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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. 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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.

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/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

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!

**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

Welcome to The Turf Zone podcast. This episode features the article “Anyone for Tennis – Research?” written by Dr. Scott Ebdon – Emeritus Professor, University of Massachusetts – Amherst and Mike Buras – former Director of Grounds, Longwood Cricket Club, Chestnut Hill, MA For accompanying tables, graphs, photos and references see the Summer 2026 issue of New England Blade magazine available on www.theturfzone.com Tennis on Grass – USA There are 26 million tennis players in the USA, and these numbers have increased by 33% since the COVID years. Less than 1% of tennis courts are grass with most grass courts found in the Northeast region. Sports grass managers may not truly appreciate the intensity of traffic (wear) observed along grass court baselines. Previous research has shown that the intensity of traffic along court baselines is 6 times the intensity of elite soccer (Newell and Wood, 2000). The term “pace”' in tennis is the speed that tennis play (and the ball) moves and is determined largely by the vertical height of the bounce off the court. The higher the vertical bounce, the slower the play. Slower play is preferred by players. Pace on grass is notoriously fast. Grass Tennis Research – UMass Amherst In 2016 several studies were initiated at the Troll Turf Research Center (South Deerfield, MA). The two main objectives were (i) wear tolerance or carrying capacity (hours of play) along court baselines and (ii) the factors affecting tennis pace. Eight turfgrass species were compared within each of three single courts (planted as replicates). The eight species-cultivars were shown to have superior wear tolerance. The grasses were planted as pure stands. The Troll Center was open to the public for daily play from 2017 to 2024. Play averaged 125 hours during the tennis season (June 1 to September 1). Grass Court Maintenance The maintenance of grass courts at the Troll Center used a daily mowing schedule at 5/16 inches (clippings collected), rolling 4 to 6 times per week with a 2,200 lb. roller, sprayable fertilizers (spoon-feeding) on a 2 to 3-week schedule to apply 3.15 lb. N per 1,000 ft² per season, and sprayable (preventative) fungicides. Heavy rolling and daily mowing was especially important to promoting consistent (uniform) tennis ball bounce and play. Weekly measurements were scheduled after significant soil drying – irrigation was used sparingly to prevent any visible turfgrass dehydration. Tennis Ball Bounce The rules for measuring vertical ball bounce were established in 1925 (Miller, 2006) and are outlined in Table 2. Higher ball bounce (slower pace) on a tennis surface is due to greater velocity of the ball in the vertical direction. Soft grass absorbs more energy indicated by greater surface deformation – less energy is available for ball bounce in the vertical direction. Ball bounce must be uniform-consistent and representative of ball bounce across the entire court surface. Measurements of Hardness – 0.5-kg Clegg Hardness is measured with the Clegg impact soil tester and has been used on grass courts since the mid-1980s (Holmes and Bell, 1986) and used currently to predict tennis ball bounce (Ebdon et al., 2025). Surface hardness is measured as gravities (g, also referred to as “Gmax” in the literature). The energy of impact using the 0.5-kg Clegg (30 cm drop height) conforms closest to the tennis ball bounce test. The 0.5-kg Clegg and the tennis ball bounce test are highly correlated compared to heavier Clegg devices used in sport grass (2.25-kg Clegg, 45 cm drop height) or devices used in golf (USGA TruFirm, 1.95-kg, 48 cm drop height). These heavier devices are not as effective for tennis (Ebdon et al., 2025). Tennis Ball Bounce (BB) and Clegg Hardness – Courts Under Play Over the course of this 10-year study some 3,200-ball bounce impacts and hardness measurements were taken on various grass court surfaces. The results presented in Table 3 for the different surfaces are comparable because accepted (standard) methods were used. Wimbledon center court (perennial ryegrass courts) for the 2011 Championship were bouncing at 52 inches or 91% of concrete. All of the perennial ryegrass courts at the Troll Center and the Tennis HOF satisfied the minimum standard of 70% concrete. Kentucky bluegrass courts at the Troll Center were bouncing near 70% (69%) of concrete. The fine leaf fescue mixture was among the highest in BB averaging 76% of concrete. This species, however, is the least tolerant of tennis traffic, discussed below. Traditional golf species such as creeping bentgrass-Poa grass courts were bouncing below the 70 to 80% concrete standard. Tennis Ball Bounce – Uniformity Consistent BB across the tennis surface is important for uniform play. Smooth-hard concrete is the most unform and consistent surface. All other surfaces are compared to the BB consistency of smooth concrete. The concrete surface has an average hardness of 865 g compared to Wimbledon hardness of 260 g. Smooth concrete has a BB uniformity of “1.” Wimbledon BB uniformity for the 2011 Championship was measured at “2.1” – twice the variability of concrete. Player perception of BB uniformity (relative to concrete) is interpretated as “an odd bounce.” One consistent trend observed in Table 3 indicates that increasing surface hardness promotes uniform ball bounce and the chances for odd bounces decrease. Therefore, selecting species such as perennial ryegrass affording harder surfaces and higher BB (slower play) have a tendency for more consistent (uniform) play. Many bentgrass courts (or greens) and Poa annua courts that are prone to thatch are the least consistent surfaces with BB uniformity of “7” and higher relative to concrete. Court Hardness to Satisfy Standards – 70 to 80% Concrete Research at the Troll Center indicated 150 to 170 g of surface hardness is needed for tennis balls to bounce to standards – 70% (40 inches) to 80% of concrete (46 inches) (Ebdon et al., 2025). Tennis BB of 80% concrete is not easy to achieve. To that end, surface soil moisture is extremely important, discussed below. For the 2011 Wimbledon Grass Court Championship, 100% of all BB impacts were at 80% of concrete. At the Troll Center and the Tennis HOF approximately 16 to 18% of all impacts satisfied the 80% concrete standard. Following uniform drying of the Wimbledon soil, 24% of all BB impacts exceeded the minimum standard for concrete. Tennis play at Wimbledon is ideal for the Grass Court Championships because of the slow pace and consistent BB. Tennis Ball Bounce – Surface Soil Moisture Soil moisture using TDR (3-inch probes) was measured weekly during the tennis season concurrently with surface hardness and ball bounce. In tennis, the ball bounce test is a surface phenomenon. This is the main reason why the low energy impact of the light weight (0.5-kg) Clegg