KPFA - Letters and Politics
KPFA
Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 4, 2023 • 60min
The History of The Speaker and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations
Part 1: The History of the Speaker
Guest: Steven S. Smith is the Kate M. Gregg Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Washington University. He is the author of such books as Politics over Process: Partisan Conflict and Post-Passage Processes in the U.S. Congress and The Senate Syndrome: The Evolution of Procedural Warfare in the Modern U.S. Senate.
Part 2:Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations
Guest:Robin Waterfield is a British classical scholar, translator, and editor, specializing in Ancient Greek who has tranlator of the recently published Meditations: The Annotated Edition.
The post The History of The Speaker and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations appeared first on KPFA.

Jan 3, 2023 • 60min
Electing A Speaker
Guest: John Nichols of The Nation
The post Electing A Speaker appeared first on KPFA.

Jan 2, 2023 • 53min
The Neanderthal: Love, Art & Culture (Re-broadcast)
Guest: Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archaeologist, author and Honorary Fellow in the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. Her new book, KINDRED: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art won the 2021 PEN Hessell-Tiltman prize for history; awarded Book of the Year by Current Archaeology; selected as one of 2021’s 100 Notable Books by The New York Times. She is co-founder of the influential TrowelBlazers project, highlighting women in archaeology and the earth sciences.
The post The Neanderthal: Love, Art & Culture (Re-broadcast) appeared first on KPFA.

Dec 29, 2022 • 60min
Uncovering A Thousand Racially Motivated Murders 1930-1954
Guest: Margaret Burnham set out in 2007 to travel the country to investigate approximately a thousand unsolved racially motivated murders between 1930 and 1954. She has written a book about it called By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners. She and her assistants have also created an on-line archive dedicated to identifying, classifying, and providing factual information and documentation about anti-Black killings in the mid-century South at www.crrjarchive.org
The post Uncovering A Thousand Racially Motivated Murders 1930-1954 appeared first on KPFA.

Dec 28, 2022 • 60min
The Diversity of Perception in the Animal Kingdom and How Humans Force Creatures Into an Alien World
Guest: Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize journalist with the Atlantic and author of An Immense World: How Animals Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us.
The post The Diversity of Perception in the Animal Kingdom and How Humans Force Creatures Into an Alien World appeared first on KPFA.

Dec 27, 2022 • 60min
Heterodoxy: The Secret Club That Sparked The Feminist Movement
Guest: Joanna Scutts is the author of Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club that Sparked Modern Feminism.
The post Heterodoxy: The Secret Club That Sparked The Feminist Movement appeared first on KPFA.

Dec 26, 2022 • 60min
How the Islamic Empires Saved the Classical World
Guest: Violet Moller is a historian and writer who specializes in intellectual history. She is the author of the book The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found.
The post How the Islamic Empires Saved the Classical World appeared first on KPFA.

Dec 22, 2022 • 60min
The Triumph of Christianity
Guest: Bart D. Ehrman is a Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of several books including Misquoting Jesus, How Jesus Became God, and his latest, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World.
The post The Triumph of Christianity appeared first on KPFA.

Dec 21, 2022 • 60min
Early Christian Texts & The Making of Hell
Guest: Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition
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Dec 20, 2022 • 2min
Milman Parry: The Man Who Killed Homer
Guest: Robert Kanigel, author of Hearing Homer’s Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry.
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