Evangelical Christians and members of the global LGBTQI human rights movement have vied for influence in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. Each side accuses the other of serving foreign interests. Yet each proposes future foreign interventions on behalf of their respective causes despite the country’s traumatic past with European colonialism and American impe ... 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
Nov 25
Elizabeth Anne Davis, "The Time of the Cannibals: On Conspiracy Theory and Context" (Fordham UP, 2024)
In 2009, the body of a former president of the Republic of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, was stolen from his grave. The Time of the Cannibals reconsiders this history and the public discourse on it to reconsider how we think about conspiracy theory, and specifically, what it means ... Show More
1h 30m
Nov 23
Sarah Hoiland, "Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club" (Temple UP, 2025)
A righteous sister identifies herself as a biker. She might wrench, or maintain, her own bike, and she prefers to ride with other righteous sisters. Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club (Temple UP, 2025) is Dr. Sarah Hoiland’s insightful ... Show More
44m 53s
Jun 2024
Stephen Marr and Patience Mususa, "DIY Urbanism in Africa: Politics and Practice" (Zed Books, 2023)
Protracted economic crises, accelerating inequalities, and increased resource scarcity present significant challenges for the majority of Africa's urban population. Limited state capacity and widespread infrastructure deficiencies common in cities across the continent often requi ... Show More
49m 13s
Sep 2024
Sharon M. Quinsaat, "Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
When people migrate and settle in other countries, do they automatically form a diaspora? In Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora (U Chicago Press, 2024), Sharon M. Quinsaat explains the dynamic process through which a diaspora is strategically construct ... Show More
55m 59s
Oct 2023
Alexandre Baril, "Undoing Suicidism: A Trans, Queer, Crip Approach to Rethinking (Assisted) Suicide" (Temple UP, 2023)
Note: This episode contains a discussion of suicide. A list of resources is available below.
In Undoing Suicidism: A Trans, Queer, Crip Approach to Rethinking (Assisted) Suicide (Temple UP, 2023), Alexandre Baril argues that suicidal people are oppressed by what he calls structu ... Show More
1h 7m
Sep 2024
Uroš Kovač, "The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon" (Berghahn Books, 2022)
A compelling work that explores the lives and aspirations of young footballers with deep nuance and insight, The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon (Berghahn Books, 2022) shows how precarious masculinity, Pentecostal spir ... Show More
1h 13m
Jul 2024
Laura Robson, "Human Capital: A History of Putting Refugees to Work" (Verso, 2023)
When Americans and other citizens of advanced capitalist countries think of humanitarianism, they think of charitable efforts to help people displaced by war, disaster, and oppression find new homes where they can live complete lives.
However, as the historian Laura Robson argue ... Show More
51m 1s
Nov 2024
Lauren D. Olsen, "Curricular Injustice: How U.S. Medical Schools Reproduce Inequalities" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Medical schools have increasingly incorporated the humanities and social sciences into their teaching, seeking to make future physicians more empathetic and more concerned with equity. In practice, however, these good intentions have not translated into critical consciousness. Hu ... Show More
51m 10s
Jun 2023
Erik Kojola, "Mining the Heartland: Nature, Place, and Populism on the Iron Range" (NYU Press, 2023)
On an unseasonably warm October afternoon in Saint Paul, hundreds of people gathered to protest the construction of a proposed copper-nickel mine in the rural northern part of their state. The crowd eagerly listened to speeches on how the project would bring long-term risks and p ... Show More
28m 28s
Aug 2023
Christopher C. Sellers, "Race and the Greening of Atlanta: Inequality, Democracy, and Environmental Politics in an Ascendant Metropolis" (U Georgia Press, 2023)
Race and the Greening of Atlanta: Inequality, Democracy, and Environmental Politics in an Ascendant Metropolis (U Georgia Press, 2023) turns an environmental lens on Atlanta’s ascent to thriving capital of the Sunbelt over the twentieth century. Uniquely wide ranging in scale, fr ... Show More
1h 3m
Jun 2024
Emily Zackin and Chloe N. Thurston, "The Political Development of American Debt Relief" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
A political history of the rise and fall of American debt relief. Americans have a long history with debt. They also have a long history of mobilizing for debt relief. Throughout the nineteenth century, indebted citizens demanded government protection from their financial burdens ... Show More
58m 27s