is more effective in predicting tennis ball bounce than heavier devices (2.25-kg Clegg or 1.95-kg TruFirm) (Ebdon et al., 2025). Similarly, longer TDR (5-inch) rods are not as effective as 3-inch probes – it is the immediate surface moisture that matters in tennis ball bounce. Soil drying will promote harder surfaces but this depends on the soil texture and the mineralogy (clay content) of the soil. Table 5 compares soil drying and surface hardness between the Troll Center and Wimbledon soils. The gains in surface hardness from 38% soil drying are very different between the Troll Center soil (silt loam, 12% clay) and Wimbledon soil (sandy clay loam, 23% clay). At the same soil moisture deficit (38% soil drying), 60% greater surface hardness is observed on Wimbledon soil (77 g increase – Wimbledon vs. 48 g increase – Troll Center). The Troll silt loam increases in hardness only 3.2 g with 1% soil drying compared to 5.5 g with 1% drying for Wimbledon soil. For most soils it is believed that soil drying is more important in providing a hard tennis surface than soil compaction by rolling. Any natural soil drying will promote higher ball bounce. Recent research indicates that soil drying to 40% soil moisture depletion causes minimal turf dehydration with fine textured soils (Bruan et al., 2022). Figure 2 presents 1122 pairs of vertical ball bounces and soil moisture (3-inch TDR) measured on Troll Center perennial ryegrass courts during a 17-week period. Prior to soil drying (week 1), tennis ball bounce was below standards (66% of concrete) while after progressive soil drying (week 17) ball bounce exceeded standards (83% concrete). Species Wear Tolerance – Carrying Capacity Grass cover after tennis play ended is presented in Table 6 along with the carrying capacity (hours of play) to wear baselines to 70% grass cover. Following 2-years of study perennial ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass exhibited significantly better wear tolerance (≥ 65% grass cover) and greater carrying capacity (≥ 70 hrs. of play to 70% cover) compared to bentgrass and fine fescue species. Traditional golf species (bentgrass) are comparatively less tolerant of tennis traffic compared to improved cultivars of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass – providing the cultivars are tolerant of 5/16-inch mowing heights. Of all the species-cultivars tested, the fine fescue mixture was the least tolerant of tennis traffic (24% grass cover) with the lowest carrying capacity (20 hours). Interestingly, the fine fescue mixture used in the tennis study was the same mixture used on the golf greens at the 2015 US Open (Chambers Bay, WA). This is further evidence as to the intensity of the traffic that is often underestimated in tennis. The Court Playability The highest priority should be given to planting wear tolerant grasses adapted to tennis play. Grasses with significantly lower carrying capacity will wear-down faster under the same hours of play. The loss of grass cover during the tennis season has a significant impact on tennis play (pace) and the uniformity (consistency) of ball bounce. Table 7 summarizes approximately 3000 measurements on perennial ryegrass courts at the Troll Center. Perennial ryegrass represents the most wear tolerant species with the highest capacity for surface hardness for satisfying ball bounce standards – ideal for tennis. All areas of the court satisfied ball bounce standards (≥ 70% of concrete). However, the T-area approached 80% concrete with an average surface hardness of 143 g and BB of 45-inch. Surface moisture was 4.4% drier at the T-area (less grass – more exposed soil for surface drying). It is the soil drying at the worn T-area and baselines that promotes an increase in hardness and ball bounce under tennis play – consistent with soil drying presented in Table 5. These worn areas will play different (slower) because of the increase in the vertical height of the bounce compared to the less trafficked service box. The soil-water relations presented in Table 7 are consistent with golf greens and sports grass under heavy play (McClements and Baker, 1994; Straw et al., 2017). What We've Learned Soil drying promotes harder surfaces and the uniformity of ball bounce approaches the uniformity of concrete. At week 1 before soil drying, BB uniformity relative to concrete was “3.7.” At week 17 following soil drying, BB uniformity across all three courts was “2.6” – approaching the BB uniformity of hard courts. The measured results reported here are consistent with player perceptions. As eight-time Wimbledon Grass Court Champion, Roger Federer, lamented: “This new, fresh grass, we're not quite used to it…as you go deeper in the tournament, the grass court becomes more clay-courty, hard-courty with a bit of grass on it…the ball bounces a bit higher” How fast (low bounce) or slow (high bounce) or consistent (uniform) a grass court plays is dependent on the tolerance of the species-cultivar to traffic and to the properties of the underlying soil and its plant-soil-water relationships. References Braun, R. C., Bremer, D. J., Ebdon, J. S., Fry, J. D., & Patton, A. J. (2022). Review of cool-season turfgrass water use and requirements: I. Evapotranspiration and responses to deficit irrigation. Crop Science, 62, 1661–1684. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20791 Ebdon, J. S., Lu, J., and DaCosta, M. (2025). Comparison of Clegg and TruFirm surface hardness for predicting tennis ball bounce standards on grass courts under match play. Crop Science, 65, e70109. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70109 Ebdon J.S., James I., DaCosta M., and Lu J. (2020). Interspecific comparisons of C3 turfgrass for tennis use: I. Wear tolerance and carrying capacity under actual match play. CropScience. 2021;61:750–762. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20270 Holmes, G., and Bell, M. J. (1986). Playing surface hardness and tennis ball rebound resilience. Journal of the Sports Turf Research Institute, 62, 207–210. ITF. (2019). Approved tennis balls, classified surfaces, and recognized courts: A guide to products and test methods. International Tennis Federation. https://www.itftennis.com/media/2016/2019-itf-technical-booklet.pdf McClements, I., and S. W. Baker. (1994). The playing quality of natural turf hockey pitches. J. Sports Turf Res. Inst. 70:p. 13-28. Miller, S. (2006). Modern tennis rackets, balls, and surfaces. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 40, 401–405. https://doi.org/10.1136/ bjsm.2005.023283 Medicine, 40, 401–405. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2005.023283 Newell, A. J., and Wood, A. D. (2000). Selection of grass species, cultivars and mixtures for lawn tennis. Journal of Turfgrass Science, 76,53–65. Straw, C. M., Bowling, W. J., and Henry, G. M. (2017). Rainfall versus irrigation influences penetration resistance and surface hardness on a recreational sports field. Int. Turfgrass Soc. Res. J. 13: p. 1-5. You have been listening to The Turf Zone Podcast. Follow The Turf Zone on X, Facebook and LinkedIn for all things turfgrass, featuring podcasts, magazines, events and more. The post Anyone for Tennis – Research? appeared first on The Turf Zone.

