This is part one of a two part conversation with Joshua Myers on his latest book Of Black Study . In Of Black Study Joshua Myers examines the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, Sylvia Wynter, Jacob Carruthers and Cedric Robinson as well as June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara, and what each contributed to Black Studies approaches to knowledge production within and beyond Western structures of knowledge. In this part of our two conversation on this book, Professor Myers talks about the selection of the six thi...
Jan 15, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 185
In this episode we welcome J. Moufawad-Paul back to the podcast. Previously we had him along with Alyson Escalante and Devin Zane Shaw to talk about On Necrocapitalism a collectively authored book they all worked on together along with some other authors. For today’s episode we are focused on J. Moufawad-Paul’s latest book Politics In Command: A Taxonomy of Economism . This book seeks to understand what economism is, how it is deployed through socialist analyses, and the ways in which various ca...
Jan 07, 2023•1 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 184
This is an episode we recorded about a month and a half ago for our 5th anniversary. Due to all the other stuff we were recording at the time we just held on to this one for the year end. In this episode we grapple with a bunch of questions sent to us by patrons of the show. We are not experts, and this conversation, like all of ours is not without its own limitations and shortcomings. We hope that our answers will be taken not from a position of authority but as an understanding of a bit of whe...
Dec 31, 2022•2 hr 34 min•Season 1Ep. 183
This episode is part 2 of Josh’s conversation with Alex Charnley, Alana Lentin, and Michael Richmond. This conversation is extremely wide ranging, but focuses around topics of anti-racism, identity politics, neoliberalism, class politics, and politics of solidarity. In this part of the conversation Alex, Alana, and Michael get a little deeper into discussions of anti-semitism, of historical fracturing and composition of social movements and class struggles, and of so-called anti-identity politic...
Dec 23, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 182
In this episode Alex Charnley, Alana Lentin, and Michael Richmond all join the podcast. Josh brought all three of these thinkers together for a discussion on anti-racism in the current conjuncture. This conversation took place across three continents and time zones that were as much as 16 hours apart. Due to its length, we’ve decided to release this episode in two parts, but because of how arbitrary the cut-off point is, we’ve also decided to release them simultaneously so folks can listen to bo...
Dec 23, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 181
In this episode we interview China Miéville. China Miéville is the multi-award-winning author of many works of fiction and non-fiction. His fiction includes The City and the City , Embassytown and This Census-Taker. He has won the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Arthur C. Clarke awards. His non-fiction includes the photo-illustrated essay London’s Overthrow . He is also the author of October: The Story of the Russian Revolution. He has written for various publications, and is a founding editor of the j...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 43 min•Season 1Ep. 180
[photos in the collage were taken by Guy Smallman, Callum Ford, and Martin Pope or otherwise found on Palestine Action's social media] In this episode we interview co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori. Ammori has organized against British complicity in the colonization of Palestine and against British support for the Israeli colonial apartheid regime in historic Palestine for years now. Palestine Action is an organization born out of that struggle. One that recognizes the need to take dir...
Dec 08, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 179
In this episode we interview Efemia Chela. Chela is a Zambian-Ghanian writer, literary critic, and an editor. Efemia joins us in her role as the commissioning editor at Inkani Books, which is the publishing division of The Tricontinental Pan Africa NPC, a research institute that collaborates with and is aligned with the work of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In this conversation Efemia shares a bit about some of the current struggles in South Africa, and situates Inkani Books...
Dec 03, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 178
In this episode we welcome Robin DG Kelley back to the podcast. Robin DG Kelley is the Gary B. Nash professor of American History at UCLA. He is the author of seven books, and the editor or co-editor of even more. For this episode, Kelley returns to the podcast to talk about the 20th Anniversary Edition of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination . We talk to Kelley about what has been added to the new edition of the book, and discuss some of the ways that Freedom Dreams has been taken up d...
Nov 27, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 177
In this conversation Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson return to the podcast for the second conversation on their book Rehearsals For Living ( part one is here ). This conversation was recorded in late October, about a month after recording the first part. Most of these questions were conversations from the reading which we just weren’t able to ask during our first conversation due to time constraints. In this conversation we talk more about architects of climate catastrophe in Toron...
