The Lit Review Podcast

​There is a role for people who know things that others don’t, but how has our relationship with education and the teacher-student dynamic been shaped by colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy? In 1968, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, proposing a new relationship between the teacher, the student, and society. ​ ​In this episode, Monica and Page dive deeper into this influential book with Pilsen-based youth worker Hilda Franco!

With the 2nd edition of Transgender History by Susan Stryker just released, it was a good time to revisit the book, see what’s changed, and touch on parts that didn’t get covered in an earlier conversation on this book in episode 4 with Benji Hart. Monica met up with professor, author, and filmmaker, Dr. Susan Stryker herself, to discuss the new edition of her book, which gives an introduction to transgender key terms and concepts, along with an overview of trans history, transphobia, trans resistance, and trans liberation.

Do you have your “go bag” ready? Are you ready to lose everything and everyone in order to get free? Aren’t these intense questions?? These are just some of the themes that are explored in Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, a two-book series of dystopian, science fiction novels by the late Octavia E. Butler, where society has collapsed due to climate change, capitalism, and Christianity, and people, many strangers, have to create community in order to survive. For this special live audience episode, Monica and Page are joined by writer, facilitator, Octavia Butler-scholar, pleasure activist and doula, adrienne maree brown. adrienne is the author of Emergent Strategy and co-editor of the anthology, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction for Social Justice Movements.

A former member of the Black Panther Party and political prisoner, Assata Shakur's intensely personal and political autobiography continues to be a landmark text in many young Black peoples' politicization. For this episode, Page interviews two young Black women about the ongoing lessons they have learned from Assata. Pat Frazier and Imani Council are organizers with Assata's Daughters. At the time of the recording, they were both members in Assata University, a year-long political education program for Black teens in & around Washington Park.

For this episode, Page turns to fiction as a way to more fully understand the stories and truths of immigration, war, and identity. Page sat down with Van Huynh, an immigration attorney & community organizer in Chicago to discuss Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Sympathizer, a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.

From Deportation to Prison: The Politics of Immigration Enforcement in Post-Civil Rights America by Patrisia Macías-Rojas unpacks how the incarceration of over two million people in the United States gave impetus to a federal immigration initiative—The Criminal Alien Program (CAP)—designed to purge non-citizens from dangerously overcrowded jails and prisons. In this episode, Monica and Page talk with their friend and organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), Arianna Salgado, about this history and its daily implications.

A manifesto for movement-makers in extraordinary times, Demand the Impossible! urges us to imagine a world beyond what this rotten system would have us believe is possible. Monica and Page sat down with insurgent educator and activist Bill Ayers to talk about his book and envision strategies for building the movement we need to make a world worth living in.

​From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of Black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. ​ In this episode, Page sits down with Walter May, her 84 year-old grandfather, to talk about one of his favorite books and how it relates to his own life and beginnings.

​First published in 1999, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare is a groundbreaking book in the political realm of disability politics, and essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the intersections of queerness, disability, environmentalism, class, race, and more. ​Monica and Page sat down with Alison Kopit, a queer and disabled artist and doctoral candidate in Disability Studies at UIC, to talk about Exile and Pride. She is also the co-creator of The Not Sorry Project and on the editorial board of Monstering, a literary magazine for disabled women and non-binary folks.

When we think of Mexican communities, we think of Pilsen, Little Village, and in recent years, Albany Park. But who talks about the neighborhood of South Chicago? Monica and Page chat with powerful Mijente member, immigrants rights activist, baseball mom, and vital member of our Chicago organizing community, Corina Pedraza Palominos! Steel Barrio: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago from 1915-1940 by Michael Innis-Jiménez is a beautiful documentation Mexican migration, arguing that the Mexican immigrants who came to South Chicago created physical and imagined community not only to defend against the ever-present social, political, and economic harassment and discrimination, but to grow in a foreign, polluted environment.