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

Produced by KSQD 89.5, 89.7 & 90.7FM"Sexism is something that exists because it has existed, does exist, and therefore feels inevitable that it will exist. Certain treatments of women and girls are rooted in inequity simply because those bodies are female. Sexism over time and across institutions sends repeated messages about who women are and where they belong, and constructs a palatable version of womanhood that is non-threatening." - Allison T. ButlerIn Allison T. Butler's new book, The Judgement of Gender, Allison examines how women are both centered and silenced, and maligned in popular culture. She explores a generational legacy in which media harms women, and unpacks what it means when women are cast as “problematic.”Allison uses grounded and critical media literacy to look at celebrity stories, and those thrust into the spotlight, with more nuance, including the infamously sensationalized coverage of Britney Spears, Anita Hill, and Monica Lewinsky.Interview Guest:Allison 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. Allison serves as the Vice President on the Media Freedom Foundation and co-run Mass Media Literacy, a grassroots organization that builds curriculum and trains teachers in critical media literacy across K-12 schools. She is the author of numerous articles and books on media literacy and is co-author of multiple practical resources for media literacy education. In addition, Allison previous book The Media and Me was the subject of her previous "Be Bold America!" interview on media literacy, visit: The Media and Me: A Guide to Media Literacy.

They're speaking African American English, according to linguist Lisa Green at the University of Massachusetts Amherst - in other words, "it's not mainstream English with mistakes." Lisa grew up speaking AAE in Louisiana, and since then, her ground-breaking research has found that AAE is based on a system of consistent grammatical rules, pronunciations and definitions. Some call it a dialect, which evolved from the African languages that slaves spoke blended with plantation English; in fact, when someone says, "she aks" instead of "she asks," they might be echoing Old English from centuries ago. Lisa argues that schools need to acknowledge and respect black children's African American English, even while they teach them Standard American English that they need to succeed in broader society.

“That kind of put soccer on my radar as a sport. I saw how deeply it meant to people, in a way I didn't appreciate prior to that. And then I was in London when the World Cup began, and I saw the opening match — Argentina and Cameroon, with Cameroon winning in an upset. Just the whole spectacle of it gave me an appreciation for the game.” — Brian Bunk, on Ireland, Italia '90, and the moment everything changed Not long now. Only seven days until the World Cup begins. Just enough time to read Brian D. Bunk's new The Shortest History of Soccer: From Ancient Kicking Games to the World's Most Popular Sport. History isn't Bunk with Brian. He looks a bit like Elton John, which is appropriate given that old Rocket Man was chairman of Watford and bankrolled the tiny English club to almost winning the league. Pop stars like Ed Sheeran (Ipswich) and Robert Plant (Wolves) love football, Bunk notes. Probably because it reminds them of where they came from. Bunk's thesis is that soccer's global dominance is not accidental. Born in the industrial communities of nineteenth-century England, the game gave workers a new identity, new evidence of their collective power, proof they'll never walk alone. That same logic explains why middle-aged men all over America religiously gather at their local bars to watch English teams with strange names like Ipswich Town and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Such is religion in our globalised post-industrial age. “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that,” the great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly quipped. That's the shortest of short histories of football. What the working-class Shankly meant was that it gives us social meaning — which is, indeed, more historically significant than the life or death of a single individual. Or even God. Football saves our souls, Brian Bunk concurs with Bill Shankly. Enjoy the World Cup. Five Takeaways •       Soccer Was Born in Industrial Communities for a Reason: The game emerged in industrial Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century not by accident but because industrialisation had shattered traditional community life. Mass migration to cities, technological disruption, the loss of familiar rhythms — all created a need for new kinds of identity and belonging. Soccer filled that need. It gave factory workers a team to follow, a ground to gather at, a shared identity that transcended ethnic and class lines. Bunk's argument: this community function is baked into the game itself, which is why it has replicated across every culture it has touched. •       Why Americans Love the Premier League: Bunk identifies the 1990s as the pivotal decade for American soccer. The 1994 World Cup on home soil. The women's World Cup. The formation of MLS. The arrival of the FIFA video game. The Premier League broadcasting deals with ESPN and Fox. All of these combined and snowballed. Add to that the NFL owners investing in English clubs, the celebrity ownership wave (Ryan Reynolds, Elton John), and the cultural footprint of shows like Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham. The result: a generation of Americans for whom following the Premier League is a primary source of community. •       Maradona: All the Contradictions of Football in One Man: Asked which historical match he would most want to attend, Bunk chooses Mexico City, June 1986: Argentina vs England. Not for the Hand of God goal — which was cheating — but for the second goal, the one where Maradona picked up the ball in his own half, went past five English players, and scored what is generally considered the greatest goal in the history of the game. Bryon Butler's BBC radio commentary: “turning like a little eel.” Andrew's verdict: if any single figure captures all the genius, joy, turbulence, and tragedy of football, it is Maradona. •       The World Cup Returns to North America: In seven days, the 2026 FIFA World Cup begins in the United States, Canada, and Mexico — the first time the tournament has returned to North America since the USA hosted in 1994. The timing of Bunk's book is deliberate. Soccer is more popular in America than at any point in history, and the home World Cup is the event that could push it into the first tier of American sports culture. The Premier League, MLS, women's soccer, and now the World Cup: the game's US footprint is larger than it has ever been. •       Andrew's Game: Tottenham vs Benfica, April 1962: Andrew's own fantasy match, offered unprompted at the end: the first leg of the 1962 European Cup semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Benfica at the Est00e1dio da Luz in Lisbon on March 20, 1962, with Eusebio and Jimmy Greaves on the same pitch. Spurs lost 320131 on the night, went out 420132 on aggregate. Two clear penalties not given. Andrew's conclusion: had Spurs won that match, the history of European football — and possibly his own life — would have been different. He notes that he has a son, and that he should have called him Jimmy. About the Guest Brian D. Bunk is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches courses on world history, modern Europe, and the global history of soccer. He is the author of The Shortest History of Soccer: From Ancient Kicking Games to the World's Most Popular Sport (The Experiment, June 2026), Beyond the Field: How Soccer Built Community in the United States (University of Illinois Press, 2025), and From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States (University of Illinois Press, 2021). He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. References: •       The Shortest History of Soccer by Brian D. Bunk (The Experiment, June 2026). •       Beyond the Field: How Soccer Built Community in the United States by Brian D. Bunk (University of Illinois Press, 2025). •       Argentina vs England, FIFA World Cup quarter-final, Azteca Stadium, Mexico City, June 22, 1986 — the Hand of God game, referenced as Bunk's fantasy match. •       Tottenham Hotspur vs Benfica, European Cup semi-final, Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, April 1962 — Andrew's fantasy match. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On A...

