Bedrosian Bookclub Podcast: Recent Episodes
USC Bedrosian Center
An audio book club. Our geeks read and discuss new and classic works in the policy field – fictional and non. Social justice, tech, politics, policy … we cover it all and more. Let's think about what is at the heart of being a citizen in America. This book club helps us get at the heart of what it means to be a citizen in a democracy.
Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center http://bedrosian.usc.edu/
Recorded at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy http://priceschool.usc.edu
This is the last episode of the Bedrosian Bookclub in this incarnation, it's been a blast.
We discuss the importance of The 1619 Project, the book, the project, and it's impact on our political discourse. Why should we pay attention to history, how does the historical narrative of a country affect the way we face the future?
Aubrey Hicks is joined by Yesenia Hunter, LaVonna Lewis, Jen Bravo, and David Sloane in a conversation on the meaning and joy in the The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story.
Follow Aubrey on Twitter @AubreyHi for a new book club announcement soon! Catch up on past episodes in the meantime!
Thanks to all the listeners, to all our guests (past and present), and to all the authors who help us think about the world we find ourselves awed by every day.
Three votes for Carribean Fragoza’s Eat the Mouth that Feeds You to be something every high school senior is exposed to. This debut collection of short stories is genius, this is late 20th early 21st century Southern California. This is Chicanx, this is Latinx, this is SoCal, this is women, this is body horror, magic realism all in 120 pages.
Ten stories about place and placemaking, about community and how we lift each other up, or tear each other apart. A must read!
“This collection of visceral, often bone-chilling stories centers the liminal world of Latinos in Southern California while fraying reality at its edges. Full of horror and wonder.”—Kirkus Reviews
Now, in the tail end of 2021, discourse about restorative justice and public safety lack imagination. We tend to “do what we’ve always done.”
NYU Historian Nicole Eustace brings us the story of the search for justice following the 1722 murder of a Native American man at the hands of two White men. Covered With Night is a detailed history of how the Pennyslvania colony leaders had to learn to restore the peace – or face war – with the Five Nations. in particular, we bear witness to how the colonists never truly understood the peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederation.
In this month’s book club, we read a deep history of the fallout of a murder in the Penn colony. In this history, we learn that our laws have been around shorter than we care to remember and see alternative ways of coming to justice that have existed and thrived. A powerful tail of how we, as peoples, can live together with more equity and justice – how restorative justice has worked in the world, how it could again. If only we can listen and learn.
Ostensibly, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, is about a young man who finds a manuscript in a dead man’s apartment. This experimental novel, released in 2000, takes a cinematic approach to the novel – creating a novel experience in time and space.
The dead man, Zampano, was an elderly blind man writing an academic critique of The Navidson Record; a documentary about a family moving into a home in Virginia, which happens to be bigger on the inside. At the center of Danielewski’s work is the question, “What is real?”
How do humans interact with the space they inhabit? How do they interact with the stories around them?
Featuring: Zenya Prowell, Stacy Patterson, Lisa Schweitzer, and Jen Bravo
In Not a Nation of Immigrants, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz strives to look at the ever morphing population of the United States, to uncover the why and how of the mythology that pervades political discourse on American history.
In part, Dunbar-Ortiz recognizes that the looming problems of climate change, polarization, and authoritarianism cannot be fought while sweeping the parts of our history we don't like under the rug. What does our history mean about who we are?
Some of us are immigrants, some of us are descendants of colonizers, some of us are descendants of indigenous peoples, some of us are arrivants brought here through violence - either refugees or descendants of enslaved peoples. Compound these complex ancestries with the fact that many immigrants conform to the values of White Supremacy (become settlers) in order to assimilate.
What can we learn from facing our complex history as told through the vast perspectives that make up our people?
An interview with author of *Unconventional Combat,* Michael A. Messner.
Messner's latest book is an intimate look at 6 historically excluded veterans and their post military careers as activists in intersectional peace movements.
Explore the ways these veterans are taking their situated knowledge to create a better future.
A "canceled" influencer. A lonely man looking for attention. White men adrift in hoards, no memory of the violence or good they've done. Enter The Atmosphere, a new retreat where men can detox from social media and learn to become human again. A cult.
This first novel from Alex McElroy is a doozy; capturing the manic craziness of the last decade, the sprint for the next cool thing, the quick turn from darling to pariah, the frenetic way we flit from one catastrophe to another.
Join us as host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla, Lisa Schweitzer, and Donnajean Ward to argue over McElroy’s The Atmospherians.
The Brutish Museums by Dan Hicks is a necrography wherein each stolen item from Benin City is an ongoing event: each event a story of colonial violence told and retold through daily viewings by tourists and school children.
It is also a "calling in" for museum curators to work toward a future of restitution; a future of museums free of stolen objects, cultures, and histories.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Jen Bravo, David Sloane, and Donnajean Ward.
For links and more visit our site.
This month we're thinking about history, collections, and stories. How do stories evolve over time, how do stories shape history, how do they make their way through time and space?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novel The Shadow of the Wind is one of the best-sellingist books of all time. A story within a story, young Daniel finds a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, in the mysterious Cemetery of Forgotten Books. This simple event begins a lifetime of searching for the book's author, Julián Carax.
Can stories pass the boundaries of time and space? How does a story move through history? How can a story temper or inflame memory?
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla and Carla Della Gatta to discuss the novel on its 20th anniversary.
For links and more, check out the showpage.
The Fact of a Body by *Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is a true crime memoir. After encountering the child murderer Ricky Langley, Alexandria's desire to work as a lawyer to fight against the death penalty is up-ended. They spend several years investigating Ricky's story as a way to confront the story of their own child abuse. This is a deeply moving book, and a relatively easy read given the morose topic - a testament to the author's skill.
Our conversation ranges from the effects of trauma on individuals and communities to the genre itself. If you haven't read it yet, beware that we assume you've read it, spoiler alert!
Featuring Jeffery A. Jenkins (@jaj7d ), Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), Brettany K. Shannon (@brettanyshannon), and Deborah Winters
*Please note that since recording in 2017, the author has designated a preferred pronoun of they/them/theirs; they are misgendered in the recording.
Follow us on Twitter! @BedrosianCenter
Special thanks to Flatiron Books for sending us review copies!
To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of The Fact of a Body click the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, or Google Play
https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/the-fact-of-a-body
Polarization is at a high point, political violence surrounds us, joblessness, homelessness, the country's need to face the great wrongs of the past, and the specter of climate change hanging over all of this.
What if ...? What if we imagined a different future?
How can we rethink leadership for a new age? How can we relate to one another amidst constant uncertainty? Can we rethink what a good life is and how we can go about it?
How do we heal ourselves, our communities, and our planet?
Listen as we discuss Emergent Strategy, by Adrienne Maree Brown for insights.
Our guests include Jennifer Bravo, Megan Goulding, Jessica Payne, Founder, and Brettany Shannon. Thank you to Mockingbird Analytics for this partnership!
For more about our guests, links to things we discuss, and more check out the showpage.
Activists, scientists, most of us ... we know that the truth of the climate crisis is monumental. It's overwhelming the size, scope, interconnectedness of the problem.
All We Can Save asks us to rethink, reimagine, and co-create a possible future. It's easy to imagine the worst ... in this collection of essays and poems, the authors bring a unique clarity along with hope and optimism for solutions.
We might not save everything ... let's work together to save all we can.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Anna Cummins (The 5 Gyres Inst), Jen Bravo (Price Alum & Consultant), and Lauren Turk (Fera Zero).
For links and more, check out the showpage.
