How the US asylum process fails to protect against claims of gender-based violence.
Through eyewitness accounts of closed-court proceedings and powerful testimony from women who have sought asylum in the United States because of severe assaults and death threats by intimate partners and/or gang members, Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle ... Show More
Nov 19
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even tod ... Show More
54m 29s
Oct 2023
Katherine Jensen, "The Color of Asylum: The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
In 2013, as Syrians desperate to escape a brutal war fled the country, Brazil took the remarkable step of instituting an open-door policy for all Syrian refugees. Why did Brazil—in contrast to much of the international community—offer asylum to any Syrian who would come? And how ... Show More
47m 10s
Oct 2023
Rhoda Kanaaneh, "The Right Kind of Suffering: Gender, Sexuality, and Arab Asylum Seekers in America" (U Texas Press, 2023)
From the overloaded courts with their constantly changing dates and appointments to the need to prove oneself the “right" kind of asylum seeker, the asylum system in the United States is an exacting and drawn-out immigration process that itself results in suffering. When anthropo ... Show More
44m 37s
Sep 2024
Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions
Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a practical, evidence-based primer on immigrants and immigration. Each chapter debunks a frequently encountered claim and answers common ... Show More
1h 6m
Jul 2023
Jessica P. Cerdeña, "Pressing Onward: The Imperative Resilience of Latina Migrant Mothers" (U California Press, 2023)
Pressing Onward: The Imperative Resilience of Latina Migrant Mothers (U California Press, 2023) centers the stories of mothers who migrated from Latin America, settled in New Haven, Connecticut, and overcame trauma and ongoing adversity to build futures for their children. These ... Show More
58m 3s
Apr 2025
S8E7: “Being Present” with Jason De Leon, anthropologist, researcher and professor at UCLA, and award-winning author
For our final episode of Season 8, we are thrilled to welcome Jason De Leon, anthropologist, researcher and professor at UCLA, and award-winning author. Jason’s recent book, “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling” won the 2024 National Book Award f ... Show More
40m 53s
Sep 17
Dominic Davies and Candida Rifkind, "Graphic Refuge: Visuality and Mobility in Refugee Comics" (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2025)
Graphic Refuge: Visuality and Mobility in Refugee Comics (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2025) by Dr. Dominic Davies & Dr. Candida Rifkind is the first in-depth study of comics about refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and detainees by artists from the Global North and South. ... Show More
57m 48s
Jun 2024
Laura Gómez, "Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism" (The New Press, 2020)
Latinos have long influenced everything from electoral politics to popular culture, yet many people instinctively regard them as recent immigrants rather than a longstanding racial group. In Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism (The New Press, 2020), Laura Gómez, a l ... Show More
1h 3m
Sep 14
America’s New Age of Political Violence — with Barbara F. Walter
Scott speaks with Barbara F. Walter, professor at UC San Diego and author of How Civil Wars Start, about what the Charlie Kirk assassination reveals about America’s political future. They discuss how leaders exploit crises, why the U.S. is at higher risk of civil unrest, and how ... Show More
36m 56s