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!      

On this week's EarthWorks Podcast, Joel Simmons talks with Scott McLean, Plant Healthcare Business Developer for Northeast Operations at The Davey Tree Expert Company.Like many turf professionals, Scott didn't begin his career with a clear roadmap. After taking a job at a local golf course, he quickly fell in love with the turf industry. He spent twelve years in golf course management, earned his turf degree from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and built a strong foundation in traditional turf management. But as family priorities changed, Scott began looking for a career path that offered a better work-life balance while still keeping him connected to the industry he loved.That search led him into lawn care, where he initially followed conventional high-synthetic fertilizer programs. Over time, however, he began questioning whether there was a better approach. After speaking with a local golf course superintendent about organic fertilizers, he discovered EarthWorks and started experimenting with carbon-based fertility programs on his own lawn.What he saw changed everything. His lawn developed a darker, richer green color, stayed greener later into the fall, and greened up earlier in the spring. But the moment that truly convinced him came during a late winter thaw, when the snow melted off his lawn days before it disappeared from neighboring properties receiving traditional fertilizer programs.Today, Scott is a strong believer in Biological Soil Management and carbon-based fertility. He believes the lawn care industry is shifting away from high-input, ala carte service models toward more efficient flat-fee programs that reduce inputs, lower labor and fuel costs, and improve profitability, all while producing healthier lawns and happier clients. This is a conversation about changing industry philosophies, building better soil, and the future of lawn care.Visit EarthWorks at: https://www.earthworksturf.com Podcasts: https://www.earthworksturf.com/earthworks-podcasts/ EW Turf Talks: https://www.earthworksturf.com/2-minute-turf-talks/

On this episode, we are joined by Rachel Pigott, this year's ASHT Annual Meeting Chair. Rachel gives us the inside scoop on what we can expect at this October's Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We discuss the pre-conference offerings, the educational program and the various networking opportunities to connect with our hand and upper extremity therapy colleagues. Guest bio: 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 Committee Chair. Rachel is also a past president of ASHT.-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.

New Series: Grounding the Green Financing Series Summary This series brings together scholars researching the relationship between green finance, and the everyday experiences of violence and solidarity across the world. Green finance, understood as various models of loans and investments that ostensibly support mitigation and adaptation to climate change, is promoted by international bodies such as the United Nations and the World Bank. However, the abstraction of this language and policies involved obscures the connections to everyday practices of extraction and resistance. This series reinfuses the economics of climate change with people's histories and agencies. Therefore, anthropologists and adjacent field scholars have a particularly apt skill set for grounding the climate finance discussion in place-based, community-informed explorations across the globe.   Episode Summary In the first episode of this quarterly series, Fernando Leiva talks about his mapping of the finance-extractivism-climate-change-energy transition nexus focused on Chile, his country of origin. He identifies four areas of research into green financing as a material and cultural project : 1) the depolitization of climate change, veiling its true causes of this crisis; 2) the impacts of carbonization by dispossession and the concentration of wealth; 3) the further subordination of public policy to de-risking investments; and 4) the financialization of nature itself. Leiva presents his bestiario (bestiary) and chronology of financial products as an entry point to analyze the interactions between discourses and power relations in Chile, the birthplace of neoliberalism and other sociopolitical experiments in the last 50 years, and now a leader in the green finance economy. In his view, green finance is also a hegemonic myth project that presents the private sector as the social actor of the future, in an unequal field of cultural creation, against communities betting on collective forms of life. Leiva argues that critical scholarship is needed in these cultural battles of meaning making for the future.    Guest Fernando Leiva is a Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Califprnia, Santa Cruz. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (1998). He is the author of Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-Neoliberal Development (University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and The Left Hand of Capital: Neoliberalism and the Left in Chile (SUNY Press, 2021). For the last decade, his research deploys a Critical Cultural Political Economy Perspective that examines how semiotic and material practices co-constitute reality. He uses this approach to examine newly emerging strategies with which transnational capital aims to expand the frontiers of extractivism and craft the foundations for a new capitalist hegemonic project anchored on “eco-extractivism.” Host Jéssica Malinalli Coyotecatl-Contreras is a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She holds a PhD in Anthropology (UCSB, 2025) and a Master's in Social Anthropology (El Colegio de Michoacán, 2013). Her work builds on the knowledge of women and Indigenous communities, at the intersection of the (built) environment, feminist political ecology, and anti-coloniality in the Americas. Her work has been featured in peer-reviewed articles and online pieces for broader audiences. She is currently working on her first manuscript “Volcanic Sustainability: Progressive Fossil Capitalism, Violent Energy Transition, and Indigenous Futurities in Mexico.”   

