lawrence is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London's School of Arts and Digital Industries. He is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003), Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92 (Duke University Press, 2009) and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83 (Duke University Press, 2016). Outside of academia, Lawrence hosts his own dance party series called All Our Friends, as well as a podcast about music history called Love Is The Message.  The opening anecdote draws from Tim Lawrence's Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

The Loft was a dance party series organized by DJ David Mancuso in his Manhattan warehouse apartment at 647 Broadway from Valentine's Day 1970 to June 1974. The parties offered an alternative to New York's commercial nightclub scene. The invitation-only events featured an egalitarian space for music and dance with a top-of-the-line sound system, eclectic musical selections, and a racially inclusive and gay-friendly mix of guests. Attendees included the city's leading disc jockeys such as Larry Levan, Nicky Siano, and Frankie Knuckles, who launched their careers in next generation clubs like the Paradise Garage, The Gallery, Chicago's Warehouse, and The Saint—  all influenced by the Loft.  In the premiere episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell introduces co-host Kristie Soares, in conversation with music and dance historian Tim Lawrence, to contextualize David Mancuso's Loft. Lawrence is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London's School of Arts and Digital Industries. He is the author of Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003), Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92 (Duke University Press, 2009) and Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-83 (Duke University Press, 2016). Outside of academia, Lawrence hosts his own dance party series called All Our Friends, as well as a podcast about music history called Love Is The Message.  The opening anecdote draws from Tim Lawrence's Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79 (Duke University Press, 2003).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

We're traveling back to the 1930s Mississippi Delta with Sinners! Join us as we learn about fake plantation money, "Rocky Road to Dublin", Chinese-American communities in Mississippi, hoodoo, and more! Sources: John Jung, "Chinese for the South: Mississippi Delta Chinese Migration Chains," in Zhang, Wenxian, et al. Far East, Down South: Asians in the American South. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2016. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/49183. "Shaolu Yu, ""Placing Racial Triangulation, Triangulating Place and Race: Chinese Grocery Stores in the Mississippi Delta during the Jim Crow Era,"" Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 112(1) 2022, pp. 97–122" Karin Lurvink, "Strapped for Cash: Non-cash Payments on Louisiana Cotton Plantations, 1865-1908," TIJDSCHRIFT VOOR SOCIALE EN ECONOMISCHE GESCHIEDENIS 11, 3 (2014) Sonny Albarado, "The violent and racist fight against laborers' basic rights in the South," Arkansas Advocate, 2023 Katrina Hazzard-Donald, Mojo Workin': The Old African-American Hoodoo System (University of Illinois Press, 2013).  Cierra Black, "Sinners Hoodoo Consultant Talks Working with Ryan Coogler & Protecting Black Spirituality On-Screen: 'Blues Is the Music of Hoodoo'" Teen Vogue 3 May 2025.  Marcelitte Failla, ""You Deserve, Baby!": Spiritual Co-creation, Black Witches, and Feminism," The Witch Studies Reader 75-89 (Duke University Press, 2025). https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.25003747.9  Kinitra D. Brooks, "Haints, Hollers, and Hoodoo," Southern Cultures 29:4 (2023): 2-7. Zora Hurston, "Hoodoo in America," The Journal of American Folklore 44:174 (1931): 317-417. https://www.jstor.org/stable/535394  "The Rocky Road to Dublin" in Will Carleton, Will Carleton's "Dandy Pat Songster (1866). https://www.google.com/books/edition/Will_Carleton_s_Dandy_Pat_Songster/ULo-AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Rocky%20Road%20to%20Dublin%22&pg=PA59&printsec=frontcover  The Citizen (1842), https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Citizen/VYdPAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Rocky%20Road%20to%20Dublin%22&pg=PA262&printsec=frontcover  https://www.google.com/books/edition/Diprose_s_Standard_Song_Book_and_Reciter/jzJYAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Rocky%20Road%20to%20Dublin&pg=PA24&printsec=frontcover "The Rocky Road to Dublin," in The New Singer's Journal (1871) https://www.google.com/books/edition/Henry_De_Marsan_s_New_Comic_and_Sentimen/3Lk_AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Rocky%20Road%20to%20Dublin%22&pg=PA175&printsec=frontcover  The rocky road to Dublin. Image. https://www.loc.gov/item/amss-as111860/  "Along the Rocky Road to Dublin" (1915) https://egrove.olemiss.edu/sharris_c/92/  D Taylor, "'Champagne Charlie is my name': The swell, the Irish and the cockney," in From Mummers to Madness (2021).  Michael Pierse, ""A Pole of Differentiation": Pasts and Futures in Irish Working-Class Writing," Working-Class Literature(s): Historical and International Perspectives (2020).  "The Schools' Collection" folklore collected by students in Ireland from 1937-1939 https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/stories?SearchText=blackthorn&SearchLanguage=ga&Page=1&PerPage=20 https://www.myirishjeweler.com/blog/irish-folklore-the-blackthorn-and-fairies-fighting-and-harry-potter/?srsltid=AfmBOoqlYcrE-xW106rf2XlffXUu-8oyNtkuISgfqsRmUOsNFEh0g9RU  RT: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sinners_2025  Richard Brody, ""Sinners" is a Virtuosic Fusion of Historical Realism and Horror," April 17, 2025 The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/28/sinners-movie-review  Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinners_(2025_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-dollar_gross 

White noise has a very precise technical definition, but people use the term loosely, to describe all sorts of washes of sound—synthetic hums, or natural sounds like a rainstorm or crashing waves—that can be used to mask other sounds. Twenty years ago, if you'd told someone white noise was a regular part of your life, they would have found that unusual. Nowadays, it's likely they use it themselves or know someone who does. The global white noise business is valued at $1.3 billion; TikTok is full of people trumpeting its powers; and Spotify users alone listen to three million hours of it daily. Far more of these sounds already exist than any one person could need—or use. And yet, more keep coming.  Looking out at this uncanny ocean of seemingly indistinguishable noises, we wanted to see if it was possible to put a human face on it; to understand why there is so much of it, and what motivates the people trying to soothe our desperate ears with sounds you're not really supposed to hear. In this episode, you'll hear from Elan Ullendorff, who writes the illuminating Substack Escape the Algorithm; Stéphane Pigeon, founder of myNoise; Brandon Reed, who runs Dwellspring; and Mack Haygood, author of Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control and host of the podcast Phantom Power. We'd also like to thank Dan Berlau, Sarah Anderson, and Ashley Carman.  