Against the Grain – August 28, 2013
In his new book, Robert Samuels describes why higher education in the US is in crisis; he also contends that free tuition, room, and board to public colleges and universities is not only desirable but feasible.

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Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is produced and hosted by Sasha Lilley.
In his new book, Robert Samuels describes why higher education in the US is in crisis; he also contends that free tuition, room, and board to public colleges and universities is not only desirable but feasible.
At the Historical Materialism conference in New York City, Stanley Aronowitz spoke about what technology and machinery are doing to the labor process, and Richard Smith discussed the relationship between capitalist production and ecological destruction.
According to an article co-written by U.C. Irvine professor Susan Coutin, deportation not only removes “unwanted” others, but also in a sense transforms de facto US citizens into de facto stateless persons.
What do you get when you mix evangelical Christianity, consumer capitalism, and feminism? Ellen Flournoy proffers an answer.
At this year’s Left Forum, Bruno Gullì, Carlos Frade, and Marcus Grätsch spoke about austerity and repression in Italy, Spain, Germany, and beyond. They also discussed the Left’s response.
According to Max Haiven, global capitalism turns cooperative and creative activity into calcified narratives, hierarchies, and commodities. Haiven emphasizes the importance of a task he calls “commoning memory.”
Ann Laura Stoler’s new book focuses on the less perceptible, more protracted, and still-persisting effects of imperial interventions.
Uranium fuels nuclear weapons and controversial power plants. But uranium mineworkers labor in obscurity — and in exceptionally dangerous settings. Gabrielle Hecht has gone to Africa to investigate.
In comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with apartheid-era South Africa’s policies vis-à-vis the Bantustans, Andy Clarno finds both similarities and significant differences.
In a new book, historian Walter Hixson describes how cultural and other factors have affected how we, and how US political and military elites, remember and understand the Vietnam War.