Joe Connolly is the Head Sports Performance Coach for Football at Arizona State University. Connolly arrived in Tempe in 2018 after serving as the director of sports performance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for two years primarily working with the football program. Prior to UMass, he was the director of strength and conditioning at the University of South Carolina. Connolly oversaw the training for the football and track and field programs at South Carolina for seven season from 2009-2015. Connolly got his start coaching in 2007 at Harvard University where he assisted with all 41 athletic teams. Following a year with Harvard, he spent one year as an athletic performance coach for football at the University of Louisville before joining the Gamecocks for his longest stop. Connolly is a Master Strength & Conditioning Coach through the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association earning the highest honor in the profession in 2022. He was awarded Football Scoop Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year in 2024 and was a nominee in 2026 for the NSCA's Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year. Over his career, Coach Connolly has worked with over 45 NFL Draft picks including the 2014 number one overall pick, and has been a part of 11 bowl games.A former four-year baseball at the University of Hartford, Connolly has shifted gears from his college playing days but has still found way to stay active himself both in and outside the weight room. Connolly is an avid lifter with dedicated time under the bar. Since his time on the diamond, he's stepped on the platform competing in both drug-free powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting as well as strongman and Highland Games. Samson EquipmentSamson Equipment provides Professional Weight Room Solutions for all your S&C needs.Cerberus StrengthUse Code: STRENGTH_GAME at Cerberus-Strength.comSport KiltUse Code: TSG at SportKilt.comDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

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, an Associate Professor in the department of sociology at Vassar College. Her research is on health, wellness, and medical knowledge Catherine Tan, and Investment Banker on Wall St. Mark Wittman. James Lasdun will be joining the panel for a portion of time to discuss the overturn of Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions. James Lasdun is a poet and author, his works have appeared in the 'New York Times,' 'London Review of Books,' 'The New Yorker,' and more.

In this episode, I speak with Andrew Enaifoghe about his work "THE REVOLUTIONIZATION OF EDUCATION IN SOCIETY 5.0 - THE ROLE OF VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY IN CREATING IMMERSIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS: LITERATURE REVIEW"For more information, check out Andrew's ResearchGate Link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew-Enaifoghe-2/researchAndrew's Short Bio:  Dr. Andrew Enaifoghe is a multidisciplinary researcher specializing in public administration, governance, and sustainable development. His work explores inclusive governance, participatory democracy, and socio‑economic transformation in Africa. As an educator and Public Technologist, he has also contributed research to digital divide in education. He has authored over 100 peer‑reviewed publications, contributing significantly to African governance and development scholarship. He is a recipient of the Vice‑Chancellor's Research and Excellence Award for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2024 in recognition of his exceptional research output.  He has also engaged in international academic dialogue, including serving as a guest lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he presented on youth participation in Nigeria's #EndSARS movement. Beyond academia, Dr. Enaifoghe is known as an inspirational writer, preacher, and motivational speaker dedicated to promoting education, ethical leadership, and community empowerment. 

For Rabbi Jeremy Tibbetts, Jewish mysticism is all about turning inwards: both individually and religiously. While he did not grow up Orthodox, Rabbi Jeremy was exposed to Hasidic teachings for the first time at eighteen years old and found that there was something “deeply healing” about the Torah. Over the past decade, he has dedicated himself to studying mysticism and has grown fluent in the writings of the Arizal, Rabbi Isaac ben Solomon Ashkenazi Luria, and other mystical thinkers. Rabbi Jeremy Tibbetts is the co-director of the JLIC Jerusalem Community alongside his wife, Emily. He studied public health at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and currently learns at Yeshivat Siach Yitzchak in Efrat. He is also the director of student leadership at Yavneh on Campus, where he works with students on over forty college campuses to help build local Jewish communities.Now, he joins us to answer eighteen questions with Rabbi Dr. Benji Levy on Jewish mysticism including the role of mysticism in daily life and how each person can find their own “piece of Torah.”Here are our questions: What is Jewish mysticism?How were you introduced to Jewish mysticism?In an ideal world, would all Jews be mystics?What do you think of when you think of God?What is the purpose of the Jewish people?How does prayer work?What is the goal of Torah study?Does Jewish mysticism view men and women the same?Should Judaism be hard or easy?Why did God create the world? Can humans do something that is against God's will?What do you think of when you think about Moshiach?Is the State of Israel part of the final redemption?What is the greatest challenge facing the world today?How has modernity changed Jewish mysticism?What differentiates Jewish mysticism from the mysticism of other religions? Does one need to be religious to study Jewish mysticism?Can mysticism be dangerous?How has Jewish mysticism affected your relationships with yourself and with others?What is a Jewish teaching that you always take with you?

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, Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany Robert Griffin, and Vice President for Editorial Development at the New York Press Association Judy Patrick.

