Episodes
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Feeling stressed? Seeking strategies for keeping healthy and connected during this period of protracted pandemic, economic crisis, and physical isolation? Join us for our third Shelter & Solidarity social hour – a community discussion about how we can best sustain ourselves, each other, our organizations and movements during these pandemic times.
We’ll be led into the discussion by Michal Osterweil and Victor Narro. Michal teaches in the Curriculum in Global Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and is also deeply committed to community and popular education aimed at activists, community members and others not (necessarily) in formal school that see the importance of actively studying and (un)learning what it means to be a change agent in these intense times of crisis. She is co-convenor with Arturo Escobar of UNC’s seminar, Theory and Politics of Relationality (The Relationality project), and currently working on a book project and web-project in this vein. She is also a mother and radical homemaker who loves gardening, cooking and dancing.A nationally known expert on immigrant rights and low-wage workers, Victor Narro has been involved with immigrant rights and labor issues for over 35 years, and author of several books on labor justice and organizing. He has also become a leading voice for self-care and spirituality in the work for social justice through his new book, Living Peace: Connecting Your Spirituality with Your Work for Justice (CreateSpace Publication, 2014). Victor has published a children’s book about labor solidarity, Jimmy’s Carwash Adventure (Hard Ball Press 2016).
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Building on a recent paper by John W. Lawrence, “Organizing the Democratic Capacity for Transformative Change: The 2020 Election and Beyond” published in Socialism and Democracy, this conversation discusses and debates the organizational and political requirements for the left to grow and become an organized voice and transformative force based in the working class. Speaker list in formation.
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
Tuesday Sep 15, 2020
As the Covid-19 pandemic rages on, this episode explores the significance of apocalyptic and dystopian narratives for our current crisis-laden moment. While typically associated with large-scale death and destruction, the word ‘apocalypse’ also means a revelation or uncovering of what was hidden in plain sight. Joined by noted science and speculative fiction and film scholars Gerry Canavan and Mark Soderstrom, and co-host Linda Liu, we will discuss what this pandemic is revealing about the systems we inhabit, as well as some lessons and limits of cultural texts that imagine apocalyptic scenarios and dystopian societies.
Gerry Canavan is an associate professor in the English Department at Marquette University, specializing in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature. His first book, Octavia E. Butler, appeared in 2016 in the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series at University of Illinois Press. He tweets at @gerrycanavan and has recently embarked on an ill-considered Kurt Vonnegut reread podcast @gradschoolvonn.
Mark Soderstrom has been a professional blacksmith, carpenter, labor organizer, and musician. He is now an Associate Professor in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies and Work and Labor Policy programs of SUNY-Empire State College. He has published work on labor history, history of science, oral history, neoliberalism, and speculative fiction.
Saturday Aug 15, 2020
Back to School Blues? The Fight for a Just & Safe School Year, August 13, 2020
Saturday Aug 15, 2020
Saturday Aug 15, 2020
As we roll into late August, the start of the school year is upon us. What will this Fall look like for students, for teachers and staff, for parents and our communities? What threats to safety, to the quality and equity of education, and to working conditions are people facing? And how are they responding What are school and community organizers doing to protect workers and students from the dangers of COVID? What are the best (and worst) models of how institutions are responding, and What else needs to be done?
Joining us will be K-12 and college educators, as well parents from around the country, including New York public school teachers Adam Stevens and Freddie Cole, UMass Boston professor and parent, Amy Todd, and California-based adjunct professor and union organizer Bobbi-Lee Smart.
Why is it that so many districts are ordering schools to reopen even as the pandemic still rages?
What are the challenges facing educators, students, and parents now forced to deal with remote and online teaching?
How will teaching and learning be different this Fall than it’s been before?
What demands and actions are emerging across the country as people organize to keep their co-workers, students, families and communities both safe and smart in a time of institutional absurdity and public health nightmares?
There are no shortage of questions to discuss and challenges to respond to. Join us a roundtable of educators, parents, students, organizers and activists as we hold a Shelter and Solidarity community discussion on this pressing topic.
- Adam Stevens has worked since 1996 in the public high schools of Brooklyn, New York to teach history in a way that raises anti-racist, anti-sexist and working-class consciousness.
