Against the Grain – July 13, 2011
The early writings of Walter Benjamin, the brilliant German philosopher-critic known for his insights into technology, art, and modern existence, are the focus of a new volume edited by MIT scholar Howard Eiland.
Against the Grain
12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays - Wednesdays
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.
Against the Grain – July 12, 2011
Jonathon Keats, author of “Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology,” considers the origins, uses, and sociopolitical impact of words like “microbiome,” “copyleft,” and “singularity.”
Against the Grain – July 11, 2011
Ann duCille examines issues of race, gender, and class in Ernest Hemingway’s story “The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” (Prior reading of the story is not required.)
Against the Grain – July 6, 2011
Kafka scholar Jeff Fort talks about “The Metamorphosis” and its author, Franz Kafka, and Mark Jackson discusses a stage adaptation of the novella that he’s currently directing at Aurora Theatre Company.
Against the Grain – July 5, 2011
Betsy Hartmann, director of the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College, contests the widely held notion that overpopulation is the cause of our environmental woes.
Against the Grain – July 4, 2011
Keramet Reiter calls supermax prisons “the black hole” in this nation’s system of prisons and punishment: So little is known about them, and yet supermax confinement is the most extreme form of punishment next to the death penalty.
Against the Grain – June 29, 2011
Scholar/activist Jason Ferreira describes how groups like the Black Panthers and the San Francisco Mission-based group Los Siete rejected narrow nationalist conceptions of identity, instead creating cross-racial, Third Worldist communities of resistance in the 1960s and ’70s.
Against the Grain with Sasha Lilley – June 28, 2011
Christian Parenti, author of “Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence,” speaks with Sasha Lilley about global warming, neoliberalism, counterinsurgency, and how elites plan to respond to climate change-related civil unrest and migration in the Global South by further sealing and militarizing the borders of the rich countries.
Against the Grain – June 27, 2011
Scott Saul, author of “Freedom Is, Freedom Ain’t: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties,” speaks with Sasha Lilley about the intersection of Black Power, Civil Rights, and the counterculture in the late 50s and 60s, and the brilliant music produced during that era.
Against the Grain – June 22, 2011
Joan Baxter has written two new investigative reports on the frenzied, large-scale acquisition of fertile land in Africa by foreign investors, and on the social, economic, and environmental consequences of this accelerating land-grab.