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.
Are the logics of war and neoliberalism compatible with the pursuit of feminist goals? Mary Hawkesworth describes what happens to women, social attitudes, and political structures during war and after demobilization.
Too many wars in the twentieth century, and in this one. Nelson Maldonado-Torres draws upon thinkers like Frantz Fanon and Aime Cesaire to argue for a project of decolonization, one that directly confronts the Western paradigm of war.
John Gulick considers what kind of challenge China poses to US hegemony on the world stage. And Ward Wilson argues that Japan’s decision to surrender in 1945 was not compelled by the bombing of Hiroshima.
According to Colin Duncan, contemporary civilization is about to collapse because of the imminence of rapid and vast climate change. The Canadian environmental historian urges the adoption of radically different methods of meeting human needs. Also, an update on oil extraction from the Alberta tar sands.
There are an estimated 218 million child workers worldwide. Peter Dorman clears up public misconceptions about the nature and consequences of child labor. Also, Erin Thompson talks about IndyKids, a free newspaper that informs children about current events from a progressive perspective.
Sociologist Alex Vitale describes the rise of punitive urban social policies amidst rising concerns over "quality of life." And Kevin Van Meter comments on the need for social movements to dialogue and thereby bolster their collective resistance.
Michael Gene Sullivan and Lizzie Calogero discuss the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s election-year satire "Red State." And Liz Duffy Adams discusses her new post-apocalyptic play, entitled "The Listener."
Can we overcome our murderous antagonism toward difference? In the essays he’s contributed to the volume "Intimacies," Leo Bersani writes about the possibility of a new way of being present to others, one that draws on a certain kind of narcissism.
Curator Taraneh Hemami and artist Gita Hashemi discuss the art exhibition "Theory of Survival," which probes the activities of the Iranian student movement of the 1960s and ’70s. The historian Behrooz Ghamari also comments on the movement and its legacy.
In his book "The Death of Sigmund Freud," Mark Edmundson examines Freud’s ideas about the human propensity to embrace authoritarianism in politics and in religion.