Ostensibly, editor Gary Paul Nabhan's collection of friends' essays, The Nature of Desert Nature is about the desert.
Rather ... it's human nature that we encounter delving into this collection of essays. The writers reminisce on their own beingness as they encountering one specific desert: the Sonoran. The Sonoron is the desert covers vast area in the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico. Most of the essays focus on Tucson and its environs.
For our guests, living on the edge of the desert also has meaning ... what is the nature of desert nature?
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla and Stacy Patterson.
For June, we're reading Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown!
Join us for the LIVE Recording on Tue, June 22nd at 5pm pacific
Twilight of Democracy is a memoir. It is also a condemnation of the many intellectuals and opportunists who have not only given up on democracy, but given up on truth.
Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize winning author, recalls the last 20 years in Poland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, and briefly, the United States. What drew many of people she thought of as friends, staunch anti-Communist conservatives, toward authoritarianism? This is the story of elites who think they're entitled, who crave power enough to wield conspiracism like a cudgel against the very institutions they once protected.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Jen Bravo, Richard Green, Olivia Olson, and Lisa Schweitzer on this episode of the Bookclub.
In direct contrast to the myth of the "American Dream," we live in a society in which factors outside of our control determine our fates. From skin color to zip code, only the lucky or exceptionally determined are able to break free of the invisible chains binding them to their caste.
In Isabel Wilkerson's latest book, Caste, the Hindu caste system in India is a mirror to reflect how this invisible stratification continues to lock in inequity in the U.S.. This richly historic book uncovers how the Third Reich used the American caste system as a model for their dynasty in Germany.
Then she uses personal stories, her own among them, to outline the harm and costs our caste system has reeked since 1619.
Read the book, then listen to host Aubrey Hicks discuss the book with LaVonna Lewis, Christine Beckman, and Olivia Olson.
What does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be an individual, to have an identity? How does one become normal? Who gets to decide what is normal?
In One of Us, Alice Domurat Dreger uses stories of conjoined twins to help readers through questions of identity, othering, and belonging.
Aubrey Hicks is joined by Christine Beckman, Liz Falletta, and Lisa Schweitzer.
We're reading Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum for March. Check out the whole list, click here.
"The first time I can remember feeling truly powerless, I was three, and I was trapped sideways in a bucket in the garage."
The first line of Allie Brosh's latest illustrated memoir, Solutions and Other Problems, lets the audience know that we still can know what to expect her to say. Using short illustrated essays, stories of her life, Brosh walks us through a few important experiences. The absurdity, the childlike wonder, the laugh-out-loud humor contained in the stories all the while she shares her grief, depression, and anxiety is utterly relatable.
In this, the first book we read this month, we discuss mental health and our various reactions to this treasure of a book.
Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla, Liz Falletta, and Stacy Patterson.
Reading A Promised Land by Barack Obama in January 2021 is a bit of a trip. In some places, the reader feels the swell of nostalgia, the remembrance of governance and a time free of COVID-19. Other times, the juxtaposition Obama's words, with a deep reverence for democracy, and the insurrection of January 6th feels painful. A Promise Land is part one of what will be a two part Presidential memoir. Much of the book is process and policy heavy, giving the reader a close glimpse of the daily life of the leader of the free world. Even when the topic is heavy, Obama's writing lifts that heaviness and delivers a long fireside chat filled with the intelligence and humor we've come to associate with him. Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by LaVonna Lewis, Olivia Olson, David Sloane, and Ehsan Zaffar. We discuss the things we missed, the things we loved, and the book that also needs be written - and whose responsibility that might be. For links to some of the things we talked about, visit our showpage.
In our new series on Community Impact we speak with Victoria Ciudad-Real, John Roberson III, Gary Painter, and Jeffery Wallace about findings from their collaborative project Accelerating Fair Chance Hiring among Los Angeles employers.
The project, in which the Price Center partnered with LeadersUp and the State of California Workforce Accelerator Fund, used an employer survey and co-design sessions with Angeleno employers to determine the best way forward with Fair Chance hiring processes.
What can employers take away from this project?
Find more about the findings: https://socialinnovation.usc.edu/fairchance/
Octavia Butler's 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, was listed as a New York Times bestseller for the first time in September 2020.
Parable is the story of a 15-year-old Black girl with plans to save civilization. Lauren was brought up in a small walled community in Southern California. America is in the middle of a heated election and facing deep ecological crisis, spreading disease, drug epidemics, sky-rocketing homelessness, and rampant poverty. She sees in these crises possibility for something more dire in her near future.
When it happens, she's prepared with a way forward for herself and anyone willing to join her.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Jeffery A. Jenkins, Donnajean Ward, and Olivia Olson on this discussion of the prescient novel.
For this bonus episode, we’re talking with Daniel Flaming & Anthony Orlando on the new report on homelessness in the time of COVID (and after). The Economic Roundtable report uses past pandemic and past recession data to predict how COVID joblessness will translate into homelessness over the coming years. Looking at joblessness as well as the housing market, the authors predict that this recession with see more than double the unhousing that we saw in 2008 (when 10% of the jobless became homeless within the three years following the recession).
These dire predictions also come with concrete policy solutions that will help prevent this unhousing from happening after the pandemic, and hopefully prevent catastrophes after the next recession or pandemic.
Locked Out: Unemployment and Homelessness in the COVID Economy is underwritten by the Economic Roundtable, and is written by Daniel Flaming, Anthony W. Orlando, Patrick Burns, and Seth Pickens.
Download the full report here: https://economicrt.org/publication/locked-out/
In today's bonus episode, we speak with Elizabeth Dragga (Founder of The Book Truck) and Julie Sandor about the work they do to support young book nerds throughout LA County.
"The future is limited for teens with low literacy skills. Underserved teens face tremendous barriers to reading. Fortunately, that’s where The Book Truck comes in. We improve literacy by giving free books to foster care and low-income teens in a way that gets even the most reluctant reader to pick up a book."
Check them out, learn how you can help put free books into the hands of underserved teens!
What better way to end a hard year than to visit Grafton, New Hampshire as author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling as he reports on the people who lived there during the Free Town Project? In the new book, A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, Hongoltz-Hetling follows Graftonites and some "colonizers' who saw it as the perfect place to build a utopian community free of government.
Where does the balance between individual rights and the common good exist in American politics? What can this book tell us about the current controversy on mask wearing during this pandemic? And what kind of governance would suit the bears of New Hampshire the best?
Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Anthony Orlando, Aubrey Hicks, and David Sloane.
This episode is a bit different but we decided this was too good to pass up. We aren’t discussing a book today, rather we’re going to cover another important report out of the USC Price School of Public Policy.
In October we spoke to folks from the Price Center for Social Innovation and the Safe Communities institute about criminal justice. Today ... we're going back to the Price Center to discuss a new report on housing affordability in Los Angeles. The report covers findings from a door-to-door survey done in 2019 to uncover the realities of families living with rent burden.
Aubrey Hicks (our ED) speaks to Gary Painter (Social Innovation), Jovanna Rosen, Sean Angst, and Soledad De Gregorio about the impact of rent burden on two neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
These findings "must be taken into account when creating policy responses to protect renters during the COVID-19 pandemic, underscore the rental precarity that, which, as rental precarity existed prior to the pandemic. Researcher and practitioner efforts must address the impending eviction crisis stemming from the pandemic shut-down as well as the more enduring task of tackling long-term rental affordability."
To learn more about this project, including an overview of the project strategy, as well as key findings from analyses of listening sessions and public safety data, check out the report webpage here.
