Podcasts about massachusetts amherst

Episode 357 features author Rob Weir, who discusses his book 7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle — Legend and Victim of American Culture and takes us behind the myth of one of baseball's most iconic figures. We also revisit our memorable interview with barbecue legends Moe Cason and Bob Trudnak. Rob Weir holds a PhD in American social history and is a retired University of Massachusetts Amherst professor.  He is the author of the book, 7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle - Legend and Victim of American Culture.  Weir's lifelong fascination with Mantle began when he was five years old. That personal connection, combined with his academic training, provides the foundation for 7 Swings at 7 and his exploration of why Mickey Mantle continues to fascinate generations of baseball fans. Mickey Mantle remains one of the most fascinating and complicated figures in baseball history. He was a Yankees superstar, a three-time MVP, a seven-time World Series champion, and one of the most celebrated athletes of the 1950s and 1960s. But behind the legendary home runs, incredible speed, and larger-than-life image was a man whose life was shaped by injuries, expectations, personal struggles, and the enormous cultural forces surrounding him. Moe Cason AKA Big Moe is an award winning pitmaster who has toiled for many years creating his well respected brand, Moe Cason Barbeque and his instantly recognizable, Big Moe persona.  Moe is a television personality, cookbook author, and a Navy veteran.  He has been featured in national television segments, including Steve Harvey's and Harry Connick Jr.'s talk shows and had his own segment on NatGeo's World of Flavor.  For more information on Big Moe Cason and to purchase his products go to  https://moecasonbbq.com/ Bob Trudnak has loved barbecue since the age of seven, when his dad placed him "in charge" of putting charcoal in the grill and from that day forward he was hooked.  In 1999, Bob helped co-found the company, BBQ Guru.  He is an award winning competive pitmaster.  Beyond competitions, he is a renowned judge and instructor, having hosted hundreds of in-person and virtual barbecue classes.  He is the creator of BBQ Bob's Sauces and BobbyT's Pizza Products.  His latest accomplishment is winning season seven of BBQ Brawl on the Food Network to become the Master of 'Cue.  For more information on Bob Trudnak go to https://bobtrudnakbbq.com/ We recommend you go to Rogue Cookers website, https://roguecookers.com/ for award-winning rubs, Chef Ray Sheehan's website, https://www.raysheehan.com/ for award-winning saucess, rubs, and cookbooks, Baseball BBQ, https://baseballbbq.com for special grilling tools and accessories, Magnechef https://magnechef.com/ for excellent and unique barbecue gloves,  Mantis BBQ, https://mantisbbq.com/ to purchase their outstanding sauces with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the Kidney Project, and for exceptional sauces, Elda's Kitchen https://eldaskitchen.com/ To team up against prostate cancer go to https://fansforthecure.org/ for Fans for the Cure, and to subscribe to Bill Chuck's newsletter, Billy-Ball go to  https://billchuck.substack.com/    We conclude the show with the song, Baseball Always Brings You Home from the musician, Dave Dresser and the poet, Shel Krakofsky. If you would like to contact the show, we would love to hear from you. Call the show:  (516) 855-8214 Email:  baseballandbbq@gmail.com Twitter:  @baseballandbbq Instagram:  baseballandbarbecue YouTube:  baseball and bbq Website:  https//baseballandbbq.weebly.com Facebook:  baseball and bbq       Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rachel Pigott works as an occupational therapist and serves as the Director of the Hand Therapy Fellowship at Johns Hopkins. In 1999, she received her bachelor's in occupational therapy from Towson State University and in 2016 she completed her Master's in Public Health at The University of Massachusetts Amherst. Rachel is both a certified hand therapist and certified lymphedema therapist. She has served on a volunteer basis with the American Society of Hand Therapists since 2009 and currently serves on the ASHT DEI Committee, ASHT Independent Finance Committee, and as the ASHT Annual Meeting Chair. Rachel is also a past president of ASHT. Rachel's preferred pronouns are she/her/hers. She has presented on various topics in hand and upper extremity rehabilitation including arthritis, wrist instability, fractures, trauma, patient centered care, orthotics, anatomy of the wrist, gender affirming care for the upper body, and lymphedema management and prevention related to breast cancer related lymphedema.Guest Bio: Rob McClellan has 23 years of experience working in hand and upper limb rehabilitation. He is an active member of the American Society of Hand Therapists serving on the Board of Directors as Secretary/Treasurer, and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. He is an active member of the American Association for Hand Surgery and is a past President of the Georgia Hand and Upper Extremity Special Interest Group. Rob is the Hand Program Coordinator for Physio/ Select Medical in Georgia-The views and opinions expressed in the Hands in Motion podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ASHT. Appearance on the podcast does not imply endorsement of any products, services or viewpoints discussed.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are Stuart Rice Honorary Chair at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University Fran Berman, a senior fellow and faculty member in the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College. She is the President of Beyond Plastics and former EPA Regional Administrator. Judith is co-author of the book 'The Problem with Plastic' Judith Enck, a full professor in the History Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) Allison Kavey, and Diplomat in Residence at Bard College. She retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2025 after over 30 years in public service. Her last post was ambassador to the SE Asian country, Timor-Leste Donna Welton.

Here's your chance to listen to a firsthand account of one of the most horrible parts of our recent human history, and how we stop it from happening again. This episode features a conversation with a psychologist whose life's work sits at the intersection of two of humanity's most extreme capacities: the capacity for cruelty, and the capacity for courage.  A survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary, hiding in Budapest as a six-year-old, he became a leading researcher on the psychology of genocide, group violence, and altruism - work that has shaped police training programs on "active bystandership," informed reconciliation efforts in Rwanda, and produced decades of research on what leads ordinary people to help others, even at personal risk. What to Listen for:  Small early experiences compound. How children are raised - with warmth, responsiveness, and consistent values - can shape whether they grow toward caring or toward hostility, on both an individual and societal level. Responsibility, not just empathy, drives action. Empathy alone doesn't reliably produce helping behavior - a felt sense of responsibility for someone else's welfare, paired with a belief that you can actually make a difference, is what moves people to act. Bystanders can be trained to become "active bystanders." This isn't just theory - it's the basis of real police and school training programs designed to help people intervene safely when they see harm happening. "Blind patriotism" vs. "constructive patriotism" is a useful lens for understanding how loyalty to a group, a leader, or a country can either enable harm or serve as a check against it. Violence - and caring - escalate gradually. Small unaddressed moments of hostility or dehumanization tend to compound over time, in families, institutions, and nations alike. Personal history and professional work aren't separate. The guest's own childhood experience of hiding from persecution, and the people who risked their lives to protect his family, directly shaped decades of research into what makes rescuers different from bystanders. About Ervin Staub Professor Emeritus of Psychology and founding director of the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary as a young child, he has spent his career researching the roots of genocide, mass violence, and altruism — including fieldwork in Rwanda, expert witness work related to the Abu Ghraib trials, and the design of active-bystandership training programs now used by police departments across the country.

