Against the Grain Radio

22/01/2025

Mary Brosnahan argues that much of what we assume about homelessness is wrong. She posits that at its root is the capitalist commodification of housing.

Many assume the majority of people living on the streets struggle with mental illness or just need jobs — and that homelessness is unfortunate, but intractable. Longtime advocate for the unhoused, Mary Brosnahan, argues that these are myths, and that much of what we assume about homelessness is wr...

15/01/2025

We assume that the collection of our data by Big Tech companies — to scrutinize, categorize, and use for commercial and other unsanctioned purposes — is unique to our era. But scholar Anita Say Chan illustrates how the eugenics movement amassed and analyzed data in the 19th and 20th centuries in order to justify social hierarchies.

We assume that the collection of our data by Big Tech companies — to scrutinize, categorize, and use for commercial and other unsanctioned purposes — is unique to our era. But scholar Anita Say Chan illustrates how the eugenics movement in the 19th and 20th centuries amassed and analyzed data in...

14/01/2025

Nietzsche and Stuart Hall, two of the thinkers considered in Lawrence Grossberg’s book “On the Way to Theory,” are the focus of today’s interview: https://kpfa.org/episode/against-the-grain-january-13-2025/

13/01/2025

Coming up Monday at noon PT: Lawrence Grossberg discusses his new book “On the Way to Theory.”

08/01/2025

Benjamin Snyder discusses the Baltimore Police Department’s short-lived experiment in spying on the city’s residents. He considers how technologies like the spy plane are both embraced and feared –- without a deeper awareness of how flawed they often are.

It was the first of its kind program of mass surveillance: the surreal, and initially-secret, deployment of an unmanned plane flying in circles over the city of Baltimore. Sociologist Benjamin Snyder discusses the Baltimore Police Department’s short-lived experiment in spying on the city’s resid...

07/01/2025

According to Tessa Hicks Peterson, higher ed classrooms need to be places of socio-emotional support and healing as well as critical thinking:

Classrooms are places where teaching happens. What if they were also places of healing and justice-seeking? Tessa Hicks Peterson describes educational approaches that foster well-being, empowerment, and critical thinking. She also emphasizes the need for trauma-informed pedagogical practices. Tessa....

07/01/2025

Marx’s Capital has been perennially embraced by those wanting to end the capitalist system—and reviled in equal measure by those defending the established order. Paul Reitter and Paul North discuss their translation, based on Marx's last German edition.

It’s indisputably one of the most important works in history. Karl Marx’s Capital has been perennially embraced by those trying to understand and move beyond the capitalist system—and reviled in equal measure by those defending the established order. Yet, until now, English readers of the firs...

06/01/2025

Coming up Tuesday at noon PT: Tessa Hicks Peterson discusses her new book “Liberating the Classroom: Healing and Justice in Higher Education.”

16/12/2024

More than a century ago, workers battled for the public infrastructure that we take for granted. Historian Shelton Stromquist discusses how we live in those socialist cities today, which elites want to return to private hands.

They struggled for public housing, public transport, and to reduce the police force. They fought to have access to public space, so cities were not just the playground of the wealthy. More than a century ago, workers battled for the public infrastructure that we take for granted, as part of a larger...

03/12/2024

Susan Linn discusses how those who least care for children have so much influence over their lives: marketing to kids through an avalanche of advertisements, collecting data about their private lives, and replacing their teachers in the classroom.

Schools are underfunded. Parents often struggle with long working hours and too little social support. But corporations and tech companies, awash in money and power, promise to entertain and teach children with a near infinite array of devices, apps, and products. Psychologist Susan Linn discusses h...

20/11/2024

Stephen Maher on the sectors of capital that support and oppose Trump. He traces the rise of the MAGA Right and he discusses under what circumstances big business, much of which currently is wary of Trump, might support authoritarian rule.

How should we understand the relationship between capitalists, big and small, and the Republican and Democratic parties — especially in the wake of Trump’s return to power? Stephen Maher discusses the sectors of capital that support and oppose him. He traces the rise of the MAGA Right to forces ...

19/11/2024

Eve Dunbar on how Ann Petry and other writers represented Black women finding satisfaction outside of the normative and respectable:

When the system is stacked against you, when mainstream society sidelines you (or worse), where do you look for liberatory possibilities? Eve Dunbar describes how Ann Petry, author of the 1946 novel “The Street” as well as YA novels about Harriet Tubman and Tituba, insisted on satisfaction and n...

19/11/2024

Coming up Tuesday at noon PT: Eve Dunbar talks about her new book “Monstrous Work and Radical Satisfaction: Black Women Writing under Segregation.”

19/11/2024

Agustina Paglayan argues that mass primary education from its origins was set up not to raise children’s prospects — but rather to teach them to obey.

Why is it that so many schools fail at teaching their students critical thinking skills that could help them understand the world? Political scientist Agustina Paglayan argues that mass primary education from its origins was set up not to raise children’s prospects — but rather to teach them to ...

13/11/2024

Historian David Emmons on the stances taken by Irish rebels and Irish American dissidents in the decades leading up to the New Deal:

What role did Irish Catholics play within the U.S. left? Were Irish radicals more interested in freedom from British rule or in anticapitalism? And what effect did religious beliefs have on Irish Americans’ inclinations to break with the mainstream? David Emmons highlights Irish Americans’ contr...

13/11/2024

Coming up Wed. at noon PT: David Emmons discusses his new book “History’s Erratics: Irish Catholic Dissidents and the Transformation of American Capitalism, 1870-1930.”

13/11/2024

Tenant organizers Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis argue that the "housing crisis" is the latest chapter in a century-long assault on tenants, but that we can draw powerful lessons from housing struggles to fight for a world without landlords.

Few things are more necessary than a roof over one’s head, and yet few things feel as precarious as housing. Rents have skyrocketed across the country, far outstripping wages, and homelessness has risen to an historic high. Fellow tenant organizers Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis argue that t...

05/11/2024

Joe Dumit talks about capitalist growth imperatives, bullying institutions, and our role in perpetuating systems we don’t like:

UC Davis prof Joseph Dumit on corporations as aliens, bystanding as complicity, and whistleblowing as an ethical imperative.