In Citizen, Claudia Rankine wrote: “Because white men can’t / police their imagination / black people are dying." In her follow-up book, Just Us: An American Conversation, Rankine comes back to her exploration of conversation and the racial imaginary of the United States. Through the practice of making conversation, creating an entangled empathy, the book interrogates Whiteness and the state of relating to others. Rankine provides an example of a process with which all of us can explore our American story.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by LaVonna Lewis, Olivia Olson, Sumun Pendakur, and David Sloane.
The Auctioneer was released in 1976 with a campaign that likened it to "The Lottery.” That the novel reflects an ongoing fascination with the broken dream of a peaceful rural life.
Set in a farming community in New Hampshire, the Joan Samson creates a town of residents bracing for change, unsure of the future and looking toward an understood past. Farmers know that as city dwellers continue their flight to the interiors … the land they farm is worth more than the history of their town, the generations lived, or all the crops sewn.
The arrival of Perly Dunsmore, an auctioneer, takes that unease to new levels. Yet … he’s simply helping the townsfolk to sell off unwanted items. What is wrong with that?
Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer is a classic. Her characters live in a very different time, the horror they face remains entirely relatable.
Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Aubrey Hicks, Jeff Jenkins, and Stacy Patterson.
This episode is a bit different but we decided this was too good to pass up. We aren't discussing a book today, rather we're going to cover an important report out of the USC Price School of Public Policy.
Given recent events, the findings of this report can help us understand why and how the dialogue between communities and law enforcement is so fraught. Perhaps the two stakeholders are thinking about public safety in very different ways. This project can help us understand both the conflict and where to go from here.
"The past decade has elevated the urgent need for police reform, brought to the forefront by high-profile police killings and movements like #BlackLivesMatter. To better understand conceptions of public safety and support the growing public interest in criminal justice reform, the USC Price Center for Social Innovation partnered with Microsoft and the USC Price Safe Communities Institute to launch the NDSC Criminal Justice Data Initiative in the spring of 2019."
Today, Aubrey Hicks (our ED) speaks to Gary Painter (Social Innovation) and Erroll Southers (Safe Communities Institute) about the impetus behind the collaboration, the process of understanding community needs, the impact they hope to see, and thoughts on the next stages of research.
For links to some of the things we talk about, please see the showpage.
The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson, focuses on an outbreak of cholera in central London in 1854. John Snow, a doctor who theorized that cholera was waterborne, used the opportunity to collect data to prove his theory. Meanwhile the neighborhood vicar, Henry Whitehead, wanted to prove him wrong. Johnson argues that the work of these two men ushered in the modern city. Did cholera change the world?
"The history books tend to orient themselves around nationalist story lines: overthrowing the king, electing the presidents, fighting the battles. But the history book of recent Homo sapiens as a species should begin and end with one narrative line: We became city dwellers." (Ch 9, page 232)
🎧 Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Jeff Jenkins and David Sloane from USC Price.
For links to some of the things we talk about, see the showpage.
An interview with author of The Affordable City by Shane Phillips. (Follow Phillips on Twitter: @ShaneDPhillips) Shane Phillips believes that effectively tackling the housing crisis requires that cities support both tenant protections and housing abundance. There is no single solution to the housing crisis—it will require a comprehensive approach backed by strong, diverse coalitions.
Read along with us! For September, we’re reading The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
An interview with author of The Address Book, Deirdre Mask.
The Address Book is a broad look at the invention and proliferation of the address. Relatively new, addresses were first a way for royals to count their subjects. Today, addresses can reflect our identity, our history, our race, and our access to opportunity. With the postal service in jeopardy, and the world in disarray, settle in for an interview with a beguiling author.
Explore the many ways a simple address can change lives, cities, and the future.
Follow Mask on Twitter: @Deirdre_Mask
Follow Orlando on Twitter: @AnthonyWOrlando
Read along with us! For September, we’re reading The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
The Address Book is a dive into the deep waters of the meaning of addresses, often with tangents into the weird and interesting lives of people throughout history.
Beginning with some of the first addressing projects in Europe, we get the sense that something as simple as a number and street name can mean more than we could possibly imagine.
🎧 Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Faith McKinney, Olivia Olson, and Anthony Orlando.
Thanks again for listening … spread the word!
Hey! It's our 100th episode! Thanks so much for listening! Today we're discussing award winning novelist N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became, bringing New York City alive in the first of a new series. It is the story of New York City: the story of its history, its people, the land, the place, and the layers that build to become something greater than the sum of its parts. Join us as we discuss the novel and the current political moment, the hope of the progressive, and the hope of the collective.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla, Juan De Lara, and Olivia Olson.
Thanks again for listening ... spread the word!
An interview with author of Care: Stories, Christopher Records. (Follow Records on Twitter: @cdrecords001)
Care: Stories is the fiction debut by USC Price alum, Christopher Records. Records aims to show "ordinary queer people living ordinary lives in an ordinary place." The ordinary place in question is the Inland Empire, which depending on who is defining the area is as vast as Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The vastness of the place adds a sense of "stagnation and loneliness and cruelty," for the characters in the stories.
Explore the ways in which place and care and humanness intersect in these short stories.
Read along with us! For July, we’re reading The City We Became by N. K. Jemison.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
Our host, Dr. Lisa Schweitzer, chose Sofía Segovia's The Murmur of Bees (translated by Simon Bruni) in August of 2019. It seemed like it would be a good sprawling family saga to read the next summer.
Come June 2020, the choice would be prescient. The novel is, indeed, a sprawling family saga ... one set in the midst of the Mexican Revolution and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.
It is the story of a family and their land as the world changes around them. It is a story of grief, of love, of family.
Host Dr. Schweitzer is joined by Caroline Bhalla, Olivia Olson, and Donnajean Ward.
This podcast has spoilers.
For links and more, check out the showpage.
An 18 year old Mohammad Darwish cries out, "We want freedom!"
A revolution begins in the city of Rastan, Syria. April 1st, 2011.
For many years, journalist Rania Abouzeid spends time near or inside Syria to interview the Syrian people through the many years of internal (with added external) conflict in the country. No Turning Back is the story of the civil war in Syria told through the eyes of the Syrians Abouzeid interviews, an accounting of their lives from 2011-2016.
Listen as host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Ehsan Zaffar, David Sloane, and Aubrey Hicks discuss this vital reporting.
Another bonus episode!
Host Lisa discusses the book Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968 by Center Director, Jeffery Jenkins and Boris Heersink (Fordham).
Heersink and Jenkins examine how National Convention politics allowed the South to remain important to the Republican Party after Reconstruction. They trace how Republican organizations in the South changed from biracial coalitions to mostly all-white ones over time. They explore how the 'whitening' of the Republican Party affected its vote totals in the South. Once states passed Jim Crow laws essentially to disenfranchise black voters, the Republican Party in the South performed better electorally the whiter it became. These results are important for understanding how the GOP emerged as a competitive, and ultimately dominant, electoral party in the late-twentieth century South.
Read along with us! We’re reading The Murmur of Bees by by Sofía Segovia (Translated by Simon Bruni) for June.
For more information, see the showpage.
Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
We spent #EarthDay2020 talking about environmental justice.
We spoke about an intriguing new book by UCDavis Prof. Julie Sze. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing the results of persistent injustices, as the virus affecting marginalized communities harder, with more dire consequences. What must we learn from environmental justice struggles in order to form a more perfect union?
Listen as host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Jovanna Rosen, Madi Swayne, Jaime Lopez, and Olivia Olson to discuss Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger by Julie Sze.
Can a groundswell of feminist activism threaten an authoritarian patriarchal regime?