Today's guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater's spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure to claim interpretive control over unfamiliar places and people. The book goes on to link colonial misreadings of places and people to theatrical strategies for staging disorientation, which Pirri characterizes as a condition of “unsettlement.” Each chapter focuses on a specific formal device that emerged from colonial misreadings: “uncommonplacing” in Richard Hakluyt's travel compendium; metonymic possession in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine; “seasoning” in Ben Jonson's city comedies; “stagewreck” in Shakespeare's The Tempest; and “stagework” in the Lord Mayor's Shows. By approaching form as an interpretive process that is always engaged in the act of making and being made, Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form offers a model for reading past the seeming impasses of colonial narratives. It shows how narratives of failed settlement served as a productive resources for the formal worldmaking conventions of early modern theater. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. 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

Today's guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater's spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure to claim interpretive control over unfamiliar places and people. The book goes on to link colonial misreadings of places and people to theatrical strategies for staging disorientation, which Pirri characterizes as a condition of “unsettlement.” Each chapter focuses on a specific formal device that emerged from colonial misreadings: “uncommonplacing” in Richard Hakluyt's travel compendium; metonymic possession in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine; “seasoning” in Ben Jonson's city comedies; “stagewreck” in Shakespeare's The Tempest; and “stagework” in the Lord Mayor's Shows. By approaching form as an interpretive process that is always engaged in the act of making and being made, Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form offers a model for reading past the seeming impasses of colonial narratives. It shows how narratives of failed settlement served as a productive resources for the formal worldmaking conventions of early modern theater. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Today's guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater's spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure to claim interpretive control over unfamiliar places and people. The book goes on to link colonial misreadings of places and people to theatrical strategies for staging disorientation, which Pirri characterizes as a condition of “unsettlement.” Each chapter focuses on a specific formal device that emerged from colonial misreadings: “uncommonplacing” in Richard Hakluyt's travel compendium; metonymic possession in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine; “seasoning” in Ben Jonson's city comedies; “stagewreck” in Shakespeare's The Tempest; and “stagework” in the Lord Mayor's Shows. By approaching form as an interpretive process that is always engaged in the act of making and being made, Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form offers a model for reading past the seeming impasses of colonial narratives. It shows how narratives of failed settlement served as a productive resources for the formal worldmaking conventions of early modern theater. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Today's guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater's spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure to claim interpretive control over unfamiliar places and people. The book goes on to link colonial misreadings of places and people to theatrical strategies for staging disorientation, which Pirri characterizes as a condition of “unsettlement.” Each chapter focuses on a specific formal device that emerged from colonial misreadings: “uncommonplacing” in Richard Hakluyt's travel compendium; metonymic possession in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine; “seasoning” in Ben Jonson's city comedies; “stagewreck” in Shakespeare's The Tempest; and “stagework” in the Lord Mayor's Shows. By approaching form as an interpretive process that is always engaged in the act of making and being made, Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form offers a model for reading past the seeming impasses of colonial narratives. It shows how narratives of failed settlement served as a productive resources for the formal worldmaking conventions of early modern theater. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater's spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure to claim interpretive control over unfamiliar places and people. The book goes on to link colonial misreadings of places and people to theatrical strategies for staging disorientation, which Pirri characterizes as a condition of “unsettlement.” Each chapter focuses on a specific formal device that emerged from colonial misreadings: “uncommonplacing” in Richard Hakluyt's travel compendium; metonymic possession in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine; “seasoning” in Ben Jonson's city comedies; “stagewreck” in Shakespeare's The Tempest; and “stagework” in the Lord Mayor's Shows. By approaching form as an interpretive process that is always engaged in the act of making and being made, Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form offers a model for reading past the seeming impasses of colonial narratives. It shows how narratives of failed settlement served as a productive resources for the formal worldmaking conventions of early modern theater. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Today's guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater's spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure to claim interpretive control over unfamiliar places and people. The book goes on to link colonial misreadings of places and people to theatrical strategies for staging disorientation, which Pirri characterizes as a condition of “unsettlement.” Each chapter focuses on a specific formal device that emerged from colonial misreadings: “uncommonplacing” in Richard Hakluyt's travel compendium; metonymic possession in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine; “seasoning” in Ben Jonson's city comedies; “stagewreck” in Shakespeare's The Tempest; and “stagework” in the Lord Mayor's Shows. By approaching form as an interpretive process that is always engaged in the act of making and being made, Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form offers a model for reading past the seeming impasses of colonial narratives. It shows how narratives of failed settlement served as a productive resources for the formal worldmaking conventions of early modern theater. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance.

Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard's twelfth appearance on Robinson's Podcast. Michael Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends. He researches domestic and international finance, the history of economics, and the role of debt in shaping class stratification, among many other topics. This is Michael's eighth appearance on the show. In this episode, Robinson, Richard, and Michael discuss colonialism and the death of modern nations. More particularly, they discuss the evolution of capitalism toward socialism, whether colonialism has officially ended, Russia, China, Israel, Iran, Trump, Putin, and the United States. Richard's latest book is Understanding Capitalism (Democracy at Work, 2024). Michael's most recent book is Temples of Enterprise (ISLET, 2024). Understanding Capitalism (Book): https://www.democracyatwork.info/understanding_capitalismRichard's Website: https://www.rdwolff.comEconomic Update: https://www.democracyatwork.info/economicupdateMichael's Website: https://michael-hudson.comTemples of Enterprise: https://a.co/d/a3c53dmOUTLINE00:00 Is Capitalism Evolving into Socialism?07:20 Is Today the Post-Colonial Period?18:10 How Colonialism Divided the World28:54 China and the Revenge of Feudalism41:06 Productive vs Unproductive Labor49:24 Overcoming the “Discipline” of Academia01:01:17 The Danger of Education01:13:19 Will the United States Break Up?01:21:22 Why the EU and NATO Will Break Up01:29:15 Why Michael Believes the US Will Remain United01:38:37 Trump's Army and the Militarized Police01:46:49 Is the US Turning into a Police State?01:48:49 The Choice Before a Declining EmpireRobinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where he is also a JD candidate in the Law School.

The private club world is navigating a generational transition unlike anything it's seen before — and it's happening on two fronts at once. Members are getting younger, and their expectations are fundamentally different from the generations before them. They're not joining for status. They're joining for experiences, community, and a lifestyle that fits who they are. At the same time, the people running clubs are changing too — and that part of the story doesn't get nearly enough attention. Dr. Rod Warnick has spent more than 40 years at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studying hospitality trends and training the next generation of private club leaders. What he's seeing in his classroom right now is remarkable: finance students, technology professionals, operations managers, and communications specialists who are choosing club management over Wall Street and corporate careers — and bringing a level of business sophistication to the field that the industry has never seen before. In this conversation, Dr. Warnick shares what the data and his decades of experience tell him about where clubs are headed, why the lifestyle shift is reshaping what membership means, how the next generation of GMs is being trained to lead boards and build community, and why — despite all the uncertainty — he's genuinely optimistic about the future of private clubs. If you lead a club, sit on a board, or are simply paying attention to where this industry is going, this is a conversation you'll want to hear.

