KPFA - Against the Grain

Facial recognition cameras, tenant screening platforms, digital property management—many landlords use sophisticated technology to monitor and screen tenants. Erin McElroy weighs the impact of so-called proptech on prospective renters, on tenants’ lives and well-being, and on people’s ability to respond to and organize against landlord abuse. McElroy also talks about what they call Silicon Valley imperialism. Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin, editors, Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen Duke University Press, 2025 Erin McElroy, Silicon Valley Imperialism: Techno Fantasies and Frictions in Postsocialist Times Duke University Press, 2024 (Image on main page by Hugh D’Andrade/EFF.) The post Landlord Tech appeared first on KPFA.

Blockbuster drugs are launched by the pharmaceuticals industry to great fanfare — with promises of treating intractable illness and often with a stratospheric price tag. Yet, despite the hype and cost, many of those drugs turn out to be less than useless. How is it that so many drugs that are vetted by the Food and Drug Administration escape real scrutiny? Jerry Avorn, one of the most cited scientists in medicine, discusses the deeply compromised state of drug production and government regulation, in thrall to a for-profit system. (Encore presentation.) Jerry Avorn, Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take Simon & Schuster, 2025 Alosa Health Center for Science in the Public Interest Worst Pills, Best Pills The post Medicines: Expensive, Poorly Tested, and Often Useless appeared first on KPFA.

The anti-abortion movement has deeply shaped our era, and not just because of the repeal of Roe v Wade. As scholar of the right Carol Mason argues, it also helped provide a gateway to the growth of the authoritarian right by normalizing violent rhetoric and political violence, while exporting ideas and tactics to the right abroad. She discusses the evolution of the antiabortion movement to the present. Carol Mason, From the Clinics to the Capitol: How Opposing Abortion Became Insurrectionary UC Press, 2025 The post Anti-Abortion: Gateway to the Far Right appeared first on KPFA.

U.S. imperialism has produced migration, sometimes to places you wouldn’t expect. According to Emily Mitchell-Eaton, the Marshall Islands and Arkansas are both central to the workings of empire. The perceptions of longtime residents of demographically transformed cities like Springdale, Arkansas reflect geographical imaginaries that occlude the fact of U.S. empire. Emily Mitchell-Eaton, New Destinations of Empire: Mobilities, Racial Geographies, and Citizenship in the Transpacific United States University of Georgia Press, 2024 The post Imperial Migration appeared first on KPFA.

U.S. imperialism has produced migration, sometimes to places you wouldn’t expect. According to Emily Mitchell-Eaton, the Marshall Islands and Arkansas are both central to the workings of empire. The perceptions of longtime residents of demographically transformed cities like Springdale, Arkansas reflect geographical imaginaries that occlude the fact of U.S. empire. Emily Mitchell-Eaton, New Destinations of Empire: Mobilities, Racial Geographies, and Citizenship in the Transpacific United States University of Georgia Press, 2024 The post Imperial Migration appeared first on KPFA.

Is it possible to eat animal products ethically, as proponents of small-scale animal agriculture advocate? Or, as critical theorist John Sanbonmatsu argues, is consuming animals unjustifiable not just for reasons of disease and the climate emergency, but also because of the emotional complexity and intelligence of non-human animals? Sanbonmatsu makes the case for opposing and abolishing the animal economy in tandem with capitalism. John Sanbonmatsu, The Omnivore’s Deception What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and Ourselves NYU Press, 2025 John Sanbonmatsu, “With Bird Flu, the Chickens Have Come Home to Roost,” Counterpunch March 28, 2025 The post Capitalism, the Animal Economy, and Meat Eating appeared first on KPFA.

What is political theology, and where is this field of inquiry headed? Vincent Lloyd points to various connections between religion, power, and political discourse; he also considers the impact of feminist, Black, decolonial, and other perspectives on the field’s trajectory. Alex Dubilet and Vincent Lloyd, eds., Political Theology Reimagined Duke University Press, 2025 Center for Political Theology The post Political Theology appeared first on KPFA.

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, enslaved people who traveled to freedom on foot did so mainly from Southern states that bordered free states. But those in the deep South didn’t have that option and they often made their journey north by ship from the South’s long coastline, with the help of free blacks, as well as white sailors. Historian Marcus Rediker sets the record straight, illuminating the ways that the culture of port cities and of free black communities helped the formerly enslaved make their way to freedom. Marcus Rediker, Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea Viking, 2025 The post Escaping Over Water appeared first on KPFA.

While we’re told by politicians that the ideas of Karl Marx are foreign and have no place in this country, history proves otherwise. Andrew Hartman shows that Marx and Marxism have had an a significant influence on the United States, from Marx’s journalistic writings for the New York Daily Tribune, on the mass politics of the Socialist and Communist Parties and the Wobblies, on the most radical edge of the New Deal and the New Left, and finally with the return to Marx’s ideas since the Global Financial Crisis. (Encore presentation.) Andrew Hartman, Karl Marx in America University of Chicago Press, 2025 The post American Marx appeared first on KPFA.

Classrooms are places where teaching happens. What if they were also places of healing and justice-seeking? Tessa Hicks Peterson describes educational approaches that foster well-being, empowerment, and critical thinking. She also emphasizes the need for trauma-informed pedagogical practices. (Encore presentation.) Tessa Hicks Peterson, Liberating the Classroom: Healing and Justice in Higher Education Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025 The post Healing Higher Ed appeared first on KPFA.