Author, Leta Hong Fincher looks at this question through the study of women in China. In Betraying Big Brother, Fincher examines the current feminist movement in China. Following the "feminist five," the reader is exposed to the history of the changing roles of women in the country, as well as the current activist movement fueled first through connections built online through the movement to the streets of cities in China.
Our discussion covers the book, thoughts on racism during the COVID-19 pandemic (at the beginning stages here in the U.S.) as well as the role of government in women's lives.
Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Olivia Olson, David Sloane, and Aubrey Hicks for this episode!
For more information, check out the showpage.
Tamim Ansary brings 1500 years of history to life in Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. Destiny Disrupted gives readers a broad overview of history of the middle world, beginning with the time of Mohammed and the birth of Islam through almost the present day.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Olivia Olson, David Sloane, and Ehsan Zaffar on this episode!
For links and more, visit our showpage.
Does your favorite conspiracy come with evidence and theory of governance, or is it just a meme?
Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, authors of A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy argue that the new conspiracism, while having the feel of classic conspiracy theories, have none of the search for meaning. The authors articulate the rise of this new kind of conspiracy thinking and the ramifications for democratic institutions and our collective understanding of the world.
Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Olivia Olson, Jeff Jenkins, and Aubrey Hicks to discuss this new book about the current political moment.
Follow us on Twitter: @drschweitzer @AubreyHi @jaj7d @BedrosianCenter Read along with us! Next month we’re reading Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China by Leta Hong Fincher.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu. Check out the showpage for links to some of the things we talk about.
In today’s episode we're briefly gorgeous, or possibly briefly monstrous. We're pretty sure both are true.
What we are sure of is that Ocean Vuong's magnificent novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is just that; gorgeous and painful, heart fulfilling and heart breaking.
Poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is ostensibly a letter from the narrator, Little Dog, to his mother, Rose. Our narrator is a young man in his 20s. As a Vietnamese American, Little Dog writes of war, abuse, first love, exploration of language and the struggles of coming of age.
Listen as our host Aubrey Hicks discusses the novel with Liz Falletta, Jeff Jenkins, Stacy Patterson, and David Sloane.
Follow us on Twitter: @AubreyHi @stacypatt614 @jaj7d @dcsloane53 @BedrosianCenter Read along with us! Next month we’re reading Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamin Ansary.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
In today’s episode we’re thinking about racism, sexism, misogynoir, and the journalism. We're reading Trailblazer, a memoir by journalist giant Dorothy Butler Gilliam.
Gilliam shattered the barriers of race and gender as the first black female reporter at The Washington Post. She had to transform the way the Post viewed what was worthy of space on the pages, leaving a trail for more journalists to follow.
Listen as Professor Lisa Schweitzer discusses the book with Caroline Bhalla, Brettany Shannon, and Donnajean Ward.
Follow us on Twitter: @drschweitzer, @Coodence, @brettanyshannon, @DonnajeanWard, @BedrosianCenter Read along with us! Next month we’re reading Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamin Ansary.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
An interview with author of Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works, Rucker C. Johnson. (Follow Rucker on Twitter: @ProfRucker)
Rucker stopped by USC for a conversation with the Gary Painter, Director of the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation. While on campus, Rucker was also gracious enough to spend some time with our Executive Director, Aubrey Hicks. The conversation covers the goals behind the book and the hopeful idea that we can provide good education for our children given what we've learned in the 65 years since the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Read along with us! For December, we’re reading Trailblazer by Dorothy Butler Gilliam and in January we're reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
In today’s episode we’re thinking about the patriarchy, and Mona Eltahawy’s tools for women and girls. Tools to take down the premise by which prevents so many women from living full human lives. The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is a memoir, a manifesto, and a toolkit for women to retrain themselves to take up space in the world. To live fully, and without guilt for that humanness.
Listen as Professor Nicole Esparza, Marisa Turesky, and Aubrey Hicks delve into the book.
@nicolephd, @AubreyHi, @mturesky, @BedrosianCenter
Read along with us! Next month we're reading Trailblazer by Dorothy Butler Gilliam.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
For today's episode, we're thinking about the many books we've discussed over the years.
After 70+ book discussions, we thought it was about time we did a look back at our favorite discussions, the surprises, the let downs, and what we hope for the future.
@drschweitzer, @AubreyHi, @BedrosianCenter
Read along with us! Next month we're reading The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahaay.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Aubrey L. Hicks, Susan Lindau, and Joan Miller to discuss Victor LaValle's The Devil in Silver.
Pepper is a big man. He's accused of a crime that he doesn't see himself in. He's dropped suddenly, into a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York called New Hyde. He's not mentally ill, but that doesn't seem to matter - the police don't want to work unpaid overtime to process him and the hospital machine doesn't want to refuse.
72 hours turns into a month and then more. In the darkness of his room, he's visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It isn't a delusion. The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper makes friends with three other inmates and plans to fight back: Dorry, an elderly schizophrenic who's been on the ward for decades; Coffee (Kofi), an African immigrant with severe OCD; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl.
What's real? Who is the very real monster and how do we fight it? How do we treat people unwanted by mainstream society? How do we know if we are experiencing reality?
Read along with us! Next month we're reading The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahaay.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
Another bonus episode!
Host Lisa discusses Professor Liz Falletta's book, By-Right, By-Design: Housing Development Versus Housing Design in Los Angeles. Falletta looks to help practitioners move beyond housing production as a zero sum game towards the more polyvalent solutions that will be required as LA densifies.
Read along with us! We're reading Victor LaValle's The Devil in Silver for Spooktober.
Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
The Undercommons is a series of essays exploring contemporary political thought from an inside/outside the commons perspective. Our guest today contends that under all the theory, the book is about friendship and the many ways in which friendship and conversation can be study. That study is love.
Exploring issues of race, politics, the university, study, poetry, and ultimately ... friendship. Listen as two friends explore the book and what it means to be against and for the university.
Featuring Aubrey Hicks and Chris Finley.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
You've heard that gerrymandering can be bad for representation.
Jonathan A. Rodden wants to take you further back in time to the beginnings of what has become a problem of representation, to the time that the Democrats were aligning with labor and Republicans were moving further from urban spaces. Today in certain states, the historic shift still reveals itself in geographic voting, leading to a mismatch between vote share and seat share.
Host Lisa Schweitzer discusses Why Cities Lose by Jonthan Rodden with Nicolas Duquette, Jeffery A. Jenkins, and Pamela Clouser McCann.
Does the book discover the "deep roots of the urban-rural political divide?" Is this a problem we can fix?
Today's book: The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú.
The southern border between Mexico and the U.S. can be a violent place. Yet isn't as easily defined as it seems.There are places where the border is permeable, invisible. The border is a construct, and the racialized rhetoric of The Border combined with two decades of militarization have wreaked havoc on the people and the land.
Cantú becomes a border patrol agent to understand the realities on the ground ... but the complicity he feels drives him away. Can he escape the border, or does that mirage move with him?
Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Juan De Lara, Jaime Lopez, and Aubrey Hicks for a far ranging discussion of borders, metaphors, and life in between.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
What is a summer book club without a good detective novel?
Our conversation today dives into Robert Galbraith's third installment of the Cormoran Strike novels, Career of Evil. Today's host is convinced that Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) might have the best descriptions of the complexity of London since Dickens!
Host Richard Green is joined by Lisa Schweitzer and Aubrey Hicks.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
If models of the world are all wrong, why are they critical to understanding our complex world?
Today, host Pamela Clouser McCann discusses the book The Model Thinker with guests Jeffery A. Jenkins and James Lo.
For links to some of the things we discuss, check out the showpage!
