10:00 AM Pacific Time: Monday - Thursday
Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
Leading politicians in Nazi Germany saw the American Revolution as a great advancement for the Aryan race and were influenced by US race, immigration and eugenics laws in coming up with their own laws. Today we are in conversation about this history with Yale Law professor James Whitman. Guest James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor … Continued
` This year marks the 200th birthday of American writer and conservationist Henry David Thoreau. Mitch Jeserich speaks to Laura Dassow Walls, author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life, about Thoreau’s work on Civil Disobedience and his seemingly contradicting support of John Brown’s violent raid on Harper’s Ferry, and witnessing the oncoming Industrial Age. Guest: … Continued
Today we cover the latest happenings on the impact of Hurricane Harvey Floodings with Mark Bebawi, host of KPFTs The Monitor. San Francisco Bay Area Far Right protests turned into largely leftist ones as organizers from the right mostly canceled their events. Joe Arpaio, former sheriff’s pardon by President Trump despite concerns expressed by several … Continued
Today we are in conversation with Nancy MacLean about economist James McGill Buchanan who won the Novel Price in Economics in 1986 and helped laid groundwork of conservative thought that would lead all the way up to the so called Freedom Caucus in Congress. Nancy MacLean is a professor of history at Duke University and author of … Continued
Today we have a conversation on the legal history of free speech including that of hate speech with guest Thomas Healy, professor of law at Seton Hall University. He specializes on issues around freedom of speech. He is the author of the book The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind – and Changed … Continued
Today we talk to Nazif Shahrani about the history and the current situation in Afghanistan. Nazif Shahrani is professor of Anthropology and of Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the School of Global & International Studies at Indiana University. Then we continue our series of conversations on the political dynamic in Venezuela with guest George Ciccariello-Maher, he … Continued
We talk to Patrick N. Hunt, author of the book Hannibal. Patrick N. Hunt is archeologist, historian, biographer, and Fellow at the Royal Geographical Society in London. Hunts book covers the amazing story of one of the most brilliant strategists and tacticians in history. Hannibal is still considered as a military genius whose strategies and … Continued
From Charlottesville to the top lane of Confederate monuments across the country, we talk to Professor john a. powell, who argues that we have not achieved a post-racial society and that there is much work to do to redeem the American promise of inclusive democracy. john a. powell is the director of the Haas Institute for a … Continued
We talk to James Loewen, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Vermont. He worked with a commission studying Confederate monuments in Baltimore. He is the author of such books as Lies My Teacher Told Me, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong and the Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader.
Mitch speaks with Walter Heinecke, professor of Educational Research, Statistics, & Evaluation in the Department of Educational Leadership, Foundations and Policy at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. Professor Heinecke helped organize the counter protest against white nationalist groups opposing the removal of Robert E. Lee Monument in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia.