This episode was written by Katie Shepherd, Evan Chung, and Willa Paskin. It was produced by Katie Shepherd. We produce Decoder Ring with Max Freedman, and Evan is also our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Anderson, Sarah. The Lost Art of Silence: Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet, Shambhala Publications, 2023. Blum, Dani. “Can Brown Noise Turn Off Your Brain?” New York Times, Sep. 23, 2022. Carman, Ashley. “Spotify Looked to Ban White Noise Podcasts to Become More Profitable,” Bloomberg, Aug. 17, 2023.  Carman, Ashley. “Spotify to Cut Back Promotional Spending on White Noise Podcasts,” Bloomberg, Sep. 1, 2023. Hagood, Mack. Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control, Duke University Press, 2019. Pickens, Thomas A., Sara P. Khan, and Daniel J. Berlau. “White noise as a possible therapeutic option for children with ADHD,” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, Feb. 2019. Riva, Michele Augusto, Vincenzo Cimino, and Stefano Sanchirico. “Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 17th century white noise machine,” The Lancet Neurology, Oct. 2017. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White noise has a very precise technical definition, but people use the term loosely, to describe all sorts of washes of sound—synthetic hums, or natural sounds like a rainstorm or crashing waves—that can be used to mask other sounds. Twenty years ago, if you'd told someone white noise was a regular part of your life, they would have found that unusual. Nowadays, it's likely they use it themselves or know someone who does. The global white noise business is valued at $1.3 billion; TikTok is full of people trumpeting its powers; and Spotify users alone listen to three million hours of it daily. Far more of these sounds already exist than any one person could need—or use. And yet, more keep coming.  Looking out at this uncanny ocean of seemingly indistinguishable noises, we wanted to see if it was possible to put a human face on it; to understand why there is so much of it, and what motivates the people trying to soothe our desperate ears with sounds you're not really supposed to hear. In this episode, you'll hear from Elan Ullendorff, who writes the illuminating Substack Escape the Algorithm; Stéphane Pigeon, founder of myNoise; Brandon Reed, who runs Dwellspring; and Mack Haygood, author of Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control and host of the podcast Phantom Power. We'd also like to thank Dan Berlau, Sarah Anderson, and Ashley Carman.  This episode was written by Katie Shepherd, Evan Chung, and Willa Paskin. It was produced by Katie Shepherd. We produce Decoder Ring with Max Freedman, and Evan is also our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Anderson, Sarah. The Lost Art of Silence: Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet, Shambhala Publications, 2023. Blum, Dani. “Can Brown Noise Turn Off Your Brain?” New York Times, Sep. 23, 2022. Carman, Ashley. “Spotify Looked to Ban White Noise Podcasts to Become More Profitable,” Bloomberg, Aug. 17, 2023.  Carman, Ashley. “Spotify to Cut Back Promotional Spending on White Noise Podcasts,” Bloomberg, Sep. 1, 2023. Hagood, Mack. Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control, Duke University Press, 2019. Pickens, Thomas A., Sara P. Khan, and Daniel J. Berlau. “White noise as a possible therapeutic option for children with ADHD,” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, Feb. 2019. Riva, Michele Augusto, Vincenzo Cimino, and Stefano Sanchirico. “Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 17th century white noise machine,” The Lancet Neurology, Oct. 2017. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White noise has a very precise technical definition, but people use the term loosely, to describe all sorts of washes of sound—synthetic hums, or natural sounds like a rainstorm or crashing waves—that can be used to mask other sounds. Twenty years ago, if you'd told someone white noise was a regular part of your life, they would have found that unusual. Nowadays, it's likely they use it themselves or know someone who does. The global white noise business is valued at $1.3 billion; TikTok is full of people trumpeting its powers; and Spotify users alone listen to three million hours of it daily. Far more of these sounds already exist than any one person could need—or use. And yet, more keep coming.  Looking out at this uncanny ocean of seemingly indistinguishable noises, we wanted to see if it was possible to put a human face on it; to understand why there is so much of it, and what motivates the people trying to soothe our desperate ears with sounds you're not really supposed to hear. In this episode, you'll hear from Elan Ullendorff, who writes the illuminating Substack Escape the Algorithm; Stéphane Pigeon, founder of myNoise; Brandon Reed, who runs Dwellspring; and Mack Haygood, author of Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control and host of the podcast Phantom Power. We'd also like to thank Dan Berlau, Sarah Anderson, and Ashley Carman.  This episode was written by Katie Shepherd, Evan Chung, and Willa Paskin. It was produced by Katie Shepherd. We produce Decoder Ring with Max Freedman, and Evan is also our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Anderson, Sarah. The Lost Art of Silence: Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet, Shambhala Publications, 2023. Blum, Dani. “Can Brown Noise Turn Off Your Brain?” New York Times, Sep. 23, 2022. Carman, Ashley. “Spotify Looked to Ban White Noise Podcasts to Become More Profitable,” Bloomberg, Aug. 17, 2023.  Carman, Ashley. “Spotify to Cut Back Promotional Spending on White Noise Podcasts,” Bloomberg, Sep. 1, 2023. Hagood, Mack. Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control, Duke University Press, 2019. Pickens, Thomas A., Sara P. Khan, and Daniel J. Berlau. “White noise as a possible therapeutic option for children with ADHD,” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, Feb. 2019. Riva, Michele Augusto, Vincenzo Cimino, and Stefano Sanchirico. “Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 17th century white noise machine,” The Lancet Neurology, Oct. 2017. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White noise has a very precise technical definition, but people use the term loosely, to describe all sorts of washes of sound—synthetic hums, or natural sounds like a rainstorm or crashing waves—that can be used to mask other sounds. Twenty years ago, if you'd told someone white noise was a regular part of your life, they would have found that unusual. Nowadays, it's likely they use it themselves or know someone who does. The global white noise business is valued at $1.3 billion; TikTok is full of people trumpeting its powers; and Spotify users alone listen to three million hours of it daily. Far more of these sounds already exist than any one person could need—or use. And yet, more keep coming.  