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
Can the way a person plays golf really explain their whole personality? Famed golf writer Rick Reilly aims to make the case in Commander in Cheat. Detailing with excruciating detail and humor the myriad of ways President Trump cheats in the golf world.
Does Reilly make the case for using golf as a metaphor for President Trump's governance? Listen as we hash that out.
Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Anthony W. Orlando, David Sloane, and Richard Green.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
Layli Long Soldier is the author of our book for June 2019, Whereas, winner of the National Book Critics Circle award, and finalist for the National Book Award. She is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Whereas in response to an "apology" to Native Americans which was buried in a department of defense appropriations bill during the Obama administration. It is a stunning use of language to build and re-build America, the land of the Plains Indians as others before the colonizers.
The book is at turns devastating, celebratory, adept, clever, playful and always unique.
Apologies for our terrible attempts at Lakota, while we tried to find proper pronunciation we failed. Our failure is another record of the violence perpetrated in our name again our Native brothers and sisters.
David Sloane and Deborah Natoli join host Aubrey Hicks in discussion of this work by Layli Long Soldier, Lakota and American.
In today's episode, we discuss Nnedi Okorafor's Afrofuturist novel Who Fears Death. A young woman, named Onyesonwu meaning Who Fears Death learns she is a child of rape, deals with being an outcast, and after a trauma finds out she has special powers. She learns she is at the center of a prophecy that could change the world.
We discuss some themes of the book: gender, friendship, love, hatred, violence, nature, the desert, cities, and life during and after genocide.
Joining host Aubrey Hicks for this discussion are Marisa Turesky and David Sloane.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by professors Chris Redfearn and Liz Falletta in a discussion of the New York Times bestselling book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.
On today's podcast, we talk about how white fragility works to sustain and reproduce the racist institutions & socialization which we all inherited.
Scheduling in the Spring semester is always hard. We decided to go ahead with a three white person panel for this particular book. We hope to model the kinds of conversations we hope are happening across the country in predominately white communities. To echo DiAngelo, this isn't about guilt, it is about the responsibility we have to make the world better for our fellow citizens.
We make mistakes and welcome feedback.
Thanks to all of you who have shared feedback with us before & to those of you brave enough to share with us in the future.
Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at bedrosian.bookclub@usc.edu.
State of Resistance: What California's Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America's Future by Manuel Pastor
Another bonus episode!
Host Lisa discusses Professor Manuel Pastor's latest book, State of Resistance. The book looks at the last several decades of economic, social, and environmental transformations in California. Pastor then looks to the future to ask what these transformations can predict for the larger United States.
Warnings: spoilers
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Our April read: White Fragility: Why It's So hard for White People To Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
This month, host Lisa is joined by David Sloane, Denise McIver, and Aubrey Hicks to discuss An Unkindness of Ghosts, the science fiction novel about a young neuroatypical woman on a generation ship in search of the "promised land" looking for evidence her mother had discovered something important about the ship and its journey.
We talk about slave allegories, generation ships, spatial hierarchies, gender, autism ... so much to talk about with this debut novel from Solomon.
Warnings: spoilers & triggers, and we apologize for any misgendering speakers may have done on this podcast.
Other things we're reading:
Lisa: Mueller, She Wrote, State of Resistance by Manuel Pastor
Denise: Quicksand and Passing, by Nella Larsen
Aubrey: The Savage Shore, by David Hewson
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Our April read: White Fragility: Why It's So hard for White People To Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo
Bonus episode: an interview with Professor Manuel Pastor on his book State of Resistance: What California's Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Means for America's Future, coming soon.
Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes by Anne Elizabeth Moore
This month, Lisa is joined by Marisa Turesky, Chris Redfearn, and Aubrey Hicks to discuss Body Horror, a book of essays on the interaction between the abnormal, frail, resilient, squishy bodies of women and the world, from journalist Anne Elizabeth Moore.
Warnings: spoilers, cursing, & triggers.
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Our March read: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
Email: bedrosian.center@usc.edu
Twitter: @BedrosianCenter, @drschweitzer, @AubreyHi
by Sophocles, Paul Woodruff (Translator)
This month, Lisa is joined by Carla Della Gatta and Richard Green to discuss the timeless play by Sophocles: Antigone.
The play has clear connections to political struggles we face thousands of years later. The struggle between law and norm, the struggle to define what the state can control, and more. Listen as our three scholars discuss the necessity of reading Antigone today.
Read along for next month: Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes by Elizabeth Anne Moore.
For links and more, check out the showpage.
Using the case of Thames Town, an English-like village in Shanghai, The Real Fake looks at Chinese ideas of spacial construction and what authenticity means in (re)making spaces. In today's episode, host Lisa Schweitzer talks with the author of the new book The Real Fake: Authenticity and the Production of Space, Maria Francesca Piazzoni.
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Lisa on Twitter: @drschweitzer
For more on the Bookclub, check out the showpage.
This month, Lisa is joined by Anthony Orlando, Jeff Jenkins, and Christian Grose to discuss Bob Woodward's latest reportage on the Presidency: Fear. How does this stack up to other Woodward titles and how does the principal-agent theory work it's way into conversation with these political junkies?
For links to some of the things we discus, check out the showpage: bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/fear
What we’re reading:
Anthony : Heirs of the Founders by H.W. Brands
Jeff : The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Christian : The Republic for Which It Stands by Richard White, , The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Read along for next month : Antigone by Sophocles, Paul Woodruff (Translator)
For links and more, check out the showpage.
One of the larger problems for government, is that taking risks is difficult. Risks are expensive, and can lead to a host of problems when those risks don't give desired results.
Here's where social innovation is taking a chance. In the UK you have pay for results programs, called pay for success here in the states. How do these programs work? Who takes on the economic risk? How do we measure success? Can pay for success and social impact bonds help solve some of the wicked problems?
Host Lisa Schweitzer talks with two of the co-authors of the new book Payment by Results and Social Impact Bonds, Gary Painter and Christopher Fox.
Read along with us - next month, Antigone! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Lisa on Twitter: @drschweitzer
Gary on Twitter: @GaryDeanPainter
Christopher (Policy Evaluation& Research Unit) : @MMUPolicyEval
This month, Lisa, Richard, and Aubrey discuss the new book of sonnets from Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin. Hayes' sonnets are "acrid with tear gas, and they unravel with desire." For the poetry doubters everywhere.
Read along for next month : Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
You can email us at bedrosian.center@usc.edu.
Follow us on Twitter. Please like the Bedrosian Bookclub on Facebook.
Check out the showpage for what we're reading and more.
This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz. Sound production by the Brothers Hedden.
This month, Aubrey, Ange-Marie, Jeff, and David discuss the new book from renowned literary critic Michiko Kakutani, The Death of Truth : Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump. Or, perhaps ... death by a thousand "realities."
Read along for next month : Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
Find what we're reading and more on the showpage.
You can email us at bedrosian.center@usc.edu.
This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz. Sound production by the Brothers Hedden.
Follow us on Twitter. Please like the Bedrosian Bookclub on Facebook.
Our new tradition, on the Bedrosian Bookclub, is to read a witchy book for the month of October. This year ...
We're taking a look at the coming of age novel, Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. This is the story of Antonio Marez, a six year old boy caught between his Father's love of travel, his mother's desire he become a priest, the town (modernity), and the farmland of the llano (tradition). Then a magical elder, a curandera (a healer who uses herbs and magic) comes to live with the family. She mentors the young boy as he begins to seek a better sense of himself in the world.
Host Lisa Schweitzer, joined by Caroline Bhalla, Aubrey Hicks, and Stacy Patterson (EML '12) find many themes to discuss in this novel set at the end of World War II in a small New Mexican community.
