KPFA - Letters and Politics

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Sep 17, 2025 • 53min

The Killing of Charlie Kirk and the Crackdown on the Left

Guest: Ben Burgis is a philosophy professor at Rutgers University, a columnist for Jacobin magazine, the host of the YouTube show and podcast Give Them An Argument, and the author of several books, most recently Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters.   Photo credit: Wikimedia The post The Killing of Charlie Kirk and the Crackdown on the Left appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 16, 2025 • 60min

Jeff Chang on the Legendary Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America.

Guest: Jeff Chang is an award-winning journalist and author who has written extensively on culture, politics, the arts and music.  He is the author of the books Who We Be: The Colorization of America.  We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation;  Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation; and his latest, Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. Photo credit: Wikimedia The post Jeff Chang on the Legendary Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 15, 2025 • 18min

The Power of Adrienne Rich

Guest:  Hilary Holladay is a biographer, novelist, poet, and scholar of modern and contemporary American literature. She is a former director of the Jack and Stella Kerouac Center for American Studies and professor of English at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.  Holladay is the author of several books, her most recent is The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography. The post The Power of Adrienne Rich appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 11, 2025 • 60min

What Monsters Tell Us About Us

Guest: Natalie Lawrence, author of Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meaning. The post What Monsters Tell Us About Us appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 10, 2025 • 60min

Serial Killers & Toxins: The Correlation

Guest: Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for best biography of the year.  She is also the author of God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her latest Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers. The post Serial Killers & Toxins: The Correlation appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 9, 2025 • 21min

A History of the American Jewish Left and Cultures of Anti-Zionism

Guest: Benjamin Balthaser is associate professor of multi-ethnic US literature at Indiana University, South Bend.  He is the author of Anti-Imperialism Modernism: Race and Transnational Radical Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War and his latest Citizens of the Whole World: The American Jewish Left and Cultures of Anti-Zionism. The post A History of the American Jewish Left and Cultures of Anti-Zionism appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 8, 2025 • 6min

Shirley Chisholm, A Revolutionary Thinker

Guest: Zinga A. Fraser is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism. She is the author of Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words: Speeches and Writings. Photo credit: Wikimedia The post Shirley Chisholm, A Revolutionary Thinker appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 4, 2025 • 1min

Federal Takeover of D.C.

Guest: Clarence Lusane is an author, activist, scholar, and journalist. He is a Professor of Political Science at Howard University and is the author of many books including his latest Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy.   Photo credit: Airmen from the D.C. National Guard were deployed in response to protests and riots after the death of George Floyd. (U.S. Army photo by Kevin Valentine) The post Federal Takeover of D.C. appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 3, 2025 • 60min

Understanding the Current Redistricting War

Guest: John Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. He has written, co-written, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, co-written with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.   Credit: Wikipedia by Elkanah Tisdale (1771-1835).  Originally published in the Boston Centinel, 1812., Public Domain, The post Understanding the Current Redistricting War appeared first on KPFA.
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Sep 2, 2025 • 7min

Ending Isolation with Dr. Terry Kupers

Guest: Dr. Terry A. Kupers is a psychiatrist and professor emeritus at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. He is an expert on the intersection of mental health and incarceration and is the author of several books including Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars, Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation, and most lately, Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement co-authored with Christopher William Blackwell, Deborah Zalesne, and Kwaneta Harris.   The post Ending Isolation with Dr. Terry Kupers appeared first on KPFA.

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