Women of Color Resisting Hegemony in the Academy

An interview with Manya C. Whitaker and Eric A. Grollman

Counternarratives from Women of Color Academics: Bravery, Vulnerability and Resistance demonstrates how to build collective co-created spaces for “speaking up, speaking against, calling out and calling in”, to make visible the experiences and voices of women of color in academia, and the struggle for infrastructures of inclusion and justice at the ...
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Women of Color Resisting Hegemony in the Academy

Trans Bodies/Trans Identities

Arlene Stein and Tey Meadow in dialogue

Tey Meadow is the author of Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century (University of California Press, 2018), an ethnographic and interview based study of the first generation of families actively facilitating transgender identities in youth. Arlene Stein is the author of Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity (Vintage 2019), which ...
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Trans Bodies/Trans Identities

Undocumented in the Ivory Tower

An excerpt from “Counternarratives from Women of Color Academics”

Counternarratives from Women of Color Academics: Bravery, Vulnerability and Resistance documents the lived experiences of women of color academics who have leveraged their professional positions to challenge the status quo in their scholarship, teaching, service, activism, and leadership. By presenting reflexive work from various vantage points within and outside of the ...
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Undocumented in the Ivory Tower

Of Silenced Narratives and Political Deceits

Exploding Hyper Nationalism in India and the Case of Kashmir

In the ongoing drumbeat of democracy or the 'great spectacle' of the Indian elections, Indians; left, right or centre are anxiously awaiting to see whether India voted to 'save its Indian spirit', or whether it will move a step further towards being a Hindu majoritarian state. For Kashmiris, plumbing the ...
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Of Silenced Narratives and Political Deceits

Alabama Feminists Fight Back

How an intergenerational, multiracial force is organizing for women’s reproductive rights

The first meme I saw when I logged on to social media on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 featured a picture of George Orwell, captioned with the words “Boy, did I call it or what?” Beneath it was a picture of Margaret Atwood retorting, “Hold my beer.” I then saw feminist and progressive friends from ...
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Alabama Feminists Fight Back

Debt: A Lever of Dispossession

Case Studies in Resistance

“Debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa” Thomas Sankara “In modern times, debt has become a key means of capital accumulation. Ubiquitous, it has taken on a new function, as the most general category through which exploitation is organized” Silvia Federici The 2008 crisis burst and debt rang our doorbell. Spain, together with ...
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Debt: A Lever of Dispossession

Sex Strike, David McCullough, and Doris Day

Past Present Episode 180

In this episode, Neil, Natalia, and Niki discuss a proposed “sex strike,” historian David McCullough’s new book, and the life and legacy of Doris Day. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Actor and activist Alyssa Milano this week suggested that women withhold sex from men until women achieve ...
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Sex Strike, David McCullough, and Doris Day

Civil War by Other Means

Or: Somewhere, Carl Schmitt is Smiling

In a piece I wrote for Public Seminar in September 2015, I argued that Donald Trump’s campaign augured a turn to the kind of “Friends/Enemies” political imaginary cooked up by the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. Schmitt was unimpressed by the niceties of liberal democratic practice, and saw politics as a Kampf between irreconcilable parties, where ...
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Civil War by Other Means

A Secret Invasion 

The University in Exile and conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories offer alternative explanations for shocking historical events and sweeping cultural changes. They simplify complex socio-political factors and processes into seductive narratives of Good versus Evil. They are the opium of those who believe that they are on the wrong side of history, yet imagine that God is on ...
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A Secret Invasion 

What Will Leftists Do if Biden Wins?

Nothing, probably, except vote for him in the general election.

Bill Scher was my guest last night for a civics program in New Haven. We discussed and debated the ins and outs of impeaching Donald Trump. We disagreed, mostly, but I appreciated Bill’s take, because he works hard to see things with clear eyes. A contributing editor to Politico Magazine, Bill argued there’s little ...
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What Will Leftists Do if Biden Wins?

The Trap Trump is Laying

Defer, deflect and delay

Subtlety has never been one of Donald Trump’s strong suits, and I must confess, I have been loathe to attribute great strategic skills to this most incoherent and incompetent of presidents. Yet increasingly, one must begrudgingly acknowledge Trump’s strategy for countering the enhanced congressional oversight resulting from last November’s election. There ...
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The Trap Trump is Laying