Our guest today is Cedric de Leon, author of Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity (U California Press, 2025). In this book, de Leon explores the complex and often overlooked history of Black political organizing within the U.S. labor movement. Rather than presenting a simple story of unity, he highlights the tensions, debates, and internal conflicts within Black civil society that ultimately strengthened movements for interracial labor solidarity. The book traces key organizations, leaders, and events from early socialist influences in Harlem to the rise of labor coalitions and the Memphis sanitation strike; demonstrating how Black workers and leaders actively shaped strategies for liberation. By focusing on both cooperation and disagreement, de Leon argues that Black political agency is best understood through this dynamic interplay. Freedom Train ultimately reframes labor history by centering Black voices and showing how their activism was crucial in pushing forward both civil rights and workers' rights in America. Our guest, Cedric de Leon, is a Professor of Sociology and Labor studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 2018 to 2022, Cedric directed the UMass Amherst Labor Center, the country's premier worker-side graduate program in Labor Studies. He was the first person of color to do so. Before de Leon became an academic, he worked as a staff organizer and elected leader in the U.S. labor movement. His research focuses on race, labor, social movements, and political sociology, and he has published several books examining labor history and organizing. He has written extensively about how social movements organize and how political identities are formed, particularly within Black communities and labor struggles. His research combines historical analysis with sociological theory to better understand power, resistance, and collective action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Our guest today is Cedric de Leon, author of Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity (U California Press, 2025). In this book, de Leon explores the complex and often overlooked history of Black political organizing within the U.S. labor movement. Rather than presenting a simple story of unity, he highlights the tensions, debates, and internal conflicts within Black civil society that ultimately strengthened movements for interracial labor solidarity. The book traces key organizations, leaders, and events from early socialist influences in Harlem to the rise of labor coalitions and the Memphis sanitation strike; demonstrating how Black workers and leaders actively shaped strategies for liberation. By focusing on both cooperation and disagreement, de Leon argues that Black political agency is best understood through this dynamic interplay. Freedom Train ultimately reframes labor history by centering Black voices and showing how their activism was crucial in pushing forward both civil rights and workers' rights in America. Our guest, Cedric de Leon, is a Professor of Sociology and Labor studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 2018 to 2022, Cedric directed the UMass Amherst Labor Center, the country's premier worker-side graduate program in Labor Studies. He was the first person of color to do so. Before de Leon became an academic, he worked as a staff organizer and elected leader in the U.S. labor movement. His research focuses on race, labor, social movements, and political sociology, and he has published several books examining labor history and organizing. He has written extensively about how social movements organize and how political identities are formed, particularly within Black communities and labor struggles. His research combines historical analysis with sociological theory to better understand power, resistance, and collective action. 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

It's News Day Tuesday on The Majority Report   On today's program:   Trump threatens to end a whole civilization on Truth Social this morning. Implying that he will drop a nuke on Iran. This after he called Iranians animals at an Easter event yesterday. Also, yesterday, Donald Trump said he believed that God supports his war in Iran.   Pete Hegseth gave another ChatGPT written dumbass speech where he compared the rescued pilot that was shot down in Iran to Jesus Christ's resurrection.   Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Arindrajit Dube joins the program for a conversation about his new book entitled; The Wage Standard: What is Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix it.   In the Fun Half:   Ben Shapiro's Zionism have become a pair of concrete socks, shilling for the war in Iran as his viewership tanks.   The Triggernometry guys are left gob smacked by the stupidity of Iranian monarchist Elicia Le Bon as she claims that 150,000 members of the IRGC are ready to defect to Reza Pahlavi with no source for that number.   Donald Trump is offended by a reporter's question about his mental acuity and lashes out in an insane rant about Asian countries not helping in the Strait of Hormuz.   Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey, shills for the war in Iran on CNN as his GOP counterpart Marjorie Taylor-Greene calls to invoke the 25th amendment.   JD Vance doubles down on Trump's nuclear threats on Iran while stumping for Viktor Orban in Hungary.   all that and more   Preorder Molly Crabapple's book: Here Where We Live is Our Country.   To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: ZOCDOC: Go to Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY and download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE and book a top-rated doctor. #sponsored FAST GROWING TREES: Get 20% off your first purchase.  FastGrowingTrees.com/majority SUNSET LAKE: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

Corporate profits are booming. So why haven't most workers gotten a raise? For decades, we've been told a simple story: work harder, become more productive, and your wages will follow. But what if that story was never really true? This week, Nick and Goldy talk to Arindrajit Dube—one of the most influential economists shaping how we understand wages, and author of a new book, The Wage Standard: What's Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It —for a conversation that cuts to the heart of how pay actually works in America. At a moment when the gap between what the economy produces and what workers take home keeps growing, this episode challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions in economics—and asks what it would take to build a labor market that actually delivers for working people. Because if wages aren't just set by “the market”… then they can be changed. Arin Dube is an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and one of the leading researchers on wages and labor markets. He is the author of The Wage Standard: What's Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It, and has advised policymakers in the U.S. and internationally on minimum wage policy and labor market dynamics. Social Media: @arindube.bsky.social @arindube Further reading:  The Wage Standard: What's Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It MBAs in management lead to lower employee pay, study finds Eclipse of Rent-Sharing: The Effects of Managers' Business Education on Wages and the Labor Share in the US and Denmark Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties NELP Research Brief on Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties Minimum wage own-wage elasticity repository: a representative estimate of the own-wage elasticity (OWE) of employment from every minimum wage study published since 1992. 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

First up, I sit down with educator and author Allison Butler to talk about her latest book: The Judgment of Gender: How Women are Centered and Silenced in Pop Culture. Allison dissects this seeming contradiction of both centering and silencing women. We dive into some history to orient us in the present, consider the intersections of womanhood, the women in service to patriarchy, and more. Next up, Dr. Shir Hever comes back on the show this time to give us a perspective on the war on Iran that you wont likely hear, even in alternative and independent media. Shir prompts us to consider what the actual goals of the war are through understanding modern warfare, the US/Israeli relationship, and the paradoxical stability of totalitarianism staring at us from this current apocalyptic war. Allison T. Butler is Senior Lecturer and Associate Chair in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the Vice President of the Media Freedom Foundation and the author of The Judgment of Gender: How Women are Centered and Silenced in Pop Culture, published by The Censored Press. Dr. Shir Hever is a scholar of Israels occupation, apartheid and genocide, born in Israel and now living in Germany. He is the managing director of the Alliance for Justice between Israelis and Palestinians and his latest book is The Privatization of Israeli Security. The News That Didn't Make the News. Each week, co-hosts Mickey Huff and Eleanor Goldfield conduct in depth interviews with their guests and offer hard hitting commentary on the key political, social, and economic issues of the day with an emphasis on critical media literacy. The post Project Censored – April 3, 2026 appeared first on KPFA.