Nov 17, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 176
[Note: In the episode image the artwork behind Dionne Brand at the podium is by Torkwase Dyson, as is the cover art work for Nomenclature] In this conversation we are thrilled to welcome Dionne Brand to the podcast. This is a conversation with her new book Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems and also with a number of her lectures, interviews, and dialogues over the years. If we reference something not in Nomenclature we have done our best to include a link to it in the show notes. We ask quest...
Nov 10, 2022•1 hr 47 min•Season 1Ep. 175
[The image contains the cover of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Scenes of Subjection , two images of author Saidiya Hartman, and one image from visual artist Torkwase Dyson (which is included in the book) entitled set/interval/enclosure ] For this conversation we are extremely honored to welcome Saidiya Hartman to the podcast. In this conversation we’ll be talking about the new 25th anniversary edition of Hartman’s groundbreaking and influential work Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and S...
Nov 01, 2022•1 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 174
This is the continuation of our conversation with Winston James about his latest work Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik . In part 1 we talked about McKay’s origins in Jamaica up through the Red Summer of 1919 when he would pen his famous poem “If We Must Die.” In this conversation we talk about McKay’s time in Harlem, his relationship with Hubert Harrison, his support of - and political differences with - the Garvey movement or the UNIA. In that vein we also talk about McKay’s theori...
Oct 30, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 173
For this conversation we welcome Winston James to the podcast. Winston James is the author of A Fierce Hatred of Injustice: Claude McKay’s Jamaica and His Poetry of Rebellion , The Struggles of John Brown Russwurm: The Life and Writings of a Pan-Africanist Pioneer 1799-1851, and Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twenty Century America. James has held a number of teaching positions, most recently as a professor of history at UC Irvine. James joins us to talk abou...
Oct 23, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 172
This is the second part of our two part conversation with Too Black on his piece “ Laundering Black Rage ” which you can read over at Black Agenda Report. Too Black is a poet, member of Black Alliance For Peace , host of The Black Myths Podcast which can be found on Black Power Media , he’s a writer, and he is the communications coordinator of the Campaign to Free the Pendleton 2 . Here is part 1 of the conversation . We continue our conversation of “Laundering Black Rage” in this episode. In th...
Oct 15, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 171
Our guest for the episode is Too Black. Too Black is a poet, member of Black Alliance For Peace, host of The Black Myths Podcast which can be found on Black Power Media, he’s a writer, and he is one of the organizers of the Campaign to Free the Pendleton 2. In this conversation we welcome Too Black to discuss his recently published 2 part essay “Laundering Black Rage” ( part 1 , part 2 ) which we will link. The essay was published at Black Agenda Report. It’s a provocative analysis of the proces...
Oct 14, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 170
In this episode we interview multiple people who’ve been involved in the struggle to Stop Cop City and Defend the Forest in Atlanta. What started as a political struggle against an extremely unpopular massive new police training facility has morphed and evolved in many different directions. We welcome Kamau Franklin from Community Movement Builders back to the platform for the third time for this conversation. He brings with him several folks with knowledge of the movement to stop cop city and w...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 169
In this conversation Charisse Burden-Stelly returns to the podcast, and is joined by Jodi Dean to talk about their new book Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writing . Charisse Burden-Stelly is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. Along with Gerald Horne she co-authored W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life In American History. She is a co-editor of the book Reproducing Domination On the Caribbean and the Postcolonial State. She is also the author ...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 168
In this conversation we speak with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson Robyn is the author of the bestselling and award-winning book Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present . She is also an assistant professor of Black Feminisms in Canada at University of Toronto. She also has a lengthy history of writing about and organizing with social movements against borders, state violence and for abolition. Leanne is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, ...
Sep 25, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Season 1Ep. 167
In this episode Dr. Jesse Benjamin returns to the podcast. Like our previous conversation with Jesse we’re connecting to talk about a recently released book by Walter Rodney, in this case it’s Decolonial Marxism: Essays From The Pan-African Revolution , which is a previously unpublished collection of Rodney’s essays on race, colonialism and Marxism. Jesse Benjamin is a scholar, activist, publisher, and board member for the Walter Rodney Foundation, and he is the co-editor of Decolonial Marxism ....
