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Conversations with community organizers, activists, and cultural workers on the books that have shaped how they organize for social change. Think "Spark Notes" for social justice movements —but in podcast form!
Our Latest Episodes
May 16, 2022
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Episode 64: Evicted
with Maya Dukmasova “We can’t have a conversation about affordable housing without having a conversation about landlord profit.” If you were mad about landlords before, just wait until you listen to this conversation. The mainstream narrative on affordable housing has revolved largely around public housing, but a glaring absence is a much larger demographic: low-income renters. To close out our season, we talked with Maya Dukmasova, former Chicago Reader reporter, current senior reporter at Injustice Watch, about Matthew Desmond’s book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Maya brilliantly breaks down Desmond’s objective that eviction is not just a symptom of poverty, but a cause of poverty, and her own reporting on the eviction crisis in Chicago. Key Questions:
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May 2, 2022
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Episode 63: The Question
with Bernardine Dohrn The Question by Henri Alleg is a short book with a lifelong impact on today’s special guest. The legendary radical activist and movement lawyer, Bernardine Dohrn, first read this anti-war, anti-colonial, anti-racist pamphlet from 1958 as a student in high school. The Question recounts French journalist Henri Alleg’s experience of thirty days of torture in Algeria during the War for Independence. Though it would be years before Bernardine began organizing and taking revolutionary direct action, this class assignment marked a radicalizing moment in her life. We were honored to have a conversation with this fierce feminist powerhouse about the roles that witnessing and storytelling play in ending the practice of torture. Listener’s note: This episode contains descriptions of torture and violence. Please listen with care. |
Key Questions:
- What is the relationship of torture to power and empire?
- How can storytelling be powerful?
- What does it mean to put yourself “proximate to the problem?”
- How can we sustain life-long commitment to struggle and learning?
April 25, 2022
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Episode 62: Care Work
with Heena Sharma There are no shortcuts to disability justice. Access is a process, not a list that can be checked off in organizing work. Part-manifesto, part guide, part-memoir, and so many more parts, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a necessary intervention in our largely ableist movements and world. In this episode, we chatted with Heena Sharma, a queer South Asian organizer with the New York chapter of Survived & Punished. Together, we discussed disability justice, survivorhood, sustainability, recognizing wholeness, and so much more. We invite you to join us with some tea and cookies (or whatever makes you cozy) and tune in to this necessary conversation. References in this episode: The work of Aurora Levins Morales, Cyree Jarelle Johnson, Elliot Fukui, Kai Cheng Thom, Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leroy Moore, Mia Mingus, Patty Berne, Sick of It! A Disability Inside/Outside Project, and Stacey Milbern. |
Key Questions:
- What is disability justice, and how does it intersect in our organizing work?
- What does disability justice look like in practice?
- What does ableism look like inside of schools?
- What are some differences between practices and principles of disability justice?
- What does it mean to share knowledge?
April 18, 2022
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Episode 61: Zami
with K Agbebiyi Audre Lorde is revered for her poetry and writings, rightfully so! Her works are fundamental to the development of Black Feminism. But what did she have to say about her own life? What were the themes and lessons she learned from her experiences? How does Audre, the person, differ from Audre "the icon" that many of us know? As Audre insisted: “If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other peoples’ fantasies for me and eaten alive.” Our guest today to discuss Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is K Toyin Agbebiyi, a Black lesbian and disabled organizer, writer, and macro social worker from Georgia. K has created and participated in a number of campaigns and projects including 8 to Abolition, the No New Jails Campaign, Inside Outside collective, and Survived and Punished New York. This thoughtful conversation with K dives deep into questions around grief, love, and loss. And we get real about the challenges and teachings of relationships, and how it all relates to our organizing work. |
Key Questions:
- What is a biomythography?
- What aspects of Audre “The Person” are often left out of the Audre Lorde “Persona”?
- What lessons can we glean about navigating love, loss, conflict, failure, and grief in our lives and movement spaces?
- What is the value of identity politics?
- What does romantic love have to do with Black feminism?
April 11, 2022
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Episode 60: Capital
with Angela Davis An epic book and an epic guest: Welcome to episode 60! Since the start of this podcast, the Lit Review has always wanted to feature Marx’s Capital with someone who could really help organizers dig into it. Published in 1867, this 1,000+ page text offers a thorough, interdisciplinary critique of capitalism. This book is rich with history, philosophy, and is a classic of political economy. It is also… extremely difficult to read. Notoriously long, full of jargon, and extremely dense, Capital is one of those books that you can read for years and still not understand. Don’t worry though, this episode has you covered, at least to start! Monica and Page invited radical activist, educator, author, and founder of Critical Resistance, Angela Davis—yes, THAT Angela Davis, to break down Marx’s (and Engels’!) key ideas with her professorial brilliance, and to explain the importance and ongoing relevance of what Marx had to say. |
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