KPFA - Letters and Politics

Neil Marcus described himself as “a poet, humorist, writer, actor, and adventurer-a fantastic spastic creatively endowed with disability.” He is best known for his groundbreaking autobiographical play, Storm Reading, which he performed nationwide from the Kennedy Center in Washington DC to the Doolittle Theater in Los Angeles. He was commissioned to write a poem on disability by the Smithsonian Institute. He is the author of his autobiography with the contribution of S.H. Chambers. S.H. Chambers is the contributor of I, Spastic.  They is a cis-gender Euroamerican writer, cartoonist, and composer.  Currently they is the editorial cartoonist for the Coast News. The post The Life of Neil Marcus: Disability, Art, and Our Society appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Catherine Nixey is a journalist and a classicist. She is the author of The Darkening Age and her latest, Heretic: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God.   The post Heretic: Jesus Christ and the Other Sons of God by Catherine Nixey appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Edward J. Watts holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis endowed Chair and is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, including Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny. The post Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire Series (Part 2) appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Edward J. Watts holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis endowed Chair and is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, including Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny. The post Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire Series (Part 1) appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Guest: Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and political activist.  He hosts The Ralph Nader Radio Hour on the Pacifica Radio Network; and is the author of many books including his latest, “Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country that Works for the People.”  Ralph Nader is the founder of the monthly newspaper Capitol Hill Citizen.   Photo credit: Wikimedia The post Ralph Nader on How People Can Resist the Upcoming Trump Administration appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Claudio Lomnitz is Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University and the author of several books, including  The Return of Comrade Ricardo Flores Magón, Death and the Idea of Mexico, and his latest, Sovereignty and Extortion: A New State Form in Mexico.   The post Sovereignty and Extortion in Mexico appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Louis S. Warren is the W Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History at U.C. Davis. He is the author of the book author of Buffalo Bill’s America, American Environmental History, and most recently,  God’s Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America. Feature image: The Ghost Dance of 1889–1891, depicting the Oglala at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, by Frederic Remington in 1890 on Wikimedia Commons. The post A History of the Ghost Dance Religious Movement appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Rosalind Rosenberg is Professor of History Emerita at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of several books including Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern Feminism, and her latest, Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray. Pauli Murray was the first African American to earn a JSD from Yale Law School and her legal work on the 14th Amendment provided the groundwork for Brown v. Board and inspired Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s work with women’s rights and the 14th Amendment.  Murray also struggled with issues of identity; by today’s standards, she would be considered transgender. The post Jane Crow: The Radical Legacy of Pauli Murray appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and Co-President of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. She is the author of Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America.  The post Who is Inside and Who is Outside of the Circle of Citizenship in America appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Daniel Okrent, author of The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Laws That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America. The post 19th-Century Eugenics Movement and its Relation to Immigration in America appeared first on KPFA.