Economic models have treated the labor market like a perfectly competitive system where wages naturally align with worker value. Arin Dube, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of “The Wage Standard”, challenges this long-held assumption. He argues that modern labor markets are riddled with invisible frictions that give employers outsized power over your paycheck.  These uneven power dynamics help explain why salaries at the bottom of the distribution have historically stagnated while the broader economy grew. Dube unpacks decades of data to show what actually happens when minimum wages rise, pushing back against the classic warning that wage floors automatically destroy jobs. Instead, he presents evidence suggesting that higher pay can actually reduce turnover and push workers toward more productive companies.  Hosts Luigi Zingales and Bethany McLean press Dube on the missing pieces of his labor puzzle. Zingales questions whether Dube is ignoring the massive impact of immigration on the supply and demand for low-wage labor. Meanwhile, McLean digs into the elusive concept of fairness, asking whether outsourced corporate janitors should compare their pay to Wall Street bankers or just to other janitors.  Subscribe to our Youtube Channel Follow Capitalisn't on Instagram & TikTok Send us your questions or comments by emailing capitalisntpod@gmail.com You can find Arin Dube's book "The Wage Standard" here Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

-- On the Show -- Ronny Jackson and Pete Hegseth openly signal that political losses and higher prices are acceptable as long as Donald Trump does not back down in Iran -- With indicators pointing to possible Republican losses in 2026, the question becomes whether Trump will blame election fraud, the media, or members of his own party -- Rick Scott, Donald Trump, and Karoline Leavitt defend rising fuel and food costs while framing the economic pain facing voters as a necessary sacrifice -- Karoline Leavitt struggles to answer reporters' questions about Iran negotiations, rising diesel prices, and Donald Trump's statements during a tense White House briefing -- Television hosts and commentators increasingly question Donald Trump's mental sharpness as polls show a growing share of Americans saying he appears more erratic with age -- A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll shows Donald Trump at 33 percent approval, highlighting deep public dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy and foreign policy -- Jessica Tarlov challenges Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld on Fox News by arguing that Donald Trump and Mike Johnson blocked a bipartisan plan that could have funded TSA workers -- Laura Ingraham raises questions on Fox News about whether Donald Trump fully understood the risks and complexity of the conflict with Iran before moving forward -- On the Bonus Show: David discusses his upcoming trip to Argentina, and much more...

Jung Yun is the author of the novel All the World Can Hold, available now from 37 Ink / Simon & Schuster. Jung Yun was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She received her MFA in English and creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of O Beautiful, which was a New York Times Editors' Choice, a New York Times Group Read, and a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. Her debut novel, Shelter, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Get ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Write a Novel,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thousands of Americans gathered over the weekend for "No Kings" protests. So this hour, we take a look at kings around the world, from history to the present moment. Plus, why are we so interested in royalty? And, what is the role of the king in chess? GUESTS: Mauro Guillén: Vice Dean of Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives. He is the author of books including The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society. He has been named a Commander of the Royal Order of Civil Merit by King Felipe VI of Spain Arianne Chernock: Professor in the Department of History and Associate Dean of the Faculty for the Social Sciences at Boston University. She is the author of books including The Right to Rule and the Rights of Women: Queen Victoria and the Women’s Movement Jenny Adams: Professor and Department Chair of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of books including Power Play: The Literature and Politics of Chess in the Late Middle Ages Music featured (in order): It’s Good To Be King – Tom Petty Brilliant Mistake (King of America) – Elvis Costello Royals – Lorde King of Nothing – Seals and Crofts Her Majesty – The Beatles Only a Pawn in their Game – Bob Dylan Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's guest, John Kuhn, is the author of Making Pagans: Theatrical Practice and Comparative Religion in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024). Making Pagans argues that drama played a powerful role in the articulation of religious difference in the seventeenth century. Examining the common scenes of pagan ritual that filled England's seventeenth-century stages—magical conjurations, oracular prophecies, barbaric triumphal parades, and group suicides—Kuhn traces these tropes across dozens of plays, from a range of authors including Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Dryden, and Philip Massinger. Tracing connections between the history of stagecraft and ethnological disciplines such as ethnography, antiquarianism, and early comparative religious writing, Kuhn shows how early modern repertory systems that leaned heavily on thrift and reuse produced an enduring theatrical vocabulary for understanding religious difference through the representation of paganism—a key term in the new taxonomy of world religions emerging at this time, and a frequent subject and motif in English drama of the era.Drawing together theater history, Atlantic studies, and the history of comparative religion, Making Pagans reconceptualizes the material and iterative practices of the theater as central to the construction of radical religious difference in early modernity and of the category of paganism as a tool of European self-definition and colonial ambition. 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