Sep 19, 2022•2 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 166
For this episode we welcome Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad back to the podcast. This is our second conversation on The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power ( Part 1 is here ) As we noted in our previous conversation we weren’t able to get to all of our questions in the first discussion, but Noam and Vijay were generous enough to agree to record a part 2. We recorded this conversation on September 2nd, which is interesting because some information on the war in Uk...
Sep 07, 2022•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 165
In this episode we are honored to host a conversation with Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, to discuss their brand new book The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power . Part 2 of the conversaiton can be found here . Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historical essayist, social critic and political activist. While we couldn’t find a complete bibliography, from what we could gather, it seems that at this point he has written over ...
Sep 05, 2022•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 164
In this episode we interview Marika Sherwood. As she mentions in the episode, Sherwood was born into a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary in 1937. After World War 2, the surviving members of her family emigrated with her to Australia, she was briefly employed in New Guinea, and eventually emigrated to England, finding employment as a teacher in London. She will discuss on the episode how she became dedicated to researching and publishing Black history. Along with Hakim Adi and others, Sherwood i...
Aug 30, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 163
In this episode we interview Dr. Gao Yunxiang. Dr. Gao is professor of history at Toronto Metropolitan University and the author of Sporting Gender: Women Athletes and Celebrity-Making during China’s National Crisis, 1931-1945 . For this conversation we are honored to have Dr. Gao join us to talk about her book Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century . It is a very interesting book that examines the lives and interconnectedness of three semina...
Aug 24, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 162
In this episode we interview Claude Marks the co-director Freedom Archives. The Freedom Archives the best archive we know of documenting the history of revolutionary, radical and progressive movements of the 1960’s through the 1990’s. In this conversation we talk about Freedom Archives and its collections, most of which are available at FreedomArchives.org . Claude shares a brief overview of his own radical media work and participation in struggles which led to his political imprisonment. And ta...
Aug 19, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 161
In this episode we interview Rasheda Alexander and Sterling Johnson. They are both participants in the struggle to defend the UC Townhomes, which residents have renamed the People’s Townhomes in Philadelphia. This one of the most recent flashpoint struggles in Philadelphia in a long struggle to defend the neighborhoods Black Philadelphians were originally segregated into from the forces of gentrification and displacement. Sterling who is an organizer with Philadelphia Housing Action joined us pr...
Aug 11, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 160
In this episode we are honored to welcome Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore to the podcast. Ruth Wilson Gilmore is Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences and Director of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Co-founder of many grassroots organizations including the California Prison Moratorium Project, Critical Resistance, and the Central California Environmental Justice Network, she is author of the prize-winning Golden Gulag: Prisons, Su...
Aug 05, 2022•1 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 159
In this interview we wanted to do a discussion about the law, politics and abolition. We thought that this was an important thing to have some discussion on, in light of all the recent Supreme Court rulings which have rightfully caused a lot of anger, indignation, protest and organizing. Our guests for this week are Sophia G and Nathan Y. Sophia is a lawyer defending criminalized immigrants and a PIC and border abolitionist. Nathan is an abolitionist lawyer defending criminalized immigrants and ...
Jul 27, 2022•2 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 158
In this episode Chris Gilbert returns to the podcast. Chris Gilbert is a professor of Political Science in the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela. His articles have appeared in Venezuela Analysis, Monthly Review, CounterPunch and various other publications. Gilbert is the creator of the Marxist educational program “Escuela de Cuadros,” broadcast on Venezuelan public television. Along with Cira Pascual Marquina, Chris is also the co-editor of the book Venezuela: The Presen...
Jul 22, 2022•1 hr 42 min•Season 1Ep. 157
In this conversation we interview Tracy Rosenthal who is a co-founder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union. Their book, Abolish Rent , written with Leonardo Vilchis, is forthcoming from Verso. We talk to Tracy about their recent piece “ Inside LA’s Homeless Industrial Complex ” which discusses the aftermath of LA’s Echo Park encampment from 2020, and current trends in social control with respect to unhoused people in Los Angeles. Tracy examines the relationship between police and ostensibly social s...
Jul 16, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 156
