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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.
What happens when socialist struggle intersects with struggles for national liberation? What role did Marxist theory play in anticolonial movements? Are movements that target hierarchies other than class properly considered Marxist? Vijay Prashad discusses the entwined traditions of Marxism and national liberation. “Dawn: Marxism and National Liberation”, a dossier of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research … Continued
How should we understand the historical and ideological roots of the widespread crisis of nature? Historian of science David Kubrin argues that, in the midst of great popular social upheaval, the Scientific Revolution displaced older, pagan ideas that nature was a living force. The consequences, he argues, were deep and long lasting, including on what … Continued
Conversations with Joseph Levine about moving from orthodox Judaism to atheism and with Eric Keenaghan about Ralph Waldo Emerson are part of the twelve-interview Philosophy and the Good Life compilation. Louise Antony, ed., Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life Oxford University Press, 2010 Branka Arsic and Carey Wolfe, eds., The Other … Continued
Prisons, jails, immigrant detention centers. We know them as places of unfreedom, but we don’t often think about them as places of work. Yet compulsory labor is a key part of incarceration in this country. Sociologist Erin Hatton discusses the state of coerced work in prisons, the lack of worker protections, and how work has … Continued
Highlights from a five-hour documentary film series called Capitalism, in which thinkers like Noam Chomsky, David Graeber, and Thomas Piketty examine and critique the ideas of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and many others.
Could humans ever live together without warring? Did half of us evolve to start wars and dominate the rest of us? Biological anthropologist Agustín Fuentes separates myths from the facts about aggression, genes, human nature, and evolution, in this interview from the collection “Big Picture Ideas: The Best of Against the Grain”.
Marshall Rosenberg lays out some of the basics of Nonviolent Communication, the method he developed for connecting compassionately with others. (Photo by Noah Buscher via Unsplash)
Great powers rise and fall. But when their power wanes, as Britain’s did in the early 20th century and the U.S. is arguably waning now, who shoulders the costs of their decline? Is it elites or those on the bottom? Sociologist Richard Lachmann discusses what the past can tell us about the future of empires … Continued
A radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism.
It’s been likened to the Paris Commune, but took place a mere forty-one years ago. In 1980, the people of Gwangju, South Korea, rose up against dictatorship, and for some precious days the liberated city governed itself from below through mass assemblies. George Katsiaficas discusses the history of repression and rebellion in Korea and the … Continued