- Freddie Cole is a public school teacher, union officer and activist in New York City.
- Amy Todd teaches Anthropology at UMass Boston, where she is a long-time union and labor activist.
- Bobbi-lee Smart is a California-based adjunct faculty member and advocate, Executive Director of CFT local. Adjunct Faculty United.
Wednesday Aug 12, 2020
Wednesday Aug 12, 2020
Avi Chomsky, Marie Cruz Soto, Joseph Gerson & Gar Alperovitz consider the legacy of the Hiroshima, its roots in Empire and colonial rivalries. They also examine resistance to empire from Vieques to Okinawa and across diasporas and homelands. Joe Ramsey hosts the conversation he co-produced with Linda Liu, Kira Moodliar, Suren Moodliar and Tim Sheard. The episode is sponsored by Hardball Press, the Community Church of Boston, Socialism and Democracy, and encuentro5.
Saturday Aug 01, 2020
Elections, Democracy, & the Left with Victor Wallis & Medea Benjamin, July 30, 2020
Saturday Aug 01, 2020
Saturday Aug 01, 2020
This episode is a deep dive with Victor Wallis (author of Democracy Denied and Red-Green Revolution) about how the Left can and should relate to elections and to threats to democracy in the United States. Victor is joined in conversation by nationally renowned organizer Medea Benjamin (Code Pink).
What are the opportunities and dangers represented by the 2020 Election? Questions and issues explored include: how should socialists relate to the Republican and Democratic Parties? To third party efforts? What can we learn from history in terms of how the Left can effectively engage the electoral process without getting sucked into compromised politics that undermine our goals and values? What are the threats to electoral democracy in the USA today and why is it important to defend the ballot box and defeat the Right, even while recognizing the compromised nature of the Democratic Biden ticket? What needs to be done to defend democracy in the USA, via the ballot box and beyond?
Victor Wallis is a socialist scholar and long-time editor of the journal Socialism & Democracy. He is a frequent to contributor to Monthly Review, New Political Science, and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, and is author of three books: Democracy Denied: Five Lectures on American Politics, Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Eco-Socialism, and Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories.
Sunday Jul 19, 2020
In a Time of Pandemics, What Are We Watching? And Why? July 16, 2020
Sunday Jul 19, 2020
Sunday Jul 19, 2020
S&S’s second social hour explores what we are watching and/or reading these days and attempts to tease out the ‘whys.’ Other than the persistently grim march of the news, what kinds of media and narratives have we been drawn to lately? Whether it’s escapist fantasies or pandemic-themed movies, are we looking for solace, distraction, frisson, or even models for how to navigate crisis? Are there certain genres and texts we find ourselves avoiding altogether and others that we can’t help but binge in one sitting? Join us as we talk to each other about the media we are paying attention to, as well as try to understand our individual and collective motivations for doing so. With co-hosts Linda Liu and Joe Ramsey.
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Friday Jul 10, 2020
Demita Frazier, Ross Caputi, and Suren Moodliar in a conversation with host Joe Ramsey about monuments and public art in a moment of rebellion.
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
In this third episode, hosts Joe Ramsey and Tim Sheard interview Tre Kwon and Jesse Martin about emergency conditions facing front line workers and those in their care. Both decry the tendency of employers and government to cut corners in pursuit of profits at the expense of those in need of care and their caregivers.
Saturday Jul 04, 2020
Police, Race, Labor & the Left with Cedric Johnson and Clare Hammonds, July 2, 2020
Saturday Jul 04, 2020
Saturday Jul 04, 2020
Nationally renowned scholar Cedric Johnson (author of the forthcoming book on Race, Policing and Anti-Capitalist Politics) joins us for a deep dive discussion into what comes next following the recent uprisings against police violence, and the broader state of Left politics in the US. We will also be joined by labor scholar and activist Clare Hammonds, co-editor of the new book Labor in the Time of Trump. Cedric Johnson is an associate professor of African American studies and political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of From Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007) as well as editor of The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism and the Remaking of New Orleans (2011). Clare Hammonds is a Professor of Practice in the Labor Resource Center of UMass Amherst. She is co-editor of the new book Labor in the Time of Trump and her research interests include union organizing, low-wage care work, and public sector labor relations.