KPFA - Letters and Politics

Guest: Robert Kanigel is Professor Emeritus of Science Writing at MIT and the author of several books for which he has received many awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship and an NEH “Public Scholar” grant.  His book The Man Who Knew Infinity was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; it has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and was the basis for the film of the same name starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel. Professor’s Kanigel latest book is 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.

Guest: Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author who has covered business, technology, and public policy for the Los Angeles Times for three decades. He currently serves as the Times’s business columnist and hosts its business blog, The Economy Hub.  Hiltzik received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry.  His latest book is Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America.   The post The Robber Barons: A History of the Railroads appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Emory University. She is the author of One Person, No Vote, longlisted for the National Book Award and a finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award; White Rage, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Bourgeois Radicals; and Eyes off the Prize. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow for Constitutional Studies and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her latest book is The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. Event: Carol Anderson in conversation with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz  Wednesday, June 9, 2021, 5pm PT / 8pm ET, This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. (Click Here to Register) The post The Second Amendment: How Slave Supporting Politicians Got Their Right to Quell Slave Revolts appeared first on KPFA.

Part 1 – The Current Inflation Guest: Robert Pollin is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is author of several books including his latest Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet co-authored with Noam Chomsky.   Part 2 – A Manifesto for the Liberation of Indigenous People Guest: Jennifer Nez Denetdale (Diné) is a professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico who teaches courses in critical indigenous studies, indigenous gender and sexuality, and Navajo studies. She is a strong advocate for Native peoples and serves as chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission. She is the author of Reclaiming Diné History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita and a co-author with Nick Estes, Melanie Yazzie, and David Correia of the latest book, Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation.    The post Inflation Analysis & A Manifesto for the Liberation of Indigenous People appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Elizabeth Hinton is associate professor of history and African American studies at Yale University and a professor of law at Yale Law School. The author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, and her latest, America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s. The post An Era of Rebellion: Urban Uprisings 1964-1972 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Sudhir Hazareesingh is a British-Mauritian historian. He is a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy.  He has written extensively about French intellectual and cultural history, among his books are The Legend of Napoleon, In the Shadow of the General and How the French Think. He won the Prix du Mémorial d’Ajaccio and the Prix de la Fondation Napoléon for the first of these, a Prix d’Histoire du Sénat for the second, and the Grand Prix du Livre d’Idées for the third. His latest book is Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture. The post From Toussaint Breda to Toussaint L’Ouverture: The Making of a Haitian Revolutionary appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Adam Jentleson is the Executive Director of Battle Born Collective and a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid.  He is a columnist for GQ and the author of Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. The post The History of the Filibuster 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 Life of Pauli Murray appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Adam Winkler, author of We The Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights.  Adam Winkler is a historian and law professor, specializing in American Constitutional Law.   Thank You KPFA!!! Donate Here The post How Corporations Won Rights Meant for “We The People…” appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. His book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery won the Pulitzer. His latest book is called The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.   Thank you KPFA for your Dedication!!!  The post The Political History of the Civil War appeared first on KPFA.