This highly original story reflects on how the carceral state shapes daily life for young Black people--and how Black Americans resist, find joy, and cultivate new visions for the future. Joy and Pain: A Story of Black Life and Liberation in Five Albums (University of California Press, 2022) is about a young man, Marley, and a particular place, the Southern ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Jul 27
David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab eds., "Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Visual Anthropology" (Berghahn, 2025)
In this episode I discuss the book Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Anthropology (Berghahn, 2025) with co-editors David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab, a posthumous collection of writings by the late anthropologist Marcus Banks. Banks was a key th ... Show More
1h 4m
May 3
Arely M. Zimmerman, "Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (U Arizona Press, 2026) reshapes how we understand belonging, identity, and political participation in the context of migration. Drawing on decades of Salvadoran activism from the 1980s solidarity movement ... Show More
23m 24s
Jul 2021
The radical, revolutionary resilience of Black joy | Miracle Jones
In the face of trauma, happiness is resilience: a revolutionary act of thriving despite all odds, rather than wilting or surrendering. Community organizer and activist Miracle Jones offers a heart-to-heart meditation on the role of joy as a form of radical resistance, survival an ... Show More
12m 21s
Oct 2023
Frederick V. Engram, "Black Liberation Through Action and Resistance: MOVE" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)
Black Liberation through Action and Resistance: MOVE (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) serves as a call to action for Black millennials and co-conspirators who are immersed in the work of Black liberation or want to begin their own journey toward anti-racism. Its central mission is to ... Show More
38m 35s
Aug 2024
30 | Smile | For Real, For Real
You ever see someone laugh so hard it makes you crack a smile? Even though you’ve got no idea what they are laughing about? Contagious joy helps people survive. Especially Black people, because Black joy is a revolutionary act. In this bonus episode, Franchesca and Conscious disc ... Show More
35m 50s
Feb 2023
"In the Presence of Agape, Battles for Life Ensue" - Joy James & K. Kim Holder, In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love
<p>In this episode, Joy James returns to the podcast and is joined by K. Kim Holder. </p> <p>Holder was a member of the Harlem Chapter of the Black Panther Party and his dissertation <em>The Black Panther Party 1966-1972: a curriculum tool for Afrikan-American studies</em> was th ... Show More
1h 45m
May 2025
Aaron Robertson, "The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America" (FSG, 2024)
How do the disillusioned, the forgotten, and the persecuted not merely hold on to life but expand its possibilities and preserve its beauty? What, in other words, does utopia look like in black? These questions animate Aaron Robertson’s exploration of Black Americans' efforts to ... Show More
52m 58s
Feb 2022
Black People Are From Outer Space
Afrofuturism is an old idea that’s reaching new people. This Black History Month, we travel from Seneca Village to Wakanda, from Sun Ra to Lil Nas X as we learn this cosmic vision of Black freedom, directly from the culture makers propelling the movement. Academy Award winning pr ... Show More
53m 26s