Looking out at this uncanny ocean of seemingly indistinguishable noises, we wanted to see if it was possible to put a human face on it; to understand why there is so much of it, and what motivates the people trying to soothe our desperate ears with sounds you're not really supposed to hear. In this episode, you'll hear from Elan Ullendorff, who writes the illuminating Substack Escape the Algorithm; Stéphane Pigeon, founder of myNoise; Brandon Reed, who runs Dwellspring; and Mack Haygood, author of Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control and host of the podcast Phantom Power. We'd also like to thank Dan Berlau, Sarah Anderson, and Ashley Carman.  This episode was written by Katie Shepherd, Evan Chung, and Willa Paskin. It was produced by Katie Shepherd. We produce Decoder Ring with Max Freedman, and Evan is also our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Anderson, Sarah. The Lost Art of Silence: Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet, Shambhala Publications, 2023. Blum, Dani. “Can Brown Noise Turn Off Your Brain?” New York Times, Sep. 23, 2022. Carman, Ashley. “Spotify Looked to Ban White Noise Podcasts to Become More Profitable,” Bloomberg, Aug. 17, 2023.  Carman, Ashley. “Spotify to Cut Back Promotional Spending on White Noise Podcasts,” Bloomberg, Sep. 1, 2023. Hagood, Mack. Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control, Duke University Press, 2019. Pickens, Thomas A., Sara P. Khan, and Daniel J. Berlau. “White noise as a possible therapeutic option for children with ADHD,” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, Feb. 2019. Riva, Michele Augusto, Vincenzo Cimino, and Stefano Sanchirico. “Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 17th century white noise machine,” The Lancet Neurology, Oct. 2017. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White noise has a very precise technical definition, but people use the term loosely, to describe all sorts of washes of sound—synthetic hums, or natural sounds like a rainstorm or crashing waves—that can be used to mask other sounds. Twenty years ago, if you'd told someone white noise was a regular part of your life, they would have found that unusual. Nowadays, it's likely they use it themselves or know someone who does. The global white noise business is valued at $1.3 billion; TikTok is full of people trumpeting its powers; and Spotify users alone listen to three million hours of it daily. Far more of these sounds already exist than any one person could need—or use. And yet, more keep coming.  Looking out at this uncanny ocean of seemingly indistinguishable noises, we wanted to see if it was possible to put a human face on it; to understand why there is so much of it, and what motivates the people trying to soothe our desperate ears with sounds you're not really supposed to hear. In this episode, you'll hear from Elan Ullendorff, who writes the illuminating Substack Escape the Algorithm; Stéphane Pigeon, founder of myNoise; Brandon Reed, who runs Dwellspring; and Mack Haygood, author of Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control and host of the podcast Phantom Power. We'd also like to thank Dan Berlau, Sarah Anderson, and Ashley Carman.  This episode was written by Katie Shepherd, Evan Chung, and Willa Paskin. It was produced by Katie Shepherd. We produce Decoder Ring with Max Freedman, and Evan is also our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Anderson, Sarah. The Lost Art of Silence: Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet, Shambhala Publications, 2023. Blum, Dani. “Can Brown Noise Turn Off Your Brain?” New York Times, Sep. 23, 2022. Carman, Ashley. “Spotify Looked to Ban White Noise Podcasts to Become More Profitable,” Bloomberg, Aug. 17, 2023.  Carman, Ashley. “Spotify to Cut Back Promotional Spending on White Noise Podcasts,” Bloomberg, Sep. 1, 2023. Hagood, Mack. Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control, Duke University Press, 2019. Pickens, Thomas A., Sara P. Khan, and Daniel J. Berlau. “White noise as a possible therapeutic option for children with ADHD,” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, Feb. 2019. Riva, Michele Augusto, Vincenzo Cimino, and Stefano Sanchirico. “Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 17th century white noise machine,” The Lancet Neurology, Oct. 2017. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emily Lim Rogers and Rouzbeh Shadpey join the podcast to talk about the history of chronic fatigue under capitalism. We explore the way in which medical knowledge reflects and enacts the need for capitalist society to monitor, measure and discipline workers before situating conditions like ME/CFS within these dynamics.   Emily Lim Rogers is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, with secondary appointments in Asian American and Diaspora Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. She has a book forthcoming with Duke University Press called Sick Work: Exhaustion, Labor, and Invisible Illness Rouzbeh Shadpey is an artist, writer, and musician. Rouzbeh has exhibited and performed at TULCA (Ireland), documenta fifteen (Germany), The Mosaic Rooms (UK), Poetry Project (New York), MUTEK (Montréal), and more. His writing appears in artistic and academic journals, including Parapraxis, Decolonial Hacker, Weird Economies, Syllabus Project, and Momus. His musical practice, under the name GOLPESAR / گلپسر , combines avant-garde electronics, guitar, spoken word, and Iranian sonics. ANTI-SELF-HELPLINE SUBMISSIONS: https://forms.gle/8npHMJmsSXjEdc8s5 JULY 10th panel information: https://www.outsavvy.com/event/28215/thinking-together-for-consolation-and-towards-liberation   SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

In Defending Rumba in Havana: The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons (Duke University Press, 2025), anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a method of Black Cuban struggle that provides the community, accountability, sustenance, and dignity that neither the state nor the expanding private market can. Berry's feminist theorization builds on the notion of the undercommons to show how rumba creates a space in which its practitioners enact deeply felt and dedicatedly defended choreographies of reciprocity, refusal, sovereignty, devotion, and pleasure, both on stage and in their daily lives. Berry demonstrates that this Black corporeal undercommons emphasizes mutual aid and refuses neoliberal development logics, favoring instead a collective self-determination rooted in African diasporic spiritual practices through which material compensation and gendered power dynamics are negotiated. By centering rumba to analyze how poor Black Cubans navigate gendered and racialized life, Berry helps readers better understand the constraints and yearnings that move diasporic Black struggles to seek refuge beyond the bounds of the nation-state. Maya J. Berry is Assistant Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

