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 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.
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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
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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.
The post Milman Parry: The Man Who Killed Homer appeared first on KPFA.

Dec 19, 2022 • 60min
January 6th Committee Holds Final Public Meeting Hour #1
Tune-in as KPFA presents a national broadcast of the final meeting of the House Jan 6th Committee on Monday, December 19th, 2022 at 10:00 am Pacific Time. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich and produced by Corinne Smith.
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Dec 15, 2022 • 60min
KPFA Special: Reading the Epic of Gilgamesh (Part 4)
Host Mitch Jeserich reads excerpts from Stephen Mitchell’s Gilgamesh: A New Version. Gilgamesh is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature.
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