“We didn’t think of ourselves as hippies, we thought of ourselves as serious people with politics.”
Interviews
Public Thinker: Lara Putnam Wants You to Knock on Your Neighbor’s Door
“Campaigns matter in part because of who meets whom, about the social networks that are shaped by that campaign as well as shaping it.”
America’s “Land Grab” Universities: Robert Lee on Colonial Extraction by “Treaty-Like Agreements”
“It’s not about the land underneath campuses. It’s land at a distance, that can be sold or managed to raise funds for endowments.”
“Just Use the Telephone, Please”: Hannah Zeavin on the Power of Teletherapy
“You can have really intense intimacy over distance, sometimes only because distance is there.”
“Keep Your Own Counsel”: Talking Octavia E. Butler with Lynell George
“She wanted people to be curious and take action in their lives. Not be sheep. To find the ways we can work together in crisis.”
Succeeding through Failure: Andrew Lakoff on Preparing for Emergencies
“What is the range of available measures to address our catastrophic future?”
Beholding Black Life: A Conversation with Ross Gay, Frank Guridy, & Deborah Paredez
“We have to witness everything… You don't do it by yourself. That mode of looking is not like any individual feat; it is a feat of joining.”
Femme Fatale Talks Back: Meenu Gaur on Feminist Filmmaking
“We have to take over spaces because we are not going to be invited in.”
From One War to Another—Ukraine Facing Russia: An Interview with Volodymyr Vakhitov
They claim there is a “People of Donbass.” There is not.
Finding Black People in Antiquity: Talking the Future of Classics with Sarah Derbew
“It feels insensitive or dishonest to not acknowledge the ways in which our work is a part of a greater narrative.”
Private Pain, Public Disinvestment: Talking Student Debt with Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
“Individual Americans thought they were the only ones who could not afford to send their kids to college.”
An Uncommon, Unconquerable Mind: Our Friend, Julius S. Scott III (1955–2021)
“Are there ways in which Black North Americans connected to places and things that were outside of the world we thought they were in?”
Public Thinker: Imani Perry on How to Understand “Souths Plural”
“At the end of the day, the America project was about an encounter with abundance that was responded to with greed and brutality.”
Public Thinker: Sophie Gonick on Housing Justice and Mass Movements
“As often the most vulnerable in our cities, immigrants face struggles that reflect the wider landscape of housing precarity.”
“Cheerfully Monstrous”: Dodie Bellamy on Writing and Grieving
“I didn’t pay much attention to what was being put in the archives… there are letters that, if I had been paying attention, wouldn’t be there.”
Habits of Mind: John Warner on Teaching Writing
“You fall short and then you wonder, 'what could I do differently next time that gets us a little bit closer?' I love that process.”
Hiding in Plain Sight: Talking Aquifer Depletion with Lucas Bessire
“The everyday ways that people challenge environmental destruction can be quite powerful.”
Why Does the State Allow Environmental Inequalities to Persist? Talking with Jill Lindsey Harrison
“What state and federal environmental regulatory agencies in the US have not yet done is reform the way agency staff make decisions.”
Borders Cast Long Shadows on Nations: Talking with Malini Sur
“Borders continue to gather life’s promises, even when walls and checkpoints brutally divide nations and societies.”
“Having to Explain Who You Are”: Caryl Phillips on Baldwin, Fiction, & Sports
“The first thing he said is, ‘Don't call me Mr. Baldwin. My name is Jimmy.’ I thought, this is ridiculous, at the very least he's James.”