7/30/26 Host Buz Eisenberg Dr Caitlyn Pierce & Donald Snyder political scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: measuring judicial appeasement in the U.S. Supreme Court Carol Rose Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts: Police & Government Surveillance and challenging the military as immigration judges Nate Clifford & Jade Jump Co-owners of Cornucopia Market on their move to Dwight St in Holyoke & their recent grand opening All That Jazz w/ John Anz & Musician Jason Scwartz on his musical journey and monthly performance series at Theodore's in Springfield

7/30/26 Host Buz Eisenberg Dr Caitlyn Pierce & Donald Snyder political scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: measuring judicial appeasement in the U.S. Supreme Court Carol Rose Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts: Police & Government Surveillance and challenging the military as immigration judges Nate Clifford & Jade Jump Co-owners of Cornucopia Market on their move to Dwight St in Holyoke & their recent grand opening All That Jazz w/ John Anz & Musician Jason Scwartz on his musical journey and monthly performance series at Theodore's in Springfield

7/30/26 Host Buz Eisenberg Dr Caitlyn Pierce & Donald Snyder political scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: measuring judicial appeasement in the U.S. Supreme Court Carol Rose Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts: Police & Government Surveillance and challenging the military as immigration judges Nate Clifford & Jade Jump Co-owners of Cornucopia Market on their move to Dwight St in Holyoke & their recent grand opening All That Jazz w/ John Anz & Musician Jason Scwartz on his musical journey and monthly performance series at Theodore's in Springfield

7/30/26 Host Buz Eisenberg Dr Caitlyn Pierce & Donald Snyder political scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: measuring judicial appeasement in the U.S. Supreme Court Carol Rose Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts: Police & Government Surveillance and challenging the military as immigration judges Nate Clifford & Jade Jump Co-owners of Cornucopia Market on their move to Dwight St in Holyoke & their recent grand opening All That Jazz w/ John Anz & Musician Jason Scwartz on his musical journey and monthly performance series at Theodore's in Springfield

Today's guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe's first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell's mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear. Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book's five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton's Of Educationand Samson Agonistes. Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. 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

Today's guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe's first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell's mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear. Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book's five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton's Of Educationand Samson Agonistes. Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Today's guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe's first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell's mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear. Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book's five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton's Of Educationand Samson Agonistes. Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Today's guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe's first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell's mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear. Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book's five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton's Of Educationand Samson Agonistes. Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe's first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell's mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear. Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book's five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More's Utopia, Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton's Of Educationand Samson Agonistes. Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

A pair of silk stockings, mended again and again below the ankle, set Emily Whitted on the path of discovery that has led her through archives and museums of early American history. The stockings belonged to Philadelphia's Stephen Girard, who was one of the wealthiest men in America. Museum records didn't mention the mends, though the socks had been repaired several times, making them as invisible to historians examining records as anyone Girard met on the street. Textiles were valuable in the early 19th century, and even a wealthy man wore stockings mended by one of the women of his household. Mending, darning, and repair became the subject of Emily's doctoral thesis at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a project she has nearly completed. Her research into mending has led her to investigate how repaired clothing could identify a person trying to self-emancipate, how well repaired clothing could indicate moral character, and how groups of men repaired not only their belongings but also sails in maritime life. Emily was drawn into the history of textiles by her interest in the role of cloth in women's lives. With a background in public history (presenting information about the past to non-specialists), she recently curated an exhibition at the Webb Deane Stevens Museum in Connecticut about the variety of samplers that early American girls stitched. Although we generally think of samplers as purely decorative showpieces, darning samplers demonstrated practical skill in mending, too. As a badge of creativity and conservation, mending has recently taken center stage, with visible mending as a badge of honor. Emily Whitted's historical research shows just how much we have in common not only with the girls who stitched samplers but also the invisible hands that repaired the cloth of early Americans. Links Read more about Emily's research: “A Historical Antidote to Today's Fast Fashion Culture,” UMass Amherst College of Humanities & Fine Arts “Stockings once worn by Philly's wealthiest man show the value of women's mending in early America,” Emily‘s essay for The Conversation American Girlhood: Needlework, Memory, and the Making of a Nation, the sampler exhibition Emily guest-curated at the Webb Deane Stevens Museum, Wethersfield, Connecticut, is on view through December 2026 This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. The Michigan Fiber Festival—Michigan's largest sheep and wool festival—is a vibrant world of fiber arts. Discover five days of classes with nationally recognized teachers in spinning, weaving, lacemaking, dyeing, felting, and rug hooking. Enjoy three days of shopping. Delight in shearing and fiber arts demonstrations. Enjoy a truly immersive experience. Join us in August at the picturesque Allegan County Fairgrounds (you can even camp on site!) Find more details at [michiganfiberfestival.info.](The Michigan Fiber Festival – Michigan's largest sheep and wool festival – is a vibrant world of fiber arts. Discover five days of classes with nationally recognized teachers in spinning, weaving, lacemaking, dyeing, felting, and rug hooking. Enjoy three days of shopping. Delight in shearing and fiber arts demonstrations. Enjoy a truly immersive experience. Join us in August at the picturesque Allegan County Fairgrounds (you can even camp on site!) Find more details at michiganfiberfestival.info.)

How do regulators decide that a chemical exposure is safe—and what happens when those standards fail to protect people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)?In this episode, Professor Laura Vandenberg from the University of Massachusetts Amherst explains why testing chemicals one at a time, relying on the “average” person, and assuming low doses are harmless may overlook real-world exposures and vulnerable populations.We discuss:FragranceChemical mixturesEndocrine disruptorsIndustry influenceAnd what a more precautionary approach to chemical safety could look like.Listen now & subscribe:https://www.chemicalsensitivitypodcast.org/1970633/episodes/19539201-mcs-and-the-limits-of-chemical-safety-laura-vandenberg-phdWatch & subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6r3pSMPqpoLaura Vandenberg and colleagues' 2023 paper:A science-based agenda for health-protective chemical assessments and decisions: overview and consensus statementSupport the showThank you very much to the Marilyn Brachman Hoffman Foundation generously supporting the podcast!If you find the podcast helpful, please consider becoming a monthly or one-time supporter:https://www.chemicalsensitivitypodcast.org/1970633/supporters/newhttps://buymeacoffee.com/mcspodcast  Follow the podcast on YouTube!  Captions available in any language. Please follow the podcast on social media:FacebookInstagramXBlueSkyTikTok