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Lisa on Twitter: @drschweitzer
Caroline on Twitter: @Coodence
Aubrey on Twitter: @AubreyHi
Stacy on Twitter @stacypatt614
For links and more, check out the showpage.
What is authenticity in a community? What is an authentic community? In a world which never stops changing, growing, evolving ... how can planners take up the challenge of authenticity? Host Lisa Schweitzer talks with editors Brettany Shannon and Laura Tate of the new book Planning for AuthentiCITIES about the challenge and how to move toward inclusive and democratic communities.
We're reading American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes for next month!
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Lisa on Twitter: @drschweitzer
Brettany on Twitter: @brettanyshannon
Using contemporary examples, Kate Manne's Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, explores the definitions of misogyny and its contrast with sexism. The book is a philosophical examination of misogyny as the policing of the patriarchal state, serving to punish women who might step out of the assigned giver role.
An important read, it is also not a book for the faint of heart, as David Sloane says this is a dispirited look into the state of misogyny in the US (and the author's native Australia).
Host Lisa Schweitzer, joined by Jennifer Bravo (MPP '06), Stacy Patterson (EML '12), and David Sloane to delve into conversation about the book and how we all play a part in the continuity of the patriarchy. How men and women, all of us, contribute to the policing of women in the form of misogyny.
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
Lisa on Twitter: @drschweitzer
Jennifer on Twitter @vitagraphia
Stacy on Twitter @stacypatt614
David on Twitter @dcsloane53
In 2017 two lectures presented in the London Review of Books’ Winter Lecture series were published together in Mary Beard’s Women & Power. The first lecture put into context the idea and resonance of women’s public voice, with the second lecture focusing on power.
Host Lisa Schweitzer, joined by Aubrey L. Hicks and Pamela Clouser McCann discuss these two lectures, their experiences as women in the academy, as well as the state of women in institutions of power today.
Eva Dolan's This Is How It Ends is a thriller set in an anti-gentrification activist community in the middle of a rapidly gentrifying London. Dolan tackles the huge issue of gentrification through the story of two women engaged in the anti-gentrification movement. How do we define ourselves in places? How do we protect the self in social media, public, activist movements?
In today’s episode, we marvel at Dolan's ability to mirror the gentrification fight with the relationship between young activist Ella and the older mentor Molly. We think about mentoring, gentrification, family, policing, and so many other themes as we discuss this tight thriller which is also social commentary.
Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), Brettany Shannon (@brettanyshannon), and David Sloane (@dcsloane53) join Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi) for this episode.
For links and more, check out the showpage.
Anyone who reads or watches the news might feel like we are in a news assault. The news happens so fast, technology helps us disseminate and consume with speed, and media outlets are in a relatively new competition: a competition for relevancy. As “papers of record” are being attacked as “fake,” the question of how to communicate with fairness about important issues has never been more relevant.
John McPhee has had a long, storied career in writing for magazines “of record” using in-depth long-form journalism. Draft No. 4 is McPhee’s 32nd book of nonfiction. It is a series of essays on his writing process.
In today’s episode, we use McPhee’s thoughts on structure and nonfiction to discuss some of the difficulties of communicating policy and research in today’s frenetic climate of news and propaganda and anti-elitism. Policy communication should be nuanced and deep, how can we do this in an age of immediate consumption and tribalism?
Congressional historian Sarah Binder joins neighbor and investment manager, Mark Spindel in a look at the history of the relationship between the Federal Reserve and its legislative parent, Congress. The result is the Princeton University Press book The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve.
Central to the book is the notion that the two institutions are interdependent rather than independent. The authors advocate that through legislation over the years, Congress has set up the Federal Reserve to bear the brunt of blame during times of financial crisis. This blend of political science, history, and economics was a hit for our panel. Why is it important to realize the relationship between Congress and the Fed is interdependent? What roles do transparency and accountability play in the relationship?
Host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d) is joined by guests, Anthony Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando), Matthew Kahn (@mattkahn1966 ), and Pamela Clouser McCann (bio here).
For links and more, check out the showpage.
Special bonus track!
An interview with one of the co-authors of Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society, E. Glen Weyl. (Follow Glen on Twitter: @glenweyl)
As part of a nationwide book tour for this new book, full of radical ideas, Glen stopped by USC for a book talk to some of our Econ, PoliSci, and Public Policy students, faculty, and staff. While here in sunny SoCal, Glen was also gracious enough to spend some time with our Executive Director, Aubrey Hicks. The conversation covers some of the radical ideas in the book, as well as some of the books which have influenced the author.
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
For links and more, check out the showpage.
In Radical Markets, Eric A. Posner and E. Glen Weyl envision new rules for markets in order to limit the tyranny of monopolies and majority rule. Their aim, with 5 revolutionary ideas to cure what they see as the most important issue of our time: inequality.
What are some of these "radical" ideas, and does our panel think they are the revolutionary ideas we need?
Host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d) is joined by guests Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), Matthew Kahn (@mattkahn1966 ), and Anthony Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando).
For links and more, check out the showpage.
Dana, a black woman living in 1976 Los Angeles and protagonist of Octavia Butler's Kindred, must confront the violent acts that begin her direct familial line. She is drawn back in time again and again to save one Rufus Weylin from death. Rufus turns out to be the white slave owner who will eventually (if he lives) become Dan's own great, great, great, grandfather. Dana must choose to save this terrible man in order to both protect the many generations of her own family, her self.
How does the legacy of slavery live on in the present? Join us for a conversation of this classic and important novel.
Host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d) is joined by guests Ange-Marie Alfaro (@AngeMarieH), Caroline Bhalla (@Coodence), and Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi).
Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
For links and more, check out the showpage: bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/kindred
In Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card is a dystopian novel looking at how adults groom manipulate, and use Ender Wiggin to wage war on an alien race. From the time he was a toddler, Ender is monitored by an organization to determine if he is eligible for Battle School. Six year old Ender is shipped off to military training with other precocious children. Soon Ender's life is one constant war game, against other squads, all the other children, the teachers ... and ultimately the aliens.
Do the ends justify the means? What if it isn't all a game? What is our duty as citizens of Earth?
Host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d) is joined by guests Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), Matt Schauer (@MattSchauer89), and Ehsan Zaffar (@Ezaffar).
@BedrosianCenter
To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of the "Ender's Game" episodeclick the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, Google Play, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app!
Next month … We'll discuss the classic science fiction novel, Kindred by Octavia Butler.
For links and more, check out the showpage.
In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann brings readers back to Osage County Oklahoma in the 1920s. After discovering oil, members of the Osage U.S. state/federal governments, the money was often held in guardianship for tribe members. Soon, the Osage were found murdered, or killed under mysterious circumstances. What followed is a tale of greed and corruption at multiple levels.
Who were the heroes of this story? How did Hoover use these murders to create a narrative to bolster the FBI, during a period in which the nation was wary of a Federal institutions? Which institutions prevailed, which failed? Did Grann tell the story of the Osage well?
Host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d) is joined by guests Richard Green (@keynesianr), Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), and David Treuer (@DavidTreuer).
@BedrosianCenter
To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of the "Killers of the Flower Moon" episodeclick the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, Google Play, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app!
For links and more, check out the showpage: https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/killers-of-the-flower-moon/
The world lost one of the greats on Monday, January 22nd. Ursula K. Le Guin passed away at the age of 88 and left a hole in many hearts around the world.
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." We use this short, short story as a jumping off point to discuss our mutual love of Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction/fantasy, and how reading shaped our lives. Omelas is the city of happiness, what does it mean to travel to the city of happiness? Why doesn't everyone live there? Why would you walk away? What is the social contract? What will we do with no more words from the great Le Guin?