Notes and Links to Davina Agudelo's Work        Davina Agudelo-Ferreria is a Colombian-American bilingual poet, writer and the founder of her independent publishing company, Alegría Publishing. Agudelo-Ferreira was born in Miami and raised in Medellín, Colombia until the age of 17.    Alegría Publishing was created in 2020 to spotlight modern Latino/x stories and give a special opportunity for upcoming writers to have a platform to present their work.     She also runs the bilingual Alegría magazine, which was founded in 2012 and is published digitally and printed quarterly.  2021 Article in Remezcla: “With Alegría Bilingual Media, Colombiana Davina A. Ferreira Is Uplifting Latine Storytelling   Publishing on Instagram At about 1:40, Davina shares some good Medellin, Colombia slang At about 3:20, Davina expands upon her upbringing and her language and literary lives and literature and writing were places of “refuge” for her At about 6:10, Davina talks about “gatekeepers” and difficulty in getting to read diverse writers and publish; she talks about her publishing company as a response to that  At about 7:50, Davina responds to Pete's asking about her early writing-poetry, journals, etc. At about 9:50, Pete cites Ingrid Rojas Contreras in asking Davina about connections between Colombian cultures and magic realism At about 11:35, Davina responds to Pete's wondering about her take on diversity in publishing and any positive changes in recent years At about 14:15, Davina reflects on the usage of Latine and Latinx At about 16:05, Davina talks about the name of her publishing company and its significance  At about 17:45, Davina expands on alegria vs. joy and their power At about 18:20, Davina talks about the publishing company and its mission and challenges around the COVID pandemic At about 23:05, Davina responds (en español) to Pete asking about her own writing-likes and specialties  At about 26:00, Pete asks Davina (en español) about balancing the personal and the universal, and the balance between the romantic and the cheesy  At about 28:20, Davina outlines the year-round work at a publishing company  At about 30:15, Davina discusses future projects for Alegria Publishing       You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow Pete on IG, where he is @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where he is @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both the YouTube Channel and the podcast while you're checking out this episode.       Pete is very excited to have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. His conversation with Jeff Pearlman, a recent guest, is up now at Chicago Review.     Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl      Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting Pete's one-man show, DIY podcast and extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    This month's Patreon bonus episode features an exploration of formative and transformative writing for children, as Pete surveys wonderful writers on their own influences.    Pete has added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show.     This is a passion project, a DIY operation, and Pete would love for your help in promoting what he's convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 332 with Jordy Rosenberg, the author of the novels Confessions of the Fox (2018) and Night Night Fawn (2026). Confessions of the Fox was a New York Times Editors Choice selection, shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and has been recognized by The New Yorker, the Huffington Post, among other places, as one of the Best Books of 2018. Jordy is a professor in the Department of English and Associated MFA Faculty in the Program for Poets and Writers at The University of Massachusetts-Amherst.    The episode airs on March 24.    Please go to ceasefiretoday.org, and/or https://act.uscpr.org/a/letaidin to call your congresspeople and demand an end to the forced famine and destruction of Gaza and the Gazan people.    You can also donate at chuffed.org, World Central Kitchen, and so many more, and/or you can contact writer friend Ursula Villarreal-Moura directly or through Pete, as she has direct links with friends in Gaza.

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 tenth  appearance on Robinson's Podcast. In this episode, Richard and Robinson discuss the ongoing war in Iran. More particularly, they discuss whether it was predictable, how it will affect the United States, Israel, and Europe, what really motivated the war, and more. 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 Was the Iran War Predictable?05:43 How History Made Trump's War with Iran Inevitable15:00 The Historical Perspective24:45 The War in Iran Is a Catastrophic Mistake for Israel32:03 Will Europe Survive the War in Iran?46:32 Is the Iran War the Last Straw for Donald Trump?53:48 Why China Is Obliterating American Companies01:03:17 How Trump and Israel Are Ending the American Empire01:08:35 Is the United States Turning on Donald Trump?01:13:54 Why Mamdani Is Winning Over New Yorkers01:17:20 The Iran War Is Really About Oil01:28:20 What Happens When The People of Iran Say “No More”?01:39:13 Does AI Mean the End of Capitalism?01:50:55 Will the United States Lose the War in Iran?Robinson's Website: http://robinsonerhardt.comRobinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where he is also a JD candidate in the Law School.

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, Lecturer of Cognitive Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and former Fulbright US Scholar to Egypt Jackie Berry, and Editor at large/columnist/editorial writer, Times Union Jay Jochnowitz.

The Context of White Supremacy Welcomes Dr. Nicholas Caverly. Classified as a White Man, Caverly is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He's an “anthropologist of technology interested in the intersections of racism, space, and justice,” and his research uses “ethnographic and archival methods to investigate political ecologies of racial capital—especially white power and anti-blackness.” We'll review his December 2025 publication, Demolishing Detroit: How Structural Racism Endures. The text examines the many manifestations of the System of White Supremacy in Detroit. Gus was especially interested in the number of years this White Man spent peeping on black people. This included asking intimate details about their lives, finances, and even criminal convictions. Dr. Caverly takes excavation training and asbestos removal classes alongside unemployed and incarcerated black Detroiters who are desperate for employment or forced to remove toxic waste as a condition of their release from prison. At times, Caverly is the only White person in these classes. A black convict named "Rayshawn" allegedly stops Dr. Caverly from getting suited and booted to go play in the asbestos too, telling the White Man he must protect his "Soft Suburb Lungs." Demolishing Detroit actually criticizes White people for "cosplaying" incidents of White Terrorism like the killing of George Floyd. Gus T. thinks Caverly getting costumed to excavate and scrap asbestos with black males continues the White Supremacist tradition of slumming and peeping on black people. Importantly, Dr. Caverly revealed that many, not all, of the black people he spoke with were more willing to speak honestly with him than the White people he met - who often said he looked just like their White relatives. #SuberbLungs #WhiteDedicationToRacism INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Cash App: https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 720.716.7300 CODE 564943#

The fight over renaming The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts has led to a reckoning about the meaning attached to presidential memorials and arguments about who we are. From marble monuments to cultural institutions, what do presidential memorials tell us about not only our past, but our present? For Presidents Day we decided to dig into that with one of the nation's leading voices on memory and memorials, James E. Young, professor emeritus of English and Judaic & Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@usatoday.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.