Against the Grain – March 27, 2013
In his new book “Towards Collective Liberation,” Chris Crass draws organizing and movement-building lessons from the experience of San Francisco Food Not Bombs.

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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 “Towards Collective Liberation,” Chris Crass draws organizing and movement-building lessons from the experience of San Francisco Food Not Bombs.
In “Song Without Words: Discovering My Deafness Halfway Through Life,” Gerald Shea writes about the lives of partially deaf people and about how society deals with them.
Award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates discusses her two newest novels: “The Accursed,” an historical work set in the Gilded Age at the dawn of the twentieth century, and “Daddy Love,” a thriller that looks at oppression, bigotry, and the notion of young people as a symbol of hope.
Sarah Swider describes what’s happening to millions of Chinese peasants who migrate to urban centers to do precarious work in China’s construction industry. She also considers what the growing concentration of Chinese migrant workers in cities might mean for working-class politics and solidarity.
Historian Jeff Rubin brought along his daughter Emma to study a social movement begun by teenage girls in Brazil. What they learned, and how it changed their own relationship, is laid out in their new book “Sustaining Activism.”
What does it mean to say that we humans are alienated from nature? Does that statement even make sense? Not according to philosopher Steven Vogel, who contends that another kind of alienation is at play, one that we can and must address.
Lawrence Wright’s book “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prism of Belief” tells the hidden history of America’s most controversial religion. His play “Fallaci” examines how political events can change a person’s beliefs.
Michael McCaughan, Christina Schiavoni, and Michael Lebowitz describe various efforts to transform Venezuelan society during the presidency of Hugo Chavez, whose death was announced on March 5.