Featuring: Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), and David Sloane (@dcsloane53)
@BedrosianCenter
To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of the "Ursuala K. Le Guin and the walk away from Omelas" episodeclick the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, Google Play, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app!
Links & further immersion:
Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"
"The Influence Of Ursula K. Le Guin," Petra Mayer for NPR
Cities in Flight, James Blish
"The fantasy and science fiction community pays tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin," Andrew Liptack for The Verge
The Work of Le Guin
"Behind the Lens: The Town That Had No Library," David Kidd in Governing
"R.I.P. Ursula K. Le Guin, Author of One of the Greatest Novels About Freedom Ever Written: How libertarians learned to stop worrying and love The Dispossessed," Victoria Varga for Reason
"The Category-Defying Genius of Ursula K. Le Guin," John Wray in The New York Times
"Ten Things I Learned from Ursula K. Le Guin," Karen Jay Fowler in The Paris Review
Next Month …
We'll discuss David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.
Grann, documents the story of the Osage being forced to relocate to a region which later was discovered to be rich in oil. Learn how the U.S. and local governmental agencies and individuals took advantage by manipulating the "laws," creating polices, and murder to control both the Osage and the wealth created by the oil discovery. We learn about the local investigation and how the newly formed FBI took over the investigation.
Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.
This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by The Brothers Hedden, Ryan and Corey Hedden.
In Coriolanus, Shakespeare brings us to a Rome in a time of transitional government, leadership, citizenship. Patrician Menenius tries to calm a mutiny among the Roman plebeians over the way they feel they have been treated by the nobles. His friend, the great war hero, Caius Martius Coriolanus agrees to run for counsel. However, Coriolanus treats the plebeians with contempt, giving tribunes Sicinius and Brutus the ability to destroy Coriolanus' governing hopes, to destroy his reputation in Rome.
Join us for a conversation on leadership, citizenship, military prowess, and running for elected office. Can Shakespeare still teach us about leadership?
Host Jeffery A. Jenkins (@jaj7d) is joined by guests Carla Della Gatta (@CarlaDellaGatta ), Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), and Donnajean Ward (@DonnajeanWard).
@BedrosianCenter
To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of Coriolanus click the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, Google Play, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app!
For links and more, check out the showpage: https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/coriolanus/
Democracy in Chains begins as the story of James Buchanan, the Nobel Prize winning economist who popularized public choice economist. MacLean argues that Buchanan joined up with wealthy special interest individuals to influence politics. In partnership with the Koch brothers, MacLean argues that Buchanan and other public choice economists, worked directly to benefit a small group of propertied individuals over the will of the majority.
The work was short listed for the National Book Award while also being widely and sharply criticized by conservative think tanks and public choice economists.
Featuring host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d ), and guests Matthew Kahn (@mattkahn1966), Anthony Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando), and Abby Wood (@yesthatabbywood).
For links and further reading, check out the showpage: https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/democracy-in-chains
Bernstein and Woodward published All the President's Men a mere three months before Nixon's resignation. We're revisiting (or visiting for the first time) this classic work of political journalism in the wake of the many callbacks since the 2016 Presidential election. Are dirty tricks just part of politics? What role does the press play? Are there parallels to the Trump administration?
Featuring host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d ), and guests Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), and Donnajean Ward (@DonnajeanWard).
@BedrosianCenter
For more info: https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/all-the-president’s-men
Historian Kelly Lytle Hernández brings us the lengthy history of how authorities in Los Angeles have used imprisonment as a tool to control both labor and migration.
City of Inmates takes the reader from a brief look at the Tongva Communities in the Tongva Basin, to the Spanish colonial era of the late 18th century, and through the Watts Rebellion in 1965. “This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation’s carceral core.” Our discussion delves into this painstaking history of incarceration, resistance, and rebellion in the changing city.
Featuring host Jeffery Jenkins (@jaj7d ), and guests Robynn Cox (@RobynnCox ), David Sloane (@dcsloane53 ), and Danielle Williams (@BDanielleW)
@BedrosianCenter
For links and more check out the showpage.
Lolly Willowes: Or the Loving Huntsman is the deceptively simple novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner, about a woman who after 40 years spent in devotion to taking care of her father, and her brother's family, decides to move to the countryside and become a witch! Does she find freedom, or does she exchange one form of subjugation for another?
If you haven’t read the novel yet, beware - we assume you’ve read it, so here's your spoiler alert!
Featuring Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), and David Sloane (@dcsloane53 )
@BedrosianCenter
To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of Lolly Willowes click the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, Google Play, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app!
For links to some of the things we talk about, or to our next book: https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/bonus-episode-lolly-willowes/
Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise is a broad look at the antipathy toward "experts" and "expertise" among the citizenry of contemporary United States. Nichols contends that this antipathy is dangerous for our democracy, that this distrust not only makes for unhealthy conversation but damages both political and public relationships with the very experts' guidance.
We discuss the argument, the nature of expertise, the role of the academic in civic education, and the state of civics in general. Find out if we liked this book and who we think should read it. If you haven't read it yet, spoiler alert - we do assume you've read it!
Featuring Richard Green (@keynesianr), Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), Pamela Clouser McCann, and Jan Perry (@JanPerry) Anthony Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando)
Follow us on Twitter! @BedrosianCenter
bedrosian.usc.edu
For our discussion of Hari Kunzru's White Tears, we return to the question can America overcome its sin of racism? Or will our collective inability to deal with the consequences of our actions win the day?
White Tears is a genre bending look at white male hipster culture, a ghost story of untold American stories, a revenge tale, a dive into the depths of collectors of the Blues, a beautifully written story about friendship, greed, race, music, New York City, the South ... if you have not read this novel, beware - this podcast it mostly spoilers!
We dive into the themes Kunzru explores in this complex novel, relish the strong prose, question the role of cultural memory and American identity.
Featuring Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro (@AngeMarieH), Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi), and David Sloane (@dcsloane53)
Follow us on Twitter! @BedrosianCenter
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Can America overcome its sin of racism? If redemption of sin comes through repentance, can White America meet the demands necessary? Michael Eric Dyson's latest is a sermon for White Americans called Tears We Cannot Stop. We discuss the book, its format, and whether it goes far enough in terms of addressing these quite large questions and the implications behind them.
Can America overcome its sin of racism?
In American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate (2nd edition), Pete Simi and Robert Futrell look at the white power movement. Over 15 years of interviews allow the authors to use real stories to focus on white power families and the different ways the white power movement indoctrinates the next generation of white power warriors.
We discuss the different types of groups, the different gateways people take into the movement, the ties that bind them, the family life, the "safe spaces" that bring them together and form deep bonds between members.
We also discuss the important role safe spaces play, and the role they play within the larger cultural context today. Taking away the freedom to express themselves would have catastrophic consequences.
What is the big picture of extremist violence in the United States? What are the things we, as citizens, can and should do to combat hatred and violence?
For links to some of the things we discuss today: https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/american-swastika
Looking at academia as microcosm of society at large, we find many Americans can get something from this conversation on the difference between love of wisdom and the need to know (control). What might happen if we gave ourselves time (and permission) to understand and learn, rather than, or in addition to, acquire more and more skills? Is slowness the nature of wisdom?
Inspired by the article, “In Praise of Slowness,” in Los Angeles Review of Books, we discuss two books on the idea of slowness in scholarship : The Slow Professor by Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber and Slow Philosophy by Michelle Boulous Walker.
