Speaking Out of Place

Today I talk with Professor Nisrin Elamin about the situation in Sudan, where we find both a war between rival factions and these same factions continuing counter-revolutionary campaign against pro-democracy forces. We discuss how regional actors such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have contributed to the repression of democracy, and not only the ineffectiveness of NGOs and the United Nations in quelling the violence, but their roles in exacerbating it.  In the midst of forced famine and war, we find the remarkable and heroic efforts of mutual aid groups and resistance organizations in civil society that have made life possible. Elamin explains how this ethos of obligation reaches far back in Sudanese history and culture. We end by talking about the Sudanese Solidarity Collective, a group that Nisrin helped found, which provides a vital conduit of aid to Sudan from its diasporic communities and others.Nisrin Elamin is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Toronto. She is currently writing a book tentatively titled: Stratified Enclosures: Land, Capital and Empire-making in Central Sudan which focuses on Saudi and Emirati investments in land and community resistance to land dispossession in the agricultural Gezira region. In addition to scholarly articles, Nisrin has published and co-written several op-eds for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Okay Africa, Hammer and Hope and The Egypt Independent. Before pursuing her Ph.D., Nisrin spent over a decade working as an educator, organizer and researcher in the US and Tanzania. She is also a co-founding member of the Sudan Solidarity Collective which formed in the aftermath of the current war to support local emergency response rooms (ERRs) and other mutual aid networks and unions leading relief efforts in the face of a largely absent international aid community and civilian state.

How have young people in rural areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo invented new forms of radicalism in response to the impact of new flows of foreign investment and the inability of normal national and international politics to serve their needs and interests? Zachariah Mampilly explains how rural and urban spaces have seen a complex transit of peoples and funds that complicate politics, and emergent forms of radical activism have taken root and spread in many African countries. These forms display important re-imaginings of power sharing and revolutionary praxis.Zachariah Mampilly is the Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, CUNY and a member of the doctoral faculty in the Department of Political Science at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the Co-Founder of the Program on African Social Research. Previously, he was Professor of Political Science and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Vassar College. In 2012/2013, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War  (Cornell U. Press 2011) and with Adam Branch, Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (African Arguments, Zed Press 2015).  He is the co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil Wars  (Cambridge U. Press 2015) with Ana Arjona and Nelson Kasfir; and Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory (Praeger 2011) with Andrea Bartoli and Susan Allen Nan. His writing has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, Jacobin, The Hindu, Africa's a Country, N+1, Dissent, Al Jazeera, Noema, The Washington Post and elsewhere. 

Today I have the pleasure of talking with Supriya Khandelwal and Koa Tran, two members of the South Bay Youth Changemakers, and one of its co-directors, Amulya Mandava. This Asian American organization, located at the heart of Silicon Valley, seeks to both challenge and expand the label, Asian American. The SBYC directs its energy into projects that go far beyond the stereotypes of wealth, acquisition, and status associated with its location, and focuses on empowerment and social justice.  Crucially, the organization recognizes the multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-class components of its community. We hear about the kinds of events and activities that characterize this important and vital organization.Koa is a former youth member and summer fellow of South Bay Youth Changemakers. They are currently an undergraduate student in their senior year at UCSD. A special interest of theirs is disability justice and intersectional health. Supriya is a former youth member of South Bay Youth Changemakers. She is a freshman in college majoring in Psychology. They’re a fan of internet art culture, and are interested in fair accommodations at school and work, and in labor justice—she believes people shouldn’t have to work their lives away.Amulya is co-Director of South Bay Youth Changemakers. Her background is in labor organizing with the UAW, and in organizing against gender-based violence in higher ed.