In Defending Rumba in Havana: The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons (Duke University Press, 2025), anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a method of Black Cuban struggle that provides the community, accountability, sustenance, and dignity that neither the state nor the expanding private market can. Berry's feminist theorization builds on the notion of the undercommons to show how rumba creates a space in which its practitioners enact deeply felt and dedicatedly defended choreographies of reciprocity, refusal, sovereignty, devotion, and pleasure, both on stage and in their daily lives. Berry demonstrates that this Black corporeal undercommons emphasizes mutual aid and refuses neoliberal development logics, favoring instead a collective self-determination rooted in African diasporic spiritual practices through which material compensation and gendered power dynamics are negotiated. By centering rumba to analyze how poor Black Cubans navigate gendered and racialized life, Berry helps readers better understand the constraints and yearnings that move diasporic Black struggles to seek refuge beyond the bounds of the nation-state. Maya J. Berry is Assistant Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward, eds. The Witch Studies Reader. (Duke University Press, 2025). Stories about witches are by their nature stories about the most basic and profound of human experiences—healing, sex, violence, tragedies, aging, death, and encountering the mystery and magic of the unknown. It is no surprise, then, that witches loom large in our cultural imaginations. In academia, studies of witches rarely emerge from scholars who are themselves witches and/or embedded in communities of witchcraft practitioners. The Witch Studies Reader brings together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners who examine witchcraft from a critical decolonial feminist perspective that decenters Europe and departs from exoticizing and pathologizing writing on witchcraft in the global South. The authors show how witches are keepers of suppressed knowledges, builders of new futures, exemplars of praxis, and theorists in their own right. Throughout, they account for the vastly different national, political-economic, and cultural contexts in which “the witch” is currently being claimed and repudiated. Offering a pathbreaking transnational feminist examination of witches and witchcraft that upends white supremacist, colonial, patriarchal knowledge regimes, this volume brings into being the interdisciplinary field of feminist witch studies. Contributors. Maria Amir, Ruth Asiimwe, Bernadette Barton, Ethel Brooks, Shelina Brown, Ruth Charnock, Soma Chaudhuri, Carolyn Chernoff, Saira Chhibber, Simon Clay, Krystal Cleary, Adrianna L. Ernstberger, Tina Escaja, Laurie Essig, Marcelitte Failla, D Ferrett, Marion Goldman, Jaime Hartless, Margaretha Haughwout, Patricia Humura, Apoorvaa Joshi, Govind Kelkar, Oliver Kellhammer, Ayça Kurtoğlu, Helen Macdonald, Isabel Machado, Brandy Renee McCann, Dev Nathan, Mary Jo Neitz, Amy Nichols-Belo, Allison (or AP) Pierce, Emma Quilty, Anna Rogel, Karen Schaller, Jacquelyn Marie Shannon, Shashank Shekhar Sinha, Gabriella V. Smith, Nathan Snaza, Shannon Hughes Spence, Eric Steinhart, Morena Tartari, Nicole Trigg, Katie Von Wald, Tushabe wa Tushabe, Jane Ward 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

Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward, eds. The Witch Studies Reader. (Duke University Press, 2025). Stories about witches are by their nature stories about the most basic and profound of human experiences—healing, sex, violence, tragedies, aging, death, and encountering the mystery and magic of the unknown. It is no surprise, then, that witches loom large in our cultural imaginations. In academia, studies of witches rarely emerge from scholars who are themselves witches and/or embedded in communities of witchcraft practitioners. The Witch Studies Reader brings together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners who examine witchcraft from a critical decolonial feminist perspective that decenters Europe and departs from exoticizing and pathologizing writing on witchcraft in the global South. The authors show how witches are keepers of suppressed knowledges, builders of new futures, exemplars of praxis, and theorists in their own right. Throughout, they account for the vastly different national, political-economic, and cultural contexts in which “the witch” is currently being claimed and repudiated. Offering a pathbreaking transnational feminist examination of witches and witchcraft that upends white supremacist, colonial, patriarchal knowledge regimes, this volume brings into being the interdisciplinary field of feminist witch studies. Contributors. Maria Amir, Ruth Asiimwe, Bernadette Barton, Ethel Brooks, Shelina Brown, Ruth Charnock, Soma Chaudhuri, Carolyn Chernoff, Saira Chhibber, Simon Clay, Krystal Cleary, Adrianna L. Ernstberger, Tina Escaja, Laurie Essig, Marcelitte Failla, D Ferrett, Marion Goldman, Jaime Hartless, Margaretha Haughwout, Patricia Humura, Apoorvaa Joshi, Govind Kelkar, Oliver Kellhammer, Ayça Kurtoğlu, Helen Macdonald, Isabel Machado, Brandy Renee McCann, Dev Nathan, Mary Jo Neitz, Amy Nichols-Belo, Allison (or AP) Pierce, Emma Quilty, Anna Rogel, Karen Schaller, Jacquelyn Marie Shannon, Shashank Shekhar Sinha, Gabriella V. Smith, Nathan Snaza, Shannon Hughes Spence, Eric Steinhart, Morena Tartari, Nicole Trigg, Katie Von Wald, Tushabe wa Tushabe, Jane Ward Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward, eds. The Witch Studies Reader. (Duke University Press, 2025). Stories about witches are by their nature stories about the most basic and profound of human experiences—healing, sex, violence, tragedies, aging, death, and encountering the mystery and magic of the unknown. It is no surprise, then, that witches loom large in our cultural imaginations. In academia, studies of witches rarely emerge from scholars who are themselves witches and/or embedded in communities of witchcraft practitioners. The Witch Studies Reader brings together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners who examine witchcraft from a critical decolonial feminist perspective that decenters Europe and departs from exoticizing and pathologizing writing on witchcraft in the global South. The authors show how witches are keepers of suppressed knowledges, builders of new futures, exemplars of praxis, and theorists in their own right. Throughout, they account for the vastly different national, political-economic, and cultural contexts in which “the witch” is currently being claimed and repudiated. Offering a pathbreaking transnational feminist examination of witches and witchcraft that upends white supremacist, colonial, patriarchal knowledge regimes, this volume brings into being the interdisciplinary field of feminist witch studies. Contributors. Maria Amir, Ruth Asiimwe, Bernadette Barton, Ethel Brooks, Shelina Brown, Ruth Charnock, Soma Chaudhuri, Carolyn Chernoff, Saira Chhibber, Simon Clay, Krystal Cleary, Adrianna L. Ernstberger, Tina Escaja, Laurie Essig, Marcelitte Failla, D Ferrett, Marion Goldman, Jaime Hartless, Margaretha Haughwout, Patricia Humura, Apoorvaa Joshi, Govind Kelkar, Oliver Kellhammer, Ayça Kurtoğlu, Helen Macdonald, Isabel Machado, Brandy Renee McCann, Dev Nathan, Mary Jo Neitz, Amy Nichols-Belo, Allison (or AP) Pierce, Emma Quilty, Anna Rogel, Karen Schaller, Jacquelyn Marie Shannon, Shashank Shekhar Sinha, Gabriella V. Smith, Nathan Snaza, Shannon Hughes Spence, Eric Steinhart, Morena Tartari, Nicole Trigg, Katie Von Wald, Tushabe wa Tushabe, Jane Ward Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Michael speaks with Maron Greenleaf, assistant professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College. They discuss Maron's recently published book, Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon, in which she examines a set of carbon offset programs in the Brazilian state of Acre. Unlike traditional forest commodities that require extraction, carbon offsets monetize forest protection by paying communities to keep carbon stored in standing trees. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Maron describes how forest carbon markets and offsets can be unexpectedly inclusive, providing economic opportunities for marginalized communities, while simultaneously reinforcing some of the inequalities they claim to address. Maron uses this study to illuminate broader questions about whether market-based solutions can effectively address environmental crises. Her work suggests that while green capitalism offers compelling possibilities for reconciling economic growth with environmental protection, it also reproduces some of the structural problems inherent in capitalist systems. References:   Maron's website: https://www.marongreenleaf.com/forest-lost   Greenleaf, M. (2024). Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon. Duke University  Press. https://dukeupress.edu/forest-lost   Ferguson, J. (1994). The anti-politics machine:'development', depoliticization and bureaucratic power in  Lesotho. University of Minnesota Press.   Ferguson, J. (2015). Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution. Duke University Press.

In Struggles for the Human: Violent Legality and the Politics of Rights (Duke University Press 2024), Lara Montesinos Coleman blends ethnography, political philosophy, and critical theory to reorient debates on human rights through attention to understandings of legality, ethics, and humanity in anticapitalist and decolonial struggle. Drawing on her extensive involvement with grassroots social movements in Colombia, Coleman observes that mainstream expressions of human rights have become counterparts to capitalist violence, even as this discourse disavows capitalism's deadly implications. She rejects claims that human rights are inherently tied to capitalism, liberalism, or colonialism, instead showing how human rights can be used to combat these forces. Coleman demonstrates that social justice struggles that are rooted in marginalized communities' lived experiences can reframe human rights in order to challenge oppressive power structures and offer a blueprint for constructing alternative political economies. By examining the practice of redefining human rights away from abstract universals and contextualizing them within concrete struggles for justice, Coleman reveals the transformative potential of human rights and invites readers to question and reshape dominant legal and ethical narratives. Lara Montesinos Coleman is Professor of International Law, Ethics and Political Economy at the University of Sussex, where she also teaches on the MA in Human Rights. She is author of Struggles for the Human: Violent Legality and the Politics of Rights, published by Duke University Press in 2024 and shortlisted for the Susan Strange Best Book Prize, awarded for an outstanding book published in any field of International Studies. Tim Wyman-McCarthy is a Lecturer in the discipline of Human Rights and Associate Director of Graduate Studies at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. He can be reached at tw2468@columbia.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon (2024) is an ethnography of forest carbon offsets and the wider effort to make the living rainforest valuable in the Brazilian Amazon. Situated in the state of Acre, which continuously had to grapple with a complex positionality between frontier and periphery, Maron E. Greenleaf explores forest carbon offset to understand green capitalism. Commodifying forest carbon offset requires keeping carbon in place through forest protection and valuation, unlike other forest commodities – for example Açaí berries, which also feature in the ethnography – that involve extraction. Initially set out to do a supply chain analysis, Greenleaf instead wrote a well-thought-out account disentangling the relationships at play in a place which at the time was celebrated for being ‘a leader in forest- focused development', through tracing the complexity of the uneven, contingent and contesting cultural, material and multispecies relations involved in making forest carbon valuable. At the same time, she illustrates how forest carbon's commodification turned it into a source of redistributable public environmental wealth and how green capitalism can also reinforce just the marginalization it seeks to combat. By outlining these complex relations and tensions, Greenleaf elucidates broader efforts to create a capitalism suited to the Anthropocene and those efforts' alluring promises and vexing failures. Mentioned in this episode: Anand, Nikhil. Hydraulic City : Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai. Duke University Press, 2017. Appadurai, Arjun, et al. The Social Life of Things : Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Edited by Arjun Appadurai, Cambridge University Press, 1986. Holston, James. Insurgent Citizenship : Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton University Press, 2008. Maron E. Greenleaf is a cultural anthropologist, political ecologist and legal scholar and currently Assistant Professor at the Anthropology Department at Dartmouth. She is interested in how human and more-than-human relationships are shaped through efforts linked to environmental crisis. Her topics of interest include landscapes, green economies, environmental justice and land rights. Olivia Bianchi is a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford, currently finishing the MSc program in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology. Her interests include anthropological inquiries into materials, especially textiles, as well as the topics of sustainability and waste more generally. 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

Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon (2024) is an ethnography of forest carbon offsets and the wider effort to make the living rainforest valuable in the Brazilian Amazon. Situated in the state of Acre, which continuously had to grapple with a complex positionality between frontier and periphery, Maron E. Greenleaf explores forest carbon offset to understand green capitalism. Commodifying forest carbon offset requires keeping carbon in place through forest protection and valuation, unlike other forest commodities – for example Açaí berries, which also feature in the ethnography – that involve extraction. Initially set out to do a supply chain analysis, Greenleaf instead wrote a well-thought-out account disentangling the relationships at play in a place which at the time was celebrated for being ‘a leader in forest- focused development', through tracing the complexity of the uneven, contingent and contesting cultural, material and multispecies relations involved in making forest carbon valuable. At the same time, she illustrates how forest carbon's commodification turned it into a source of redistributable public environmental wealth and how green capitalism can also reinforce just the marginalization it seeks to combat. By outlining these complex relations and tensions, Greenleaf elucidates broader efforts to create a capitalism suited to the Anthropocene and those efforts' alluring promises and vexing failures. Mentioned in this episode: Anand, Nikhil. Hydraulic City : Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai. Duke University Press, 2017. Appadurai, Arjun, et al. The Social Life of Things : Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Edited by Arjun Appadurai, Cambridge University Press, 1986. Holston, James. Insurgent Citizenship : Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton University Press, 2008. Maron E. Greenleaf is a cultural anthropologist, political ecologist and legal scholar and currently Assistant Professor at the Anthropology Department at Dartmouth. She is interested in how human and more-than-human relationships are shaped through efforts linked to environmental crisis. Her topics of interest include landscapes, green economies, environmental justice and land rights. Olivia Bianchi is a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford, currently finishing the MSc program in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology. Her interests include anthropological inquiries into materials, especially textiles, as well as the topics of sustainability and waste more generally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latin-american-studies

In Struggles for the Human: Violent Legality and the Politics of Rights (Duke University Press 2024), Lara Montesinos Coleman blends ethnography, political philosophy, and critical theory to reorient debates on human rights through attention to understandings of legality, ethics, and humanity in anticapitalist and decolonial struggle. Drawing on her extensive involvement with grassroots social movements in Colombia, Coleman observes that mainstream expressions of human rights have become counterparts to capitalist violence, even as this discourse disavows capitalism's deadly implications. She rejects claims that human rights are inherently tied to capitalism, liberalism, or colonialism, instead showing how human rights can be used to combat these forces. Coleman demonstrates that social justice struggles that are rooted in marginalized communities' lived experiences can reframe human rights in order to challenge oppressive power structures and offer a blueprint for constructing alternative political economies. By examining the practice of redefining human rights away from abstract universals and contextualizing them within concrete struggles for justice, Coleman reveals the transformative potential of human rights and invites readers to question and reshape dominant legal and ethical narratives. Lara Montesinos Coleman is Professor of International Law, Ethics and Political Economy at the University of Sussex, where she also teaches on the MA in Human Rights. She is author of Struggles for the Human: Violent Legality and the Politics of Rights, published by Duke University Press in 2024 and shortlisted for the Susan Strange Best Book Prize, awarded for an outstanding book published in any field of International Studies. Tim Wyman-McCarthy is a Lecturer in the discipline of Human Rights and Associate Director of Graduate Studies at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. He can be reached at tw2468@columbia.edu. 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

Products often tell you exactly how they're intended to be used. But why leave it at that? As a culture, we have long had a knack for finding ingenious, off-label uses for things. In this episode, we take a close look at a few examples of products that are ostensibly meant for one thing, but are better known for something else entirely. We explore Q-tips, which we are explicitly told not to put into our ears; the Hitachi Magic Wand, the iconic sex toy marketed as a body massager; the musical washboard; and the children's electrolyte solution Pedialyte that many adults swear by as a hangover cure. You'll hear from Hallie Lieberman, author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy; Jacqui Barnett of the Columbus Washboard Company; Christopher Wilson, curator and chair of the Division of Home and Community Life at the Smithsonian; musician and educator Súle Greg Wilson; zydeco musicians C.J. Chenier and Steve Nash; Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure; as well as writers Roberto Ferdman, Dan Brooks, and Kaitlyn Tiffany. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. We had additional production from Sofie Kodner. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Special thanks to Kate Sloan, Dr. Carol Queen, Bryony Cole, Amber Singer, Molly Born, Laura Selikson, and Nell McShane Wulfhart. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Bishop-Stall, Shaughnessy. Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure, Penguin, 2018. Brooks, Dan. “Letter of Recommendation: Pedialyte,” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 26, 2017. Comella, Lynn. Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure, Duke University Press, 2017. Dodson, Betty. “Having Sex with Machines: The Return of the Electric Vibrator,” Dodson and Ross, June 9, 2010. Feran, Tim. “Pedialyte Is Not Just For Kids,” Columbus Dispatch, July 19, 2015. Ferdman, Roberto A. “The strange life of Q-tips, the most bizarre thing people buy,” Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2016. Kushner, David. “Inside Orgasmatron,” Village Voice, March 26, 1999. Lieberman, Hallie. Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, Pegasus Books, 2017. Lieberman, Hallie. “Selling Sex Toys: Marketing and the Meaning of Vibrators in Early Twentieth-Century America,” Enterprise & Society, June 2016. Russel, Ruth. “Hangover Remedies? I'll Drink to That!,” Idaho Statesman, Jan. 1, 1978. Sloan, Kate. Making Magic, 2024. Tiffany, Kaitlyn. “How Pedialyte got Pedialit,” Vox, Sep. 10, 2018. Williams, Dell. “The Roots of the Garden,” Journal of Sex Research, August 1990. Wulfhart, Nell McShane. “The Best Hangover Cure,” Slate, Aug. 29, 2013. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Products often tell you exactly how they're intended to be used. But why leave it at that? As a culture, we have long had a knack for finding ingenious, off-label uses for things. In this episode, we take a close look at a few examples of products that are ostensibly meant for one thing, but are better known for something else entirely. We explore Q-tips, which we are explicitly told not to put into our ears; the Hitachi Magic Wand, the iconic sex toy marketed as a body massager; the musical washboard; and the children's electrolyte solution Pedialyte that many adults swear by as a hangover cure. You'll hear from Hallie Lieberman, author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy; Jacqui Barnett of the Columbus Washboard Company; Christopher Wilson, curator and chair of the Division of Home and Community Life at the Smithsonian; musician and educator Súle Greg Wilson; zydeco musicians C.J. Chenier and Steve Nash; Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure; as well as writers Roberto Ferdman, Dan Brooks, and Kaitlyn Tiffany. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. We had additional production from Sofie Kodner. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Special thanks to Kate Sloan, Dr. Carol Queen, Bryony Cole, Amber Singer, Molly Born, Laura Selikson, and Nell McShane Wulfhart. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Bishop-Stall, Shaughnessy. Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure, Penguin, 2018. Brooks, Dan. “Letter of Recommendation: Pedialyte,” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 26, 2017. Comella, Lynn. Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure, Duke University Press, 2017. Dodson, Betty. “Having Sex with Machines: The Return of the Electric Vibrator,” Dodson and Ross, June 9, 2010. Feran, Tim. “Pedialyte Is Not Just For Kids,” Columbus Dispatch, July 19, 2015. Ferdman, Roberto A. “The strange life of Q-tips, the most bizarre thing people buy,” Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2016. Kushner, David. “Inside Orgasmatron,” Village Voice, March 26, 1999. Lieberman, Hallie. Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, Pegasus Books, 2017. Lieberman, Hallie. “Selling Sex Toys: Marketing and the Meaning of Vibrators in Early Twentieth-Century America,” Enterprise & Society, June 2016. Russel, Ruth. “Hangover Remedies? I'll Drink to That!,” Idaho Statesman, Jan. 1, 1978. Sloan, Kate. Making Magic, 2024. Tiffany, Kaitlyn. “How Pedialyte got Pedialit,” Vox, Sep. 10, 2018. Williams, Dell. “The Roots of the Garden,” Journal of Sex Research, August 1990. Wulfhart, Nell McShane. “The Best Hangover Cure,” Slate, Aug. 29, 2013. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Products often tell you exactly how they're intended to be used. But why leave it at that? As a culture, we have long had a knack for finding ingenious, off-label uses for things. In this episode, we take a close look at a few examples of products that are ostensibly meant for one thing, but are better known for something else entirely. We explore Q-tips, which we are explicitly told not to put into our ears; the Hitachi Magic Wand, the iconic sex toy marketed as a body massager; the musical washboard; and the children's electrolyte solution Pedialyte that many adults swear by as a hangover cure. You'll hear from Hallie Lieberman, author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy; Jacqui Barnett of the Columbus Washboard Company; Christopher Wilson, curator and chair of the Division of Home and Community Life at the Smithsonian; musician and educator Súle Greg Wilson; zydeco musicians C.J. Chenier and Steve Nash; Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure; as well as writers Roberto Ferdman, Dan Brooks, and Kaitlyn Tiffany. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. We had additional production from Sofie Kodner. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Special thanks to Kate Sloan, Dr. Carol Queen, Bryony Cole, Amber Singer, Molly Born, Laura Selikson, and Nell McShane Wulfhart. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Bishop-Stall, Shaughnessy. Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure, Penguin, 2018. Brooks, Dan. “Letter of Recommendation: Pedialyte,” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 26, 2017. Comella, Lynn. Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure, Duke University Press, 2017. Dodson, Betty. “Having Sex with Machines: The Return of the Electric Vibrator,” Dodson and Ross, June 9, 2010. Feran, Tim. “Pedialyte Is Not Just For Kids,” Columbus Dispatch, July 19, 2015. Ferdman, Roberto A. “The strange life of Q-tips, the most bizarre thing people buy,” Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2016. Kushner, David. “Inside Orgasmatron,” Village Voice, March 26, 1999. Lieberman, Hallie. Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, Pegasus Books, 2017. Lieberman, Hallie. “Selling Sex Toys: Marketing and the Meaning of Vibrators in Early Twentieth-Century America,” Enterprise & Society, June 2016. Russel, Ruth. “Hangover Remedies? I'll Drink to That!,” Idaho Statesman, Jan. 1, 1978. Sloan, Kate. Making Magic, 2024. Tiffany, Kaitlyn. “How Pedialyte got Pedialit,” Vox, Sep. 10, 2018. Williams, Dell. “The Roots of the Garden,” Journal of Sex Research, August 1990. Wulfhart, Nell McShane. “The Best Hangover Cure,” Slate, Aug. 29, 2013. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Products often tell you exactly how they're intended to be used. But why leave it at that? As a culture, we have long had a knack for finding ingenious, off-label uses for things. In this episode, we take a close look at a few examples of products that are ostensibly meant for one thing, but are better known for something else entirely. We explore Q-tips, which we are explicitly told not to put into our ears; the Hitachi Magic Wand, the iconic sex toy marketed as a body massager; the musical washboard; and the children's electrolyte solution Pedialyte that many adults swear by as a hangover cure. You'll hear from Hallie Lieberman, author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy; Jacqui Barnett of the Columbus Washboard Company; Christopher Wilson, curator and chair of the Division of Home and Community Life at the Smithsonian; musician and educator Súle Greg Wilson; zydeco musicians C.J. Chenier and Steve Nash; Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure; as well as writers Roberto Ferdman, Dan Brooks, and Kaitlyn Tiffany. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring's supervising producer. We had additional production from Sofie Kodner. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Special thanks to Kate Sloan, Dr. Carol Queen, Bryony Cole, Amber Singer, Molly Born, Laura Selikson, and Nell McShane Wulfhart. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com, or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Bishop-Stall, Shaughnessy. Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure, Penguin, 2018. Brooks, Dan. “Letter of Recommendation: Pedialyte,” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 26, 2017. Comella, Lynn. Vibrator Nation: How Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the Business of Pleasure, Duke University Press, 2017. Dodson, Betty. “Having Sex with Machines: The Return of the Electric Vibrator,” Dodson and Ross, June 9, 2010. Feran, Tim. “Pedialyte Is Not Just For Kids,” Columbus Dispatch, July 19, 2015. Ferdman, Roberto A. “The strange life of Q-tips, the most bizarre thing people buy,” Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2016. Kushner, David. “Inside Orgasmatron,” Village Voice, March 26, 1999. Lieberman, Hallie. Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, Pegasus Books, 2017. Lieberman, Hallie. “Selling Sex Toys: Marketing and the Meaning of Vibrators in Early Twentieth-Century America,” Enterprise & Society, June 2016. Russel, Ruth. “Hangover Remedies? I'll Drink to That!,” Idaho Statesman, Jan. 1, 1978. Sloan, Kate. Making Magic, 2024. Tiffany, Kaitlyn. “How Pedialyte got Pedialit,” Vox, Sep. 10, 2018. Williams, Dell. “The Roots of the Garden,” Journal of Sex Research, August 1990. Wulfhart, Nell McShane. “The Best Hangover Cure,” Slate, Aug. 29, 2013. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's post-Roe v. Wade world, U.S. maternal mortality is on the rise and laws regarding contraception, involuntary sterilization, access to reproductive health services, and criminalization of people who are gestating are changing by the minute. Today I'm joined by Dr. Caitlin Killian, the editor of and one of the contributors to a new book from Bloomsbury Academic, Understanding Reproduction in Social Contexts: A Reader. I'm also pleased to host two of the chapter authors, Drs. Nancy Hiemstra and Jaya Keaney. Using a reproductive justice framework, Understanding Reproduction in Social Contexts walks students through the social landscape around reproduction through the life course. Chapters by cutting-edge reproductive scholars, practitioners, and advocates address the social control of fertility and pregnancy, the promises and perils of assisted reproductive technologies, experiences of pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, and birth, and how individuals make sense of and respond to the cultural, social, and political forces that condition their reproductive lives. The book takes an intersectional approach and considers how gender, sexuality, fatness, disability, class, race, and immigration status impact both an individual's health and the healthcare they receive. The reader includes timely topics such as increased legal limitations on abortion, transpeople and reproduction, and new developments in assisted reproduction and family formation. The book can support undergraduate and graduate courses on families, gender, public health, reproduction, and sexuality – and I'm pleased to have contributed a chapter. Dr. Caitlin Killian is a Professor of Sociology at Drew University specializing in gender, families, reproduction, and immigration. We featured her book, Failing Moms: Social Condemnation and Criminalization of Mothers (Polity 2023) previously on New Books Network. Her articles have appeared in Contexts magazine and The Conversation, as well as numerous academic journals, and she has done work for the United Nations on sexual and reproductive health and rights and on Syrian refugee women Dr. Nancy Hiemstra is a political, cultural, and feminist geographer and Associate Professor in the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University. Her scholarship focuses on how border and immigration policies shape patterns and consequences of human mobility. Her 2019 book Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime examined the U.S. detention and deportation system, and her forthcoming book (with Deirdre Conlon) Immigration Detention Inc: The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants scrutinizes how profit making goals drive the expanding use of detention. Dr Jaya Keaney is Lecturer in Gender Studies in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She writes, researches, and teaches in the fields of feminist technoscience, queer and feminist theory, and cultural studies. Her research across these fields explores reproduction, racism, and queer feminist practices of embodiment and inheritance. Jaya is the author of Making Gaybies: Queer Reproduction and Multiracial Feeling (Duke University Press, 2023), which was a finalist for the 2024 Rachel Carson Prize. Her writing has also appeared in journals such as Body and Society, Science Technology & Human Values, and the Duke University Press edited collection Long Term: Essays on Queer Commitment (2021). Mentioned: Susan's interview with Caitlin on Failing Moms: The Social Condemnation and Criminalization of Mothers (Polity, 2024). 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

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. The President of Argentina's Meme Coin Scandal How Trump is Changing Trans Healthcare Textbooks and Holy Books feat. Steven Moncelli & Dr. Michael Phillips Democratic Insiders Are Sharing A Warning About Curtis Yarvin, Elon Musk & Neoreactionaries Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #5 You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzone Sources/Links: The President of Argentina's Meme Coin Scandal https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-77/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-main-stock-index-falls-after-milei-crypto-scandal-2025-02-17/ https://crimethinc.com/2024/06/17/six-months-in-a-neoliberal-dystopia-social-cannibalism-versus-mutual-aid-and-resistance-in-argentina Textbooks and Holy Books feat. Steven Moncelli & Dr. Michael Phillips Dana Goldstein, “Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories,” New York Times, January 12, 2020. Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015.) James W. Loewen, Lies My History Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.) Alan Nadel, Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995.) Michael Phillips, White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2011 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.) Democratic Insiders Are Sharing A Warning About Curtis Yarvin, Elon Musk & Neoreactionaries https://shatterzone.substack.com/p/democratic-insiders-are-sharing-a Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #5 https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-reins-in-independent-agencies-to-restore-a-government-that-answers-to-the-american-people/ https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/02/trump-signs-order-declaring-only-president-and-ag-can-interpret-us-law-for-executive-branch/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid/ https://pages.devex.com/rs/685-KBL-765/images/109160-memo.pdf?version=0 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277336/gov.uscourts.dcd.277336.21.0_7.pdf https://www.one.org/us/what-we-do/the-issues/foreign-assistance-pause-faq/ https://mutualaidsudan.org/ https://www.state.gov/emergency-humanitarian-waiver-to-foreign-assistance-pause/ https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/USAID%20OIG%20-%20Oversight%20of%20USAID-Funded%20Humanitarian%20Assistance%20Programming%20021025.pdf https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7x87ev5jyo https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-fifth-preference-eb-5/about-the-eb-5-visa-classification https://www.npr.org/2025/02/24/nx-s1-5306990/dan-bongino-fbi-deputy-director https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/new-fbi-director-kash-patel-plans-relocate-1500-119064886 https://www.dailyuw.com/news/washington-state-congressional-candidate-set-to-lead-counterterrorism-center/article_251db152-f32f-11ef-b56b-d7ae1ea3885f.html https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/fbi-kash-patel-antifa-blm-terror-groups https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/24/neo-nazi-trump-fbi-chief See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.