This week we talk about cyclospora, FoodNet, and Taylor Farms.We also discuss iceberg lettuce, Taco Bell, and foodborne pathogens.Recommended Book: Babel by R.F. KuangTranscriptFoodborne pathogens cause about 48 million illnesses and around 3000 deaths in the US alone each year.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the main agency tasked with keeping those numbers as low as possible, and the CDC's Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, or FoodNet, is one way that they've tackled this pernicious, persistent problem since 1995, in partnership with the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, and 10 state health departments: those of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee.Collectively, this FoodNet network covers about 16% of the US population, which seems like a small number, and in some ways it is, but that grid of laboratories and surveillance sites has typically been capable of detecting foodborne problems before they've scaled-up into something more significant, growing from a localized issue into a nationwide outbreak. They're generally not capable of preventing them outright, but they can keep them relatively small and regionalized.FoodNet was created in response to a series of huge, deadly E. coli outbreaks in 1992 and 1993, and in contrast to other common methods of detection, which are usually passive and thus a little slow to respond to potential outbreak indicators, this program was built around active surveillance methods, which means proactively gathering data from medical treatment records, hospitalizations, and even individual patient outcomes (including their travel history)—anything they can pair with diagnostic samples to better understand the context surrounding the products that contain dangerous pathogens—and this was intended to help them move faster to identify issues, triangulate the source of those issues, and then implement measures to solve these issues before they harm a bunch of people, as happened during another round of E. coli outbreaks in 2012 and 2013, which sickened dozens of people across multiple states, about half of the afflicted requiring hospitalization, in addition to at least one known death.At its height, FoodNet tracked 9 pathogens, so it cast a pretty broad net, encompassing the most common and dangerous of these potential vectors, including listeria, campylobacter, shigella, vibrio, yersinia, cyclospora, cryptosporidium, e coli, and salmonella.In July of 2025, as part of a larger wave of sweeping cuts across the nation's safety nets, tracking systems, and scientific agencies, the CDC, under the second Trump administration, downgraded FoodNet so that it was only mandatory to track salmonella and E coli—the rest were no longer on the docket, because these agencies no longer had the budget to keep tracking them.What I'd like to talk about today is a recent, and as of the day I'm recording this ongoing, outbreak of cyclospora-induced cyclosporiasis, what we know about this outbreak, and what might happen next.—Cyclospora cayetanensis is a protozoan that can infect human beings, and which is usually transmitted via contaminated fruits and vegetables. This contamination is typically the consequence of inadequate sanitation standards, as it's not transmitted via coughing or blood or anything like that, it's carried via human feces.So this parasite gets into a human, sporulates, which means it releases a bunch of spores within its host, and then usually between 1 and 2 weeks after entering its new host, the host develops cyclosporiasis, the disease caused by cyclospora producing all those spores. This disease is notorious for sometimes causing what's colorfully called explosive diarrhea, alongside general watery bowel movements, intense cramping and severe gas and bloating, and that's sometimes paired with nausea, vomiting, fever, and dehydration, due to all the frequent, intense, watery bowel-movement-related output.This is how cyclospora reproduces and spreads: it infects a host, that host has urgent diarrhea for a while, usually more than two days, sometimes as long as several weeks or even a month or more, with all the pain and discomfort and life-disrupting issues you might assume from that sort of persistent symptom, and then it sometimes finds new hosts via that watery output.Sometimes, cyclospora works its way into food systems because sanitation standards at a particular farm will be not good. Specifically, workers will sometimes not be allowed to take restroom breaks, and they'll simply do their business right there in the field; so if they're sick and can't afford to take a sick day, and might be fired if they do, or if they're asymptomatic, which some people infected with cyclospora are, they might do their business in the field, unaware that waste can then go on to spread this pathogen into the food system. It's also possible that someone just doesn't wash their hands properly after using the rest room, and then gets back to work, picking vegetables or operating at some other level along the food processing and packaging assembly line, and it gets into the system that way.In a typical year, the United States records around 2,700 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis, though on occasion it's as low as just a few hundred cases, the majority of which show up in health records in the Spring and Summer, between May and August. That range includes relatively mild outbreaks, so while this is a persistent issue, it's also not generally a massive one, at least compared to other pathogens of note. It's not pleasant for those who come down with it, of course, but not something that has triggered an organized response from the top, because of its meager scale, and because (again, while super unpleasant) people with healthy immune systems generally recover without treatment, even if that recovery can take a while. The biggest risk for most people who catch this disease is dehydration, though immunocompromised people are also sometimes given antibiotics by their doctors, the typical dosage curing about 96% of the people who receive it.There was a larger-than-usual outbreak of cyclosporiasis in the US in 2020, which caused a confirmed 1,241 cases across the country, a whole lot to land all at once, and there were no reported deaths resulting from that outbreak. Between 2018 and 2021, there were about 6,000 total confirmed cases across the US, so an average of about 2000 per year.As of mid-July 2026, the CDC has officially confirmed 1,645 cases of this illness, with another 5,100 probable or potential cases currently under investigation. If the majority of those still-under-investigation cases are confirmed, that would mean more people have already been infected as a result of this one outbreak in the first half of 2026 than were infected between 2018 and 2021, which again, is a range that includes the large outbreak that happened in 2020.Also worth noting about those numbers: that's federal-level, CDC reporting, and it's generally understood that there's a significant lag between local-level data and those that have percolated up to the national level. As of the day I'm recording this, Michigan's health agencies alone have more than 5,000 confirmed and suspected cases, Ohio has nearly 1,200, and other states, which are still investigating, are seeing dozens of confirmed cases, including 43 in Wisconsin, 69 in Maryland, and a few already, in the early stages of investigation, in Nevada.Over the past week, officials flagged shredded lettuce sourced from Mexico and sold by a company called Taylor Farms as the likely source of at least some of these cases, and that's led to a recall on lettuce produced by the company in 27 states. Over the weekend, the CDC found cyclospora in iceberg lettuce from the company's Mexican operations, as well, and this lettuce was part of a batch that wasn't included in the recall—so there's a good chance the recall will expand beyond the currently targeted products, which include shredded lettuce destined for Taco Bell locations in five states, and the kitchens of several other fast food chains, as well.Taylor Farms is one of the largest producers of fresh fruits and vegetables in the United States, and their products are sold all over the place, from lower-end fast food restaurants to more expensive grocery stores like Whole Foods.Taylor Foods has announced that it's voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from shelves, even though none of its branded, in-store salad kits have been clearly tied to the outbreak, and Taco Bell has said that it's voluntarily removing all potentially affected lettuce from its locations in the five most-impacted states, indefinitely removing lettuce sourced from the implicated supplier; other brands are following suit, no one wanting to be associated with this outbreak, but everyone wanting to show would-be customers that they're taking it seriously.Interestingly, the FDA doesn't actually require that Taylor Foods tell the public who their products go to—which other entities might be selling infected produce. So they've released lists of product numbers, and again, many of their customers are taking the initiative to announce the removal of this lettuce from their shelves or food, without being prompted, but there's still some fog-of-war here, because of Taylor Foods' decision not to be clearer with that product list.So this is already the largest recorded cyclospora outbreak in US history, there have been 141 confirmed hospitalizations from the CDC, and that number is likely larger, again because it takes a while for state-level numbers to work their way up to the CDC, and to be reconfirmed at that level. Also important to note here is that a lot, perhaps even the majority of people who suffer from cyclosporiasis will never show up in these data, because they just suffer silently, either not realizing they have this parasite, or not seeing the point of going to the hospital, maybe paying an arm and a leg to do so, just to get prescribed anti-diarrheal medication and told to take fluids, same as they can do at home. People who do have any kind of immunodeficiency issues or potentially confounding factors, like being older or very young, are being encouraged to seek medical help, though, as they're more likely to suffer more serious consequences after contracting this disease.It's currently unclear where precisely this outbreak came from, and it's puzzling how an outbreak of this scale might have happened, as, in the words of Matthew Moore, a food safety microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who was quoted in the New York Times, this many infections suggest there was a “massive degree of human fecal contamination.” So probably not just a farm laborer who forgot to wash their hands after using the rest room, something much more substantial than that.Also, because cyclospora takes a while, a week or two, to create enough spores in its host to trigger cyclosporiasis, attribution of the infection difficult, which in turn makes tracking it back to its source difficult; which is part of why this outbreak, which has been going on for weeks, is still under investigation, not a solved problem with definitive answers and in-practice solutions.Right now, experts are recommending higher-risk foods are cooked to at least 158 degrees F, because that temperature kills this pathogen, and washing fresh produce doesn't always get rid of all the cyclospora on a contaminated piece of produce. Washing fresh produce certainly helps, and it's better than nothing, and scrubbing is even better. They also recommend avoiding high-risk foods when possible, though of course that won't always be possible for everyone, nor will it always be possible to get heads of lettuce rather than pre-made salads, though that's also advised when feasible.Also worth noting here is that even if the FoodNet program was still up to full power, tracking all 9 of those original pathogens, it's unlikely this outbreak would have been prevented.It likely would have flagged that something was up earlier on in this outbreak, though, which could have led to faster action in the afflicted regions. It probably would have allowed professionals to note hot spots faster, as well, which is what this kind of surveillance system is for: it doesn't prevent, but it does make it more likely experts will have the chance to keep things from spiraling out of control.Show Noteshttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/well/cyclospora-taylor-farms-lettuce-taco-bell.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/well/eat/cyclospora-stomach-bug-what-to-know.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/business/cyclospora-taylor-farms-lettuce.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/well/eat/lettuce-safety-cyclospora-outbreak.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/health/cyclospora-taylor-farms-mexico-taco-bell-lettuce.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclosporiasishttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8471761/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00494755261437456https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/16/diarrhea-outbreak-cyclospora-parasite-cdchttps://www.cdc.gov/cyclosporiasis/php/surveillance/index.htmlhttps://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/expert-qa/cyclosporiasis-outbreakhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/07/17/taco-bell-warned-investors-about-cyclospora-before-the-outbreak-and-these-other-chains-did-too/https://www.today.com/health/disease/cyclosporiasis-outbreak-foods-avoid-map-cases-parasite-diarrhea-2026-rcna588006http://cnn.com/2026/07/18/health/cyclospora-what-to-do-wellnesshttps://www.statnews.com/2025/12/22/american-food-safety-funding-cuts-foodnet/https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/foodborne-disease/cdc-cuts-back-foodborne-illness-surveillance-programhttps://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-quietly-scaled-back-surveillance-program-foodborne-illnesses-rcna227089https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00305-X/fulltexthttps://www.cdc.gov/foodnet/about/index.htmlhttps://www.food-safety.com/articles/10646-cdc-slashes-foodnet-surveillance-from-eight-foodborne-pathogens-to-twohttps://www.thermofisher.com/blog/food/foodnet-active-surveillance-for-food-safety/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/18/health/taylor-farms-iceberg-lettuce-recall.htmlhttps://apnews.com/article/cyclospora-lettuce-recall-taylor-farms-taco-bell-8c8bb30fbd100e0c246cffeff6983753 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are Stuart Rice Honorary Chair at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University Fran Berman, Joseph Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government at Skidmore College Beau Breslin, the incoming director of extension programs and professor of practice at the American University of Armenia Jim Ketterer, and Political Consultant & Lobbyist Libby Post.

