Reparations, Leggings, and Nipsey Hussle

Past Present Episode 174

In this episode, Neil, Natalia, and Niki discuss the case for reparations, why leggings are so controversial, and the legacy of rapper Nipsey Hussle. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Reparations for slavery have gained renewed currency among policymakers. Neil referred to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2014 essay, “The Case ...
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Reparations, Leggings, and Nipsey Hussle

Writing for Us: Mira Jacob’s Good Talk

The New School author and artist on her new graphic memoir

The title of Mira Jacob’s graphic memoir, Good Talk: A Memoir In Conversations (One World, 2019), succinctly sums up the framework of her book, a collection of messy, hilarious, confusing, and gutting conversations Jacob has with her loved ones about everything from coming into her own as a writer to ...
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Writing for Us: Mira Jacob’s Good Talk

Bye Bye Biden

The weakness of his entire candidacy is that he is looking backward at a time when we need to move forward

“The more one suffers, the more, I believe, has one a sense for the comic.” – Søren Kierkegaard There is much suffering in the Age of Trump. The principal source of grief is Trump himself: what he does and doesn’t do, what he says and doesn’t say, and what and who is ...
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Bye Bye Biden

Another Mother

Diotima and the Symbolic Order of Italian Feminism

In recent years, the tradition of Italian biopolitical thought has become immensely popular and increasingly influential. Most interpreters, however, focus on thinkers such as Agamben, Esposito, and Negri, while the contribution of Italian feminist movement is most often neglected. Another Mother: Diotima and the Symbolic Order of Italian Feminism , brings to ...
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Another Mother

Reforming Congress is an Achievable Goal

John Lawrence’s Testimony before the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress

Thank you for your invitation to appear today at this hearing, my first from this side of the dais. I want to offer four observations that, along with the advice from these distinguished congressional scholars, may help guide the work of this Select Committee. Despite the cynicism of many critics inside ...
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Future Cities

Architecture and the Imagination

In January 2013, a photograph of a projected image on a smog-enshrouded high-rise building in Beijing became an internet sensation because it seemed uncannily reminiscent of the urban landscape seen in the 1982 film Blade Runner. Notwithstanding the negative effects of excessive urban pollution on urban residents, Blade Runner tours are now being ...
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Future Cities

Stolen Land, Standing Ground, and the Viral Spectacle of White Entitlement

“Land gets stolen, that’s how it works”

This article is part of a series of texts published on Public Seminar in the lead-up to the Digital/Debt/Empire symposium in Vancouver in late April 2019, convened by Benjamin Anderson, Enda Brophy and Max Haiven. The graphic convergence of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous violence in the name of self-defense emerges with unmistakable clarity in the recent ...
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Stolen Land, Standing Ground, and the Viral Spectacle of White Entitlement

Art, Research and Action Against Debt’s Digital Empire

An introduction

This article is the introduction to a series of texts published on Public Seminar in the lead-up to the Digital/Debt/Empire symposium in Vancouver in late April 2019, convened by Benjamin Anderson, Enda Brophy and Max Haiven. Throughout the history of capitalism, debt has been a key weapon of colonialism and imperialism. Examples include the ruinous ...
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Art, Research and Action Against Debt’s Digital Empire

The People’s Organizer

Mindy Thompson Fullilove on a new edition of Homeboy Came to Orange

Homeboy Came to Orange: A Story of People’s Power is Ernest’s tale of his life in organizing, written with his daughter, New School professor Mindy Thompson Fullilove. First published in 1976, a new edition of the Homeboy Came to Orange was released by New Village Press last year, and features a new foreword ...
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The People’s Organizer

The Mueller Report, the Electoral College, and Arugula Lettuce

Past Present Episode 173

In this episode, Niki, Neil, and Natalia discuss the Mueller Report, the movement to end the Electoral College, and why not many Americans eat arugula lettuce. Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report has been released, though the public has only received ...
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The Mueller Report, the Electoral College, and Arugula Lettuce

The Stansted 15 and the Criminalization of Migrant Solidarity

Solidarity is framed as a crime and anti-terror legislation is mobilized to suppress dissent

In December 2018, laws designed to deal with terrorism – not peaceful protest – were used to convict the Stansted 15. In March 2017, the group of activists had locked themselves around an aircraft to prevent a charter flight due to deport 60 people from taking off. The case is well-documented, with ...
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The Stansted 15 and the Criminalization of Migrant Solidarity

The Globalization of White Supremacy

Countering the spread of South African apartheid rhetoric

In classrooms, apartheid is often depicted as the last gasp of old-school racism, a throwback to an earlier era of European imperialism that took too long to die. Sometimes it’s compared to other racist systems, such as Jim Crow in the United States or the racial hierarchy in Nazi Germany. ...
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The Globalization of White Supremacy