12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays - Wednesdays
Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.
Archie Green may be best known for almost singlehandedly pressuring the government to create the American Folklife Center, but Sean Burns argues he was one of this country’s foremost intellectuals on the left. Burns, who has written the definitive study of the labor historian and folklorist, discusses Green’s political formation on San Francisco’s docks and … Continued
In Part Two of our interview with Keith Feldman, he tells the story of David Graham Du Bois, a journalist and erstwhile editor of the Black Panther Party newspaper. Also, W. E. B. Du Bois, David’s stepfather, spoke in an audio autobiography about student movements and pan-Africanism, and Barbara Seeber interprets Jane Austen from both … Continued
How have developments in Palestine and the Arab world influenced racial attitudes and struggles in the US? Keith Feldman’s book examines, among other things, how perceptions and understandings of Arabs and Palestinians helped writers like June Jordan think about both the plight of African Americans and their efforts to transform society. Also: Peter Linebaugh on … Continued
Insurrection and resistance are as much a part of the history of these lands as dispossession and occupation. Native American historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has made it her life’s work to shine a light on such history, which is so often hidden. She discusses the little known Green Corn Rebellion in 1917, as well as the … Continued
Cal Winslow reflects on the life, politics, and writings of socialist historian E.P. Thompson.
Are humans separate from “nature”? We tend to think they are, say ecofeminists and others, with devastating consequences for animals, for women, and for other groups associated with the nature side of the human/nature divide. Barbara Seeber examines what the British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft wrote about how animals and women are viewed and treated. For … Continued
It’s only been a decade and a half since the height of the AIDS epidemic. Yet there’s profound amnesia about what happened during those years, in which hundreds of thousands of people died in this country, ignored by a government that only helped those with the disease after being forced through direct action. Writer Sarah … Continued
Did the targeting of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan military stop when the 26-year-long civil war ended in 2009? A report authored by Anuradha Mittal reveals that traditional Tamil homelands are still under heavy military occupation, thousands of forcibly displaced Tamils remain in limbo, and official policies continue to marginalize and torment the Tamil … Continued
Jodi Dean on why communism remains a powerful ideological force.
Many of the Italians who migrated to the US in large numbers at the turn of the twentieth century were drawn to anarchism. Jennifer Guglielmo has studied Italian immigrant political culture with an emphasis on working-class women who espoused anarchism, labor militancy, and a radical, transnational feminism.