Dr. Cedric De Leon explains how, from the founding of the African Blood Brotherhood in 1919 through the 1963 March on Washington, Black workers linked racial justice to economic justice, challenging the American labor movement to become more racially inclusive in its fight for workers' rights. De Leon is Professor of Sociology and Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity. Related Resources: Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity Related Collections: Black Workers in the Labor Movement Oral Histories (LOH002210) Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Records (LR001754) CIO Office of the Secretary-Treasurer Records (LR000185) Erma Henderson Papers (UP001624) Harold Norris Papers (UP000508) Robert “Buddy” Battle III and Marion Battle Papers (LP001801) UAW President's Office: Walter P. Reuther Records (LR000261) UAW Washington Office Legislative Department: Donald Montgomery Records (LR000036) Episode Credits Interviewee: Cedric De Leon Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English Music: Bart Bealmear

If you've grown tomatoes or peppers for more than one season, you more than likely know the feeling been waiting that first tomato to ripen, finally see it's blushing red, and you flip it over to find a sunken, leathery patch covering half the bottom of the fruit. And if you went looking for answers, you probably found three of them repeated everywhere you turned: sprinkle in some crushed eggshells, spray on some calcium, add a scoop of Epsom salt. All three of those are extremely common advice. Two of them do close to nothing. And one of them can genuinely make the problem worse. That problem? Blossom end rot. Today on Just Grow Something we're covering what blossom end rot really is at the cellular level, the conditions that trigger it in your garden, why the most popular home remedies for it are built on a total misunderstanding of the problem, and what the research consistently recommends instead. Let's dig in. University Extension and Research-Based Resources Utah State University Extension — Blossom End Rot (IPM Fact Sheet) https://extension.usu.edu/planthealth/ipm/notes_ag/veg-blossom-end-rot Purdue Extension — Blossom End Rot of Tomato Fruit (BP-13-W) https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/bp/bp-13-w.html University of Maryland Extension — Blossom End Rot on Vegetables https://extension.umd.edu/resource/blossom-end-rot-vegetables Alabama Cooperative Extension System — Blossom-End Rot in Tomatoes: Causes and Prevention (ANR-1059) https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/lawn-garden/blossom-end-rot-in-tomatoes-causes-and-prevention/ University of Massachusetts Amherst, Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment — Solanaceous: Blossom End Rot https://ag.umass.edu/vegetable/fact-sheets/solanaceous-blossom-end-rot Oregon State University Extension — Blossom-End Rot of Tomatoes (FS-139) https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/fs-139-blossom-end-rot-tomatoes University of Wisconsin Horticulture Extension — Blossom End Rot https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/blossom-end-rot/ University of California Cooperative Extension, UC ANR "The Real Dirt" — Fighting Blossom End Rot https://ucanr.edu/blog/real-dirt/article/fighting-blossom-end-rot University of Connecticut Extension — Put an End to Blossom-End Rot: Water and Nutrient Management is Key https://homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu/2025/06/15/blossom-end-rot/ Clemson Cooperative Extension HGIC — Gardening Myths: Fix Blossom End Rot with Calcium Sprays https://hgic.clemson.edu/gardening-myths-fix-blossom-end-rot-with-calcium-sprays/ North Dakota State University Extension — The Epsom Salt Myth https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/extension/extension-topics/gardening-and-horticulture/vegetables/epsom-salt-myth University of Minnesota Extension — Do Common Soil Health "Home Remedies" Work? (Coffee Grounds, Eggshells, Epsom Salts) https://extension.umn.edu/manage-soil-nutrients/coffee-grounds-eggshells-epsom-salts Peer-Reviewed Research Topcu, Y., Nambeesan, S. U., & van der Knaap, E. (2022). Blossom-end rot: a century-old problem in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) and other vegetables. Molecular Horticulture, 2, 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43897-021-00022-9 Just Grow Something: https://justgrowsomething.com Gardening Courses: https://justgrowsomething.com/courses Just Grow Something Merch and Downloads: https://justgrowsomething.com/shop Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18YgHveF5P/ Check out how you can become a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JustGrowSomething Feed my coffee habit: https://buymeacoffee.com/justgrowsomething Amazon storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/justgrowsomething Get 10% off and FREE shipping on my favorite raised planters at Planter Box Direct using code JUSTGROW10: https://planterboxdirect.com/?ref=593 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The right executive hire can accelerate everything, while the wrong one can cost a company far more than a bad résumé suggests. In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Seth Greene interviews David Ulrich, Founder and Principal at David Ulrich Associates, who shares how business owners can distinguish polished candidates from leaders truly equipped to perform, why entrepreneurial capacity matters, and where companies often go wrong when hiring senior executives. He also explains the evolving role of LinkedIn and AI in executive search, the importance of maintaining a strong professional network, and why great recruiters have a fiduciary-level responsibility to both candidates and clients. Key Takeaways:→ Strong leadership skills can transfer across industries when candidates understand people, operations, and accountability. → Great executive hiring begins with asking the right questions about the business's real needs. → Professionals should build relationships with trusted recruiters before they need to find a new role.→ A strong LinkedIn profile should clearly convey experience, values, and capabilities. → Ethical recruiters prioritize long-term fit and the well-being of candidates and clients alike. David Ulrich is a seasoned Executive Search and Human Capital Strategist with more than 15 years of experience across the restaurant, hospitality, franchising, and real estate industries. He has a proven record of recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent for organizations at all levels. David is known for his client-focused approach and for providing honest, timely feedback to build long-term relationships. His extensive industry network includes major private equity firms and global restaurant and hotel companies, giving him unparalleled access to top talent and opportunities. David holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Connect With David:Website: https://www.davidulrichassociates.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/david-ulrich-associates-executive-search

Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard's eleventh appearance on Robinson's Podcast. In this episode, Richard and Robinson discuss the ongoing war in Iran, as well as the war in Russia and Ukraine, our cold war with China, and the future possibilities of World War III. Richard's latest book is Understanding Capitalism (Democracy at Work, 2024).Understanding Capitalism (Book): https://www.democracyatwork.info/understanding_capitalismRichard's Website: https://www.rdwolff.comEconomic Update: https://www.democracyatwork.info/economicupdateOUTLINE00:00 China, Iran, and the Implosion of the West13:00 The Irreconcilable Gulf Between Russia and the West16:01 Europe's Hard World War II Lesson21:20 Europe's Final Collapse Is Coming28:42 How China Is Methodically Conquering the World35:44 Russia's Siberian Advantage39:15 Marx, War, and Economic Decline52:39 Why Iran Will Always Control the Strait of Hormuz01:02:02 How the United States Already Failed in Iran01:06:37  What the United States Can Learn from the Collapse of the British Empire01:12:19 Why the War in Iran Will Not Lead to Nuclear War01:14:44 John Mearsheimer's Escalation Ladder and the Threat of Nuclear War in Russia01:29:53 What Would World War Look Like in the 21st Century?01:36:17 Donald Trump, The Isolator01:41:40 The Sad Legacy of the League of Nations01:51:04 Is World War III Inevitable?

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are Fran Berman, the Stuart Rice Honorary Chair at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College of Information and Computer Sciences and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University; Theresa Bourgeois, a public policy and communications expert; and Donna Welton, a diplomat in residence at Bard College who retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2025 after over 30 years in public service. Her last post was as ambassador to the Southeast Asian country, Timor-Leste.

Today's guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. 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

Today's guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Today's guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Today's guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Today's guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Today's guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

Today's guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions. Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields. Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Rattling the Bars, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the history of the Panthers and their unique approach to, and practice of, communal socialism.This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Watch Part 1 here.Guests:Dr. Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College. She is the author of numerous books, including: In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love; Resisting State Violence; and Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. Creator of the digital Harriet Tubman Literary Circle at UT Austin, James is also editor of The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings; Imprisoned Intellectuals; Warfare in the American Homeland; The Angela Y. Davis Reader; and co-editor of the Black Feminist Reader.Dr. K. Kim Holder is an assistant professor of educational foundations and Africana studies at Rowan University. Dr. Holder earned his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Multicultural Education and African American Studies, his masters in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College of Education, and B.A. in History from Hampshire College.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

On this episode of Rattling the Bars, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the history of the Panthers and their unique approach to, and practice of, communal socialism.This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Watch Part 1 here.Guests:Dr. Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College. She is the author of numerous books, including: In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love; Resisting State Violence; and Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. Creator of the digital Harriet Tubman Literary Circle at UT Austin, James is also editor of The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings; Imprisoned Intellectuals; Warfare in the American Homeland; The Angela Y. Davis Reader; and co-editor of the Black Feminist Reader.Dr. K. Kim Holder is an assistant professor of educational foundations and Africana studies at Rowan University. Dr. Holder earned his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Multicultural Education and African American Studies, his masters in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College of Education, and B.A. in History from Hampshire College.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rattling-the-bars--4799829/support.Follow Rattling the Bars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Sign up for our newsletterFollow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkHelp us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer

**Tuesday evening, at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT, we'll be listening to this episode and discussing it during our online gathering, Macro ‘n Chill. Bring your thoughts, your insights, your questions. July 7th at at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. Use this link to register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ay2YXuCvRLOp1dV5yh8HKwWomen in politics, media, and public life are often placed at the center of the spectacle while being silenced on the issues that matter.Media scholar Allison Butler talks to Steve about her book, Judgment of Gender, exposing how patriarchal power and capitalist media institutions weaponize pop culture and construct narratives that fixate on appearance, personality, and scandal while obscuring questions of class and power. The conversation reveals a core dialectical contradiction: women are centered in media only to be silenced. Their personhood is reduced to superficial tropes.The critiques of political candidates Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and even Nikki Haley, focus on pantsuits, headbands, voice, and age instead of their actual policies, their service to capital, and their imperialist actions (hello? Clinton's role in Libya? “We came, we saw, he died.”) The media's obsession with superficiality silences substantive class-based critique.Allison's highlights the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. This is critical. It is not a fringe issue but a stark example of state-sanctioned violence and the super-exploitation of the most oppressed. That the legacy media's silence on this horror renders these lives invisible is a feature, not a bug, of a system that treats Indigenous lives as disposableAllison Butler is a Senior Lecturer, Associate Chair, and the Director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches courses on critical media literacy and representations of education in the media. She serves as Vice President on the board of the Media Freedom Foundation. She is the author of numerous articles and books on media literacy, and she is a co-author of multiple practical resources for media literacy education.IG: @atbutler5LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-butler-190882108/Project Censored IG, X, Facebook: @projectcensored