Today I have the honor and the pleasure of speaking with legal scholar Mary Anne Franks, about her book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment.  As the title of the book indicates, this is a fearless and iconoclastic critique of the ways that the First Amendment has been interpreted and mobilized in ways that protect and extend racism, misogyny, religious fundamentalism, and corporate self-interest. Among other topics, we talk about Amber Heard case and the limitations of groups like the ACLU and the misleading ways “cancel culture” is portrayed, along with the efforts to stifle speech that documents the promotion of misinformation, and the federal government’s extortion of media conglomerates to censor and remove satirists like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.  This promulgation of what Franks calls “reckless speech” does not have to persist. Franks calls on us to foster and practice “fearless speech” and to multiply counter-publics that take inspiration from the historical cases she presents. This is an especially timely and important episode of Speaking Out of Place.Dr. Mary Anne Franks is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Civil Rights Law at George Washington Law School. An internationally recognized expert on the intersection of civil rights, free speech, and technology, Dr. Franks also serves as the President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, the leading U.S.-based nonprofit organization focused on image-based sexual abuse. Her model legislation on the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images (NDII, sometimes referred to as “revenge porn”) has served as the template for multiple state and federal laws, and she regularly advises lawmakers and tech companies on privacy, free expression, and safety issues. She is the author of two books: Fearless Speech (Bold Type Books, 2024) and The Cult of the Constitution (Stanford Press, 2019). She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a doctorate and a master’s degree from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She is an Affiliate Fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project and is admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court and the District of Columbia.

Today I am delighted to speak with primatologist Christine Webb about her new book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters.  The title of the book itself is a concise and precise description of its two constituent halves.  First, Webb tells us how science itself, from premodern times onward, has operated with an assumption it keeps reconfirming constantly--that humans are not only exceptional, but also superior to other forms of life.  Webb convincingly debunks this science over and over again.  And most importantly, she explains how this myth has devastating political, cultural, and environmental consequences.  Combining scientific and humanistic studies, we go into some detail about what this arrogance produces, and why we desperately need a much more humble sense of ourselves.Christine Webb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University, where she is part of the Animal Studies program. Her research is driven by growing awareness that the ecological crisis demands a profound shift in how we understand other animals and our place among them, leading to two intersecting lines of inquiry. First, her work seeks to elucidate the complex dynamics of animal social life, and to apply this knowledge to foundational questions in animal ethics and conservation. Second, she is interested in how prevailing societal norms, values, and institutions shape contemporary scientific knowledge of other animals and the environment, with a critical emphasis on human exceptionalism. Her debut book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters, was recently published with Avery (Penguin Random House) and is being translated into 17 languages. 

Today I have the honor of speaking with longtime activist Silky Shah, Executive Director of the Detention Watch Network, about her new, and extremely important book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition. Shah provides a critical discussion about the intersection between detention, the prison industrial complex, and anti-immigrant racism. She explains how this relationship is hardly new, but stretches back at least to the Reagan presidency and through Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden.  Given the durability of this connection, Shah makes an altogether convincing case that reform does not work, and that abolition is called for. Her book and her activism give us inspirating examples of such work in the past and present, and for the future.Silky Shah is the Executive Director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the United States. She has worked as an organizer on issues related to immigration detention, the prison industrial complex, and racial and migrant justice for nearly 20 years. 

Today I have the real pleasure of speaking with Maytha Alhassen and Halah Ahmad, two prominent feminist activists, writers, and scholars deeply committed to exploring the connections between the Arabic language, storytelling, and political agency, from the historical past to the present. We talk about the continuity of storytelling forms and techniques that bridge generations and support and convey a durable set of values and beliefs that resist western appropriation and distortion. These phenomena have everything to do with continuing and advancing the struggle for Palestinian rights and the celebration of Palestinian life.Halah Ahmad is a Harvard and Cambridge-trained writer, researcher, and political strategist whose work has appeared in multiple outlets from The Hill to Vox and the New York Times. She writes for Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network and provides research and communications services to Palestinian and economic rights organizations across the country. Much of her work focuses on narrative change through storytelling in organizing and media. At a recent Stanford event, Halah discussed the historic forms of Palestinian storytelling, the Hakawati tradition, and the ways it has evolved and continued to be relevant amid the ongoing genocide. As a practitioner in the world of policy and politics, she grapples with the limitations of present avenues for Palestinian storytelling.Maytha Alhassen is a journalist, poet, community organizer, and scholar whose work bridges media, justice advocacy, research, and artistic expression. She’s a Co-Executive Producer on Hulu’s award-winning Ramy, Executive Producer of the award-nominated PBS docu-series American Muslims: A History Revealed, a Pop Culture Collaborative Pluralist Visionaries Fellow, TED Resident, and Harvard Religion and Public Life Art and Pop Culture Fellow (2021–2024), lectures at Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and is currenlty a Research Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Storytellers at UCLA. As a journalist, she has hosted on Al Jazeera English, reported for CNN, Huffington Post, Mic, and The Baffler, and written for Boston Review and LA Review of Books. Her work explores how storytelling shapes cultural and political belonging, with a focus on Muslim representation and equity in popular culture. She co-edited Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions, authored Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 Years of Muslim Tropes and Traps and How to Transform Them, and has published widely in academic journals. She earned her Ph.D. in American Studies & Ethnicity from USC, an M.A. in Anthropology from Columbia, and a B.A. in Political Science and Arabic & Islamic Studies from UCLA. 

