Who deserves public assistance from the government? This age-old question has been revived by policymakers, pundits, and activists following the massive economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anne Whitesell takes up this timely debate, showing us how our welfare system, in its current state, fails the people it is designed to serve.
From debates over sti ... Show More
Yesterday
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
Nov 22
Shatema Threadcraft, "Labors of Resurrection: Black Women, Necromancy, and Morrisonian Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Western democracies are haunted. Michael Hanchard suggests that the specter of race is what haunts our democracies, but it may be more accurate to suggest that they are haunted by their own racialized death machines—by racialized premature death. If this haunting is not adequatel ... Show More
58m 24s
Nov 2024
Anne M. Whitesell, "Living Off the Government?: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Welfare" (NYU Press, 2024)
Who deserves public assistance from the government? This age-old question has been revived by policymakers, pundits, and activists following the massive economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anne Whitesell takes up this timely debate, showing us how our welfare system, in its ... Show More
30m 34s
Jun 2023
Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour, "The Politics of Survival: Black Women Social Welfare Beneficiaries in Brazil and the United States" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Poor Black women who benefit from social welfare are marginalized in a number of ways by interlocking systemic racism, sexism, and classism. The media renders them invisible or casts them as racialized and undeserving "welfare queens" who exploit social safety nets. Even when Bla ... Show More
1h 30m
Jul 2025
Think the Medicaid cuts don't affect you? Think again.
Republicans have passed President Trump's One Big, Beautiful bill, but is it built on bad faith stereotypes? The legislation guts funding for Medicaid, and for a long time Republicans have been attacking the program as sort of welfare for moochers. Who exactly are these moochers? ... Show More
15m 21s
May 2024
Anne Kim, "Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich off America’s Poor" (The New Press, 2024)
Poverty is big business in America. The federal government spends about $900 billion a year on programs that directly or disproportionately impact poor Americans, including antipoverty programs such as the earned income tax credit, Medicaid, and affordable housing vouchers and su ... Show More
28m 19s
Feb 2025
Kelly Alexander, "Truffles and Trash: Recirculating Food in a Social Welfare State" (UNC Press, 2024)
On a fragile planet with spreading food insecurity, food waste is a political and ethical problem. Examining the collaborative, sometimes scrappy institutional and community efforts to recuperate and redistribute food waste in Brussels, Belgium, Kelly Alexander reveals it is also ... Show More
1h 4m
Dec 2024
Leah Downey, "Our Money: Monetary Policy as If Democracy Matters" (Princeton UP, 2024)
How the creation of money and monetary policy can be more democratic.
The power to create money is foundational to the state. In the United States, that power has been largely delegated to private banks governed by an independent central bank. Putting monetary policy in the hands ... Show More
40m 5s
Sep 2024
Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman, "The Power of the Badge: Sheriffs and Inequality in the United States" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
The image of the sheriff is deeply embedded in American culture – from pacifist Jimmy Stewart in Destry Rides Again and gun averse Roy Scheider in Jaws to those more comfortable wielding power like Gene Hackman in Unforgiven, Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men, and Gary Co ... Show More
1h 10m
Aug 2024
Miguel Montalva Barba, "White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America: Race, Place, and Space" (Policy Press, 2024)
White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America: Race, Place, and Space (Policy Press, 2024) examines the connections between race, place, and space, and sheds light on how they contribute and maintain racial hierarchies.
Dr. Miguel Montalva Barba focuses on the White residents ... Show More
51m 27s
Mar 2023
Adam Michael Auerbach and Tariq Thachil, "Migrants and Machine Politics: How India's Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness" (Princeton UP, 2023)
How poor migrants shape city politics during urbanization As the Global South rapidly urbanizes, millions of people have migrated from the countryside to urban slums, which now house one billion people worldwide. The transformative potential of urbanization hinges on whether and ... Show More
1h 1m
Jan 2025
Philip Rathgeb, "How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Radical right parties are no longer political challengers on the fringes of party systems; they have become part of the political mainstream across the Western world. How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA (Oxford UP, 2024) shows how they h ... Show More
54m 44s