This week, we're continuing our archive miniseries, Myths That Built Trickle-Down Economics, with the myth that corporations exist to maximize shareholder value. For decades, Americans were sold the idea that if corporations focused on boosting stock prices and rewarding shareholders, prosperity would trickle down to workers, consumers, and communities. Instead, shareholder primacy helped justify stock buybacks, wage suppression, layoffs, and underinvestment — extracting wealth from the real economy and funneling it upward. In this episode, Nick and Goldy talk with William Lazonick and Lenore Palladino about how shareholder value became one of the core myths of trickle-down economics, why it has caused so much damage, and what it would mean to build corporations around workers, consumers, communities, and long-term prosperity instead. Lenore Palladino is associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and author of Good Company: Economic Policy After Shareholder Primacy. William Lazonick is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and co-founder and president of the Academic-Industry Research Network. Social Media: @lenorepalladino.bsky.social @Lazonick Further reading:  Good Company: Economic Policy After Shareholder Primacy Washington Center for Equitable Growth - To restore democracy, end shareholder primacy at U.S. corporations and on Wall Street  Roosevelt Institute - Regulating Stock Buybacks: The $6.3 Trillion Question Roosevelt Institute - Ending Shareholder Primacy in Corporate Governance Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Facebook: Pitchfork Economics Podcast Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics TikTok: @pitchfork_econ YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer Substack: The Pitch

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, founded in Oakland, California, in 1966. On this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Dr. Joy James and Dr. K. Kim Holder about the legacy of the Panthers today, and about the important differences and intersections between democratic socialism and the Black Panther model of communalism.This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Subscribe to TRNN and stay tuned for Part 2 next week…Guests:Dr. Joy James is Ebenezer Fitch Professor of Humanities at Williams College. She is the author of numerous books, including: In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love; Resisting State Violence; and Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics. Creator of the digital Harriet Tubman Literary Circle at UT Austin, James is also editor of The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings; Imprisoned Intellectuals; Warfare in the American Homeland; The Angela Y. Davis Reader; and co-editor of the Black Feminist Reader.Dr. K. Kim Holder is an assistant professor of educational foundations and Africana studies at Rowan University. Dr. Holder earned his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Multicultural Education and African American Studies, his masters in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College of Education, and B.A. in History from Hampshire College.Credits:Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron GranadinoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

"Even though we're so diverse, we're all the same. We're all longing for the same thing — to belong, have a purpose in life, to understand why we are here on this planet." — Sonia Daccarett ABOUT THIS EPISODE Sonia Daccarett is a writer and communications professional born in Colombia to a Christian Palestinian father and a Jewish mother. She holds an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a master's in international and public affairs from Columbia University. For more than two decades she worked on strategic communications for corporate and nonprofit clients. Her debut memoir, The Roots of the Guava Tree: Growing Up Jewish and Arab in Colombia, explores identity, belonging, and coming of age against the backdrop of 1980s Colombia. Mike and Sonia discuss how a casual memoir-writing class turned into a book, the challenge of writing childhood scenes in the voice of a child, navigating a multicultural identity in a homogenous society, and why she wanted to offer a first-person account of what ordinary Colombians endured during the country's violent 1980s. --- KEY TAKEAWAYS 1. A book that wasn't meant to be a book. Sonia enrolled in a memoir-writing class during a quieter chapter of her life, fell in love with the genre, and accumulated pages before realizing the recurring themes — identity, diaspora, family — could form a cohesive narrative. 2. Retraining the writing brain. After two decades of press releases and corporate communications, Sonia had to relearn scene, dialogue, and narrative writing — breaking free of the "five W's, tell it all on one page" mindset. 3. Writing in the child's voice was the breakthrough. The manuscript initially felt flat when told entirely from her mid-50s perspective. Switching to first person as a four-, six-, or fifteen-year-old brought the memories alive — though it meant extensive rewriting. 4. Rediscovering parents as complex people. One of the book's biggest gifts was moving beyond the unidimensional way children see adults and understanding her parents and grandparents as people navigating their own immigrant struggles. 5. A utopian experiment in identity. Her parents deliberately raised their children without religious labels or ethnic identifiers — a noble dream that left Sonia feeling identity-less in a society that expected you to know who you were. 6. A hidden diaspora. Most people don't know that a large Christian Arab population emigrated from the Ottoman Empire to Colombia in the 1910s, or that Jewish communities thrived in Latin America. Sonia wanted to broaden mainstream narratives about where Jews and Arabs live. 7. Colombia's 1980s through ordinary eyes. Beyond the Netflix portrayals of Pablo Escobar, the book offers a first-person account of what civil war between government, guerrillas, and cartels felt like for everyday families — the kidnappings, the fear, the impossible choices. 8. The power of a writing partner. After many cycles of throwing the manuscript into a metaphorical drawer, Sonia credits her Polish writing partner and her husband for pushing her to finish — proof that external accountability matters for memoirists. GET THE BOOK The Roots of the Guava Tree: Growing Up Jewish and Arab in Colombia by Sonia Daccarett Buy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4aYCCx1 Buy on Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/54587/9781647429409 CONNECT WITH SONIA Website: soniadaccarett.com Instagram: @soniadaccarettauthor CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST Mike Carlon | Uncorking a Story Website: uncorkingastory.com YouTube: @uncorkingastory Instagram: @uncorkingastory Facebook: Uncorking a Story TikTok: @uncorkingastory Twitter/X: @uncorkingastory LinkedIn: Uncorking a Story Subscribe & Leave a Review — It helps more readers and writers find the show! Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncorking-a-story/id563636205 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5HZiAEtFlhAzk60Z4eAkhY RSS Feed: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/uncorkingastory --- Uncorking a Story is produced by Mike Carlon. New episodes drop every Tuesday. #SoniaDaccarett #RootsOfTheGuavaTree #Colombia #Memoir #JewishIdentity #Palestinian #MulticulturalIdentity #Diaspora #LatinAmerica #Colombia1980s #ImmigrantStory #MemoirWriting #AuthorInterview #BookPodcast #UncorkingAStory #WritingCommunity #Nonfiction #CulturalIdentity #JewishAndArab #BookRecommendations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Sharlene Santana is Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington and Curator of Mammals at the University of Washington's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. As an integrative and evolutionary biologist, Sharlene explores questions about evolution from a variety of perspectives. She is working to understand why some groups of organisms are more diverse in terms of their number of species, appearance, or behavior. There are over 1,400 species of bats that fulfill a variety of ecological roles, and much of Sharlene's research focuses on diversity in bats. Outside of work, Sharlene loves trying new restaurants in Seattle, as well as traveling to other countries and learning about other cultures. In her free time, you can find Sharlene hiking or swimming with her dog, attending ballet performances, and listening to music and podcasts. She is also a fan of good storytelling in books, movies, TV series, and documentaries. She completed her undergraduate training in biology at the University of the Andes in Venezuela, and she was awarded her Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Afterwards, Sharlene conducted postdoctoral research at the Institute for Society and Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. She joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 2012. In our interview, Sharlene shares more about her life and research.