Today I talk with poet Maya Salameh about her poetry collection, How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave, which won the prestigious Etal Adnan Poetry Prize in 2022. The judges remarked, “Maya Salameh’s poetry stood out for its inventiveness in cracking the code of life ‘between system and culture'…The turns and swerves the poems make are astonishing; the expectations they upend are remarkable… It’s a testament to the aesthetic boundaries and intellectual revolt poets of Arab heritage are pushing, breaking, and reinventing.” We talk about what led her to both technology and poetry, language and story-telling, and the challenges and joys of representing life in the diaspora. In a time of war and genocide, Salameh’s poetry shows how patterns of life and reproduction and desire persist. In her readings and discussions of three poems, we find a new lexicon and a new grammar.Maya Salameh is the author of Mermaid Theory (Haymarket Books, 2026), How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave (University of Arkansas Press, 2022), winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, and the chapbook rooh (Paper Nautilus Press, 2020). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, and the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, and served as a National Student Poet, America’s highest honor for youth poets. Her work has appeared in The Offing, Poetry, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, AGNI, Mizna, and the LA Times, among others. She can be found @mayaslmh or mayasalameh.com.  

Today I am extremely grateful to Ardi Imseis and Chris Gunness for joining me for an urgent discussion of Israel’s accelerated genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.  These eminent international human rights scholars discuss Israel’s longstanding violations of international law and the complicity of the US. We also discuss at length the responsibility of states to immediately halt their direct and indirect support for the genocide. Our conversation includes an in-depth discussion of the UN, and both the usefulness and shortcomings of international law. We end with a call to international civil society to use the information, rules, and judgments of law to do what too many states fail to do—protect the rights and lives of Palestinians and bring forth justice.Dr. Ardi Imseis is Associate Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University. He is author of The United Nations and the Question of Palestine: Rule by Law and the Structure of International Legal Subalternity (Cambridge University Press 2023). In 2019 he was named by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to serve as a Member of the UN commission of inquiry into the civil war in Yemen. He has served as legal counsel before the International Court of Justice, including the Court’s groundbreaking 2024 opinion on Legal Consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Between 2002 and 2014, he served in senior legal and policy capacities in the Middle East with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He has provided expert testimony in his personal capacity before various high-level bodies, including the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Professor Imseis’s scholarship has appeared in a wide array of international journals, and he is former Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law (Brill; 2008-2019) and Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow, Columbia Law School. Professor Imseis holds a Ph.D. (Cambridge), an LL.M. (Columbia), LL.B. (Dalhousie), and B.A. (Hons.) (Toronto). He appears today in his personal capacity.Chris Gunness covered the 1988 democracy uprising for the BBC in what was then Burma. After a 23-year career at the BBC, he joined the United Nations as Director of Strategic Communications and Advocacy in the Middle East. In 2019 he left the UN and returned to London. He founded the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP) in 2021.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with cultural anthropologist Greta YOU-LING about her new book, Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom, a fascinating story about an indigenous group in Crimea fighting for its rights.  Uehling tells us of the complex history of the Crimean Tatars, a Sunni Muslim group who were driven off their land in 1944 by the Soviet Union. This group now finds itself caught in the Russia-Ukraine war. It has rebuffed attempts by Putin and yet also has insisted on maintaining and defending its indigenous identity and rights with regard to Ukraine. We talk about the importance of both cultural memory and political struggle in the present, and hear of Greta’s time at the barricade which Tatars set up to stem the flow of materials across their land.Greta Uehling is a cultural anthropologist who works at the intersection of Indigenous and Eastern European Studies. She is a Teaching Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she is in the Program in International and Comparative Studies and is Associate Faculty of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. Uehling is the author of three books: Beyond Memory: The Deportation and Return of the Crimean Tatars (Palgrave 2004), Everyday War: The Conflict over Donbas, Ukraine (Cornell University Press 2023), and Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom (Rowman & Littlefield 2025). Throughout her career, Uehling has served as a consultant to organizations working in the fields of international migration, human rights, and human trafficking, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.