What happens to survivors of violence — often perpetrated by intimates — who defend themselves against their attackers? According to legal scholar Leigh Goodmark, it often depends on whether those survivors look suitably victim-like. She discusses the circumstances that frequently lead to the criminalization of survivors of violence –- and makes the case for the … Continued


In many immigration holding facilities, detainees can choose to work for wages. But is the language of choice in this context misleading? Katie Bales deploys the concept of unfree labor to explain what’s going on within what she calls the immigration industrial complex. She emphasizes the historical and geopolitical factors that compel many detainees to … Continued


The pandemic, the Muslim bans, the US-backed Saudi bombing of Yemen, counterterrorism initiatives – Yemeni Americans have faced, and continue to confront, major challenges to their well-being and their ability to connect with loved ones in Yemen. Sunaina Maira’s recent ethnographic work focuses on Oakland-based Yemeni corner store owners and their families. Nadia Kim and … Continued


It took more than three generations of struggle to win the vote for half the population of the United States. The fight for women’s suffrage rose out of the battle for slavery’s abolition and later foundered in the backlash against Reconstruction, gaining new life with the social upheavals of the early 20th century. Historian Ellen … Continued


The movement of Chinese people – around 300 million of them – from rural areas to China’s cities has been called the largest mass migration in human history. Have the working-class migrants who’ve built China’s megacities been rewarded for their efforts? Eli Friedman describes the obstacles and injustices they’ve encountered, particularly when trying to get schooling … Continued


Pirates are some of the most immediately recognizable figures in popular culture –- and some of the most inaccurately represented. Historian Marcus Rediker argues that the actual pirates who lived during the 17th and 18th centuries created a remarkably egalitarian world for themselves at sea, democratically electing their leaders and sharing their takings equally. Resources: … Continued


A women’s history-themed program featuring Bettina Aptheker on her efforts to assist Angela Davis and her turn toward feminism; Jennifer Guglielmo on Italian American women anarchists in New York City; and Manijeh Moradian on an Iranian women’s uprising amidst the revolutionary ferment of 1979. Bettina Aptheker, Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for … Continued