John this time discusses JD Vance who continued his media tour - selling another theoretical ceasefire with Iran as anything but an American strategic loss of lives, time and money. He also talks about the disastrous waste of tax-payer money Trump spent on renovating the reflecting pool and then having it turn green with algae soon after. Then, he interviews the founder and CEO of the National Democratic Training Committee - Kelly Dietrich. She shares her expertise on the current political climate and the importance of grassroots movements in shaping the future of the Democratic Party. Next, he speaks with Allison Butler who is the Director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches courses on critical media literacy and representations of education in the media. They talk about the complexities of media representation and the challenges faced by women in the public eye. She argues that visibility does not equate to power, and that women are often portrayed through patriarchal lenses that diminish their complexity. And then lastly, John jokes with Keith Price and they take calls from listeners about living life in the hellscape of Trumpland.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt sets up camp at the annual Chef Culinary Conference at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, sitting down with presenters and staff to unpack what it takes to execute an event of this scale. What emerges is a deeper story—one where the ideas shared reach far beyond Central Massachusetts, contributing to meaningful change across the food system.

The Mercantilist Restoration - https://anthonyfatseas.substack.com/p/the-mercantilist-restoration-how?r=1ni7opInterview recorded - 10th of June, 2026On this episode of the WTFinance podcast I had the pleasure of welcoming back Professor Richard Wolff. Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and has been described as probably America's most prominent Marxist economist. He is the host of Economic Update and the author of Capitalism Hits the Fan. During our conversation we spoke about the current situation in the economy and geopolitics, the uncertainty in the economy, BRICS enemies of the West, the end of the US hegemony and more. I hope you enjoy!0:00 - Introduction3:37 - Current thoughts on economy and geopolitics8:51 - Geopolitical uncertainty linked to economy?15:42 - Iran conflict resolved?22:27 - BRICS enemies of the West33:56 - US hegemony42:03 - One message to takeaway?Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City.Earlier he taught economics at Yale University (1967-1969) and at the City College of the City University of New York (1969-1973). In 1994, he was a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Paris (France), I (Sorbonne). Wolff was also regular lecturer at the Brecht Forum in New York City.Prof Wolff is the co-founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update. Professor Richard Wolff:Democracy at work: https://www.democracyatwork.info/Website: https://www.rdwolff.com/X: https://x.com/profwolffYouTube: @RichardDWolff WTFinance -Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wtfinancee/Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/67rpmjG92PNBW0doLyPvfniTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wtfinance/id1554934665?uo=4Twitter - https://twitter.com/AnthonyFatseas

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are Stuart Rice Honorary Chair at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University Fran Berman, public policy and communications expert Theresa Bourgeois, and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Robert Pondiscio.

S10 E3—The return of the R-word is about more than language. The words we choose both reflect and shape our moral imagination. When disability becomes an insult or a political weapon, it influences how we understand human worth, vulnerability, and belonging. In this conversation, Christina Cipriano, PhD, joins Amy Julia Becker to explore her research on political language and disability, including the return of the R-word. They discuss what these patterns reveal about the systems shaping care, education, and belonging, and they consider: how can we resist dehumanizing language and  choose words that move us toward justice and joy?00:00 Introduction to Disability Discourse Matters06:53 Asset-Based vs. Deficit-Based Perspectives10:27 Personal Narratives and Language Choices19:49 The Rise, Fall, and Rise of the R Word23:42 Dehumanization in Political Rhetoric28:47 Historical Context of Disability Discourse33:00 Disability Language and Future Generations40:48 Reimagining Disability and the Good LifeMENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:Disability Discourse MattersThe Education Collaboratory at Yale | Child Study CenterSpread the Word – Special OlympicsMontclair University: Use of the Slur [r-word] Triples on X After Elon Musk Shares the Word in a PostBe Unapologetically Impatient by Christina CiprianoEuphemism Treadmill article_SUBSCRIBE to Amy Julia's Substack: amyjuliabecker.substack.comWATCH this conversation on YouTube: Amy Julia Becker on YouTubeJOIN the conversation on Instagram: @amyjuliabeckerLISTEN to more episodes: amyjuliabecker.com/shows/_ABOUT OUR GUEST:Christina Cipriano, PhD, is currently an associate professor of applied developmental and educational psychology at the Yale Child Study Center in the Yale School of Medicine and Director of the Education Collaboratory. This fall Dr. Cipriano will transition to be the inaugural Joseph W. and Alma W. Keilty Endowed Chair in Education and Professor with tenure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Education Collaboratory will be moving to the College of Education at UMass Amherst. An award-winning scholar and internationally regarded expert in the science of learning and development, Chris received her PhD from Boston College, her EdM from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University. Dr. Cipriano has published over one hundred and twenty papers, commentaries, and reports, spanning top-tier journals such as Child Development and the Review of Educational Research as well as media outlets including The Washington Post, NPR, The New York Times, PBS, and Education Week. Her award-winning and best-selling new book, Be Unapologetically Impatient: The Mindset Required to Change the Way We Do Things (2025), is the latest must-read for every educator, provider, parent, and person interested in improving the lives of children and families, right now. A prolific public scholar, educator, and speaker, Chris privileges her positionality as a first-generation high school graduate and mother of four children in her science.https://www.drchriscip.com/https://www.disabilitydiscoursematters.org/https://www.beunapologeticallyimpatient.com/https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/christina-cipriano/https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinacipriano/LinkedIn @ChristinaCiprianoInstagram @DrChrisCipBlueSky @DrChrisCipTwitter @DrChrisCipWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

In this episode, you'll be introduced to John Hooker, a Hartford lawyer, judge, and abolitionist as well as a reformer for women's rights. Hooker was the president of the anti-slavery committee in Hartford, published the Charter Oak anti-slavery newspaper with the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society of Hartford, and co-authored with his wife Isabella Beecher Hooker, the state bill in 1877 that gave married women more control of their property. Why isn't he better known?    Our guest for this episode is Erika Slocumb, Director of Interpretation & Visitor Experience at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism. Erika is a scholar of Black history. She received her BA in Social Justice Education, her MS in Labor Studies, and she expects her PhD in African American Studies in the fall of 2026—all from University of Massachusetts Amherst.   Be sure to go to the Stowe Center's website at stowecenter.org/blog/ to read Erika's new blog post about John Hooker.  Plan to attend the Nook Farm Lawn Party and Fourth of July events-all the info is on the Stowe Center website.   Grating the Nutmeg is partnering with Preservation Connecticut to bring you summer and fall episodes on saving historic barns, Connecticut sites found in the historic Green Book guide for black travelers, Mid-Century Modern architecture, and sites that reveal the state's LGBTQ+ history.  Connecticut's historic places matter!   ------------------------------------------   Don't forget to subscribe to Connecticut Explored magazine today-our summer issue is a double-issue celebrating our nation's 250th birthday! And set up your monthly donation to Grating the Nutmeg at ctexplored.org This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at https://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!