KPFA - Letters and Politics

Guest: Emily Hauser is a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of three novels reimagining the women of Greek myth: For the Most Beautiful, For the Winner, and For the Immortal. She is also the author of How Women Became Poets, and most recently, of Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It. The post Women in Ancient History appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Mark Blyth is a political economist and professor at Brown University. He is an expert on Global Finance & Banking and the author of several books including Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, and his latest, Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers, coauthored with Nicolò Fraccaroli.     The post The 50 Year War on American Workers appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Mary Annette Pember is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe. She is currently national correspondent for ICT News, formerly Indian Country Today.  She is the recipient of several awards for her journalism and is the author of Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools. The post A History of Indian Boarding Schools in America appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Clay Risen is a historian and a reporter and editor at The New York Times.  He is the author of several books including The Crowded Hour, a New York Times Notable Book of 2019, and his latest, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America.   The post The Witch Hunt Against the Left in the 1940s appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Gregory P. Downs is a history professor at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of several books including his latest, in collaboration with Anthony E. Kaye (1962-2017), Nat Turner, Black Prophet: A Visionary History. Anthony E. Kaye (1962–2017) taught history at Pennsylvania State University and was the vice president of scholarly programs at the National Humanities Center. An influential scholar of Atlantic slavery and American history, he served as an associate editor of The Journal of the Civil War Era. His final book, Nat Turner, Black Prophet, was completed with the assistance of Gregory P. Downs, a professor of history at the University of California, Davis.   Featured image: Discovery of Nat Turner by William Henry Shelton on Wikipedia.     The post A History of Nat Turner’s Slave Revolt appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Corinna Barrett Lain is the S. D. Roberts & Sandra Moore Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law. She is the author of Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection. The post Lethal Injections & The Hidden Torture of Executions appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Michael Albertus is professor of political science at the University of Chicago. The author of four previous books, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and elsewhere. He is the author of Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies. The post Land & Power appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – May 26, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Host Mitch Jeserich reads excerpts of the Iliad by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson. Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern scholarship, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. Support KPFA!! Ancient Tales 3-Pack $250 The post The Iliad: War, Rage, and Sorrow appeared first on KPFA.

Mitch Jeserich reads excerpts from the classic writings The Way of Chuang Tzu translated by Thomas Merton. Thomas Merton composed a series of his own versions of the classic sayings of Chuang Tzu, the most spiritual of Chinese philosophers. Chuang Tzu, who wrote in the fourth and third centuries B.C., is the chief authentic historical spokesperson for Taoism and its founder Lao Tzu (a legendary character known largely through Chuang Tzu’s writings). Indeed it was because of Chuang Tzu and the other Taoist sages that Indian Buddhism was transformed, in China, into the unique vehicle we now call by its Japanese name―Zen.   Excerpts from THE WAY OF CHUANG TZU by Thomas Merton, copyright ©1965 by The Abbey of Gethsemani. Reproduced by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. The post The Taoist & Christian: The Way of Chuang Tzu appeared first on KPFA.