For links and further reading: bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/slow-philosophy
The narrator of Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist may be unreliable as he tells his American experience before and after 9/11 with an unknown American dinner guest, but we wonder if he is any more unreliable than the voice inside all of us. We discuss the East/West conflict, the relationship between fundamentalism and nostalgia, the narrator's reluctance and fundamentalism, the narrator's love of America and Erica, as well as puzzle over the ending as we delve into this deep and short novel.
Featuring Caroline Bhalla, Raphael Bostic, Aubrey Hicks, and Lisa Schweitzer
In part 2 of our discussion of Cop in the Hood by Peter Moskos, we discuss the notion of discretion in the legal system - by police all the way to prosecutors & parole/probation boards. We think about discrimination in enforcement made possible by discretion. We think about conflicts of interest in investigations of police misconduct. How should we move forward?
We ask how to define "good" policing, as we discuss sociologist Peter Moskos' Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District. What expectations do we put on police officers? How do police departments measure success? What should we measure for success? What does "law and order" mean? Do police receive the right kind of training to deliver the service communities want them to provide? How does Baltimore differ from Los Angeles? We also discuss the epic policy failure of the War on Drugs and the idea of legalization.
In Colson Whitehead's award-winning novel The Underground Railroad, Cora, daughter and granddaughter of slaves, flees her plantation after a horrific punishment. She heads out with a fellow slave Caesar, who takes her to the underground railroad – in this novel, a real RR. She is passionately pursued by Ridgeway, a slave catcher while she experiences the horrors of American racism and the courage of the RR personnel. The book compares a mythological Southern narrative of slavery with Cora’s truths and Ridgeway’s version of the “American imperative.” Beautifully written, full of horrific incidents, the book reminds us of the power of racism, the government’s complicity in its implementation and persistence, and reminds us freed African Americans carried with them the legacy of violence, oppression, suppression, and more violence whether from the police, physicians, or any other institution.
Hillbilly Elegy is a memoir by J. D. Vance about family; about Appalachia, hillbillies, and the American white underclass in the rural and semi-rural interior of the United States. Vance relates his traumatic, poverty stricken upbringing to the larger social problems in both his hometown and the larger population. He ties the growing opioid epidemic sweeping the country to the growing divide between Red and Blue. With frankness, he describes addiction in his family, the larger trauma of communities losing jobs, and finally the interventions that helped him rise out of poverty to attend OSU and Yale Law. Through his personal struggles, he raises questions of personal responsibility and role of government in communities.
American Gods is the story of America as a quilted patchwork of immigrant cultures with a diverse and every-growing number of beliefs. The story begins with Shadow, released from jail several days early because his wife is killed in a car accident. He encounters the mysterious Mr. Wednesday almost immediately upon release – once, twice, and again and is offered a job. He discovers that Mr. Wednesday is Odin, the Lord of Asgard, symbol of the forgotten gods living throughout America. With jobs ranging from prostitute to taxi driver, these "old" gods make do while they hope that Americans will remember, and honor them. Their holy places are the roadside attractions so dismissed by modern Americans. Their hope to be remembered is apparently in conflict with a new set of gods; Media, Town, Credit Cards, and others whose temples are our shopping malls. Shadow has a series of adventures, some in real life, some in dreams, as he journeys from someone not quite alive to the key individual in the upcoming battle for supremacy between the old and new gods.
The novel is a fascinating exploration of the meaning of ethnicity, modernism, memory, and community in which we are reminded of the many ethnicities that make up America, but also their amalgamation into a secular American society with few gods. As multiple characters remind us, America is a hard place to be a god. This is a quintessential American novel from a quintessential British storyteller – it’s a sprawling road trip into the vast highways and byways of the American landscape, it’s a horror novel, a mystery, a romance, a western, a fantasy, and ultimately a look into the heart of America.
Featuring Caroline Bhalla, Raphael Bostic, Lisa Schweitzer, and David Sloane
In White Trash: The 400-year Untold History of Class in America, historian Nancy Isenberg traces white poverty and class from the earliest British settlements through to the 21st century. What she finds is that the mythology of social mobility and classlessness of American Exceptionalism is just that, a myth. By taking a deep dive into a sub-class of Americans, Isenberg hopes that Americans can face a truth about the enduring poverty on inequality that has shaped the American consciousness. That not only do we have classes, but these classes have been built by policies going back to the very reason British citizens came to the colonies. Our discussion of the book looks at where this history contributes to our current political conversation and where it could have been more focused to tell the story in a more cohesive way.
The City and The City by China Miéville is a noir detective murder mystery set in an urban fantasy landscape where the cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma are not just neighboring, but enmeshed in overlapping space. What begins as a question of whether the young woman's murderer transferred the body between the cities illegally (Breach) becomes a question of how deep the conspiracy behind her murder goes. Though the plot seems a usual murder mystery, the author takes us on the journey to discover how people learn to live in cities, how cities become entities, and how politics can be dictated through everyday actions learned from an early age. We discuss the many fascinating intricacies of this novel to look at how we walk in our communities. (Spoilers!)
Spoilers in this book club podcast! If you want to read before you listen ... read and come back soon!
Junot Díaz made his debut with Drown (https://goo.gl/3HXB4p), ten interconnected short stories in 1997, our book club pic for November 2016. These coming-of-age stories grant the reader a brief glimpse into the lives of immigrants, their lives in poverty in the Dominican Republic through migration to life on the edges in New Jersey. "Diaz evokes a world in which fathers are gone, mothers fight with grim determination for their families and themselves, and the next generation inherits the casual cruelty, devastating ambivalence, and knowing humor of lives circumscribed by poverty and uncertainty." (Goodreads - https://goo.gl/3HXB4p) Throughout the stories the resilience of the characters, the humanness in squalor points to universal truths, unique beauty, and casual violence in our own lives and the lives of those around us.
Featuring Caroline Bhalla, Raphael Bostic, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, and Richard Green
This episode features a discussion of David Ulin’s Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles. A transplant to Los Angeles from New York, Ulin’s long essay/memoir is a meditation on moving through and defining his relationship with the sprawling diversity that is the City of Angels. The book begins with an essay on how walking can be a way to discover the city (any city or town) through serendipity. Ulin describes the discovery of an interesting church by turning a different way on a usual route. Through this personal journey of exploration, Ulin “comes to terms” with Los Angeles.
While marketed as a book about walking in the city where no one walks, our readers found this book to be an exploration of how one makes memories, how one interprets those memories through time, and how Ulin makes peace with his adopted home.
Special bonus track! An interview with The Sympathizer author Viet Thanh Nguyen.
On April 18, 2016, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category. Less than a month later, USC Professor Nguyen’s nonfiction book Nothing Ever Dies was published. These were written together over the last 13 years or so, are part of Nguyen’s exploration of the underlying issues of war and the aftermath of war on those countless affected. The novel while dark, gives voice to the things we hide from ourselves as societies when we try to build a history. The lines between good and evil are not stark but squiggly and porous. The themes in both the novel and the nonfiction that follows it are vital to explore when thinking of public policy & governance in a global world.
We are delighted to present this conversation with scholar Viet Thanh Nguyen, who was gracious enough to spend some time with our Acting Director, Aubrey Hicks.
For links to some of the things we talk about check out the showpage:
This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by Corey Hedden.
This edition of the book club features the astounding Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” whom we meet through a confession that we know to be some time after the Fall of Saigon. Our unnamed spy narrator is a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who was educated in America and returned to Vietnam during the conflict, spying on his American and army confederates. Things fall apart after the Fall of Saigon, as he tries to build a new life with other refugees in Los Angeles all the while secretly reporting back to his communist allies. We were lucky enough to be joined by three sympathizing souls to discuss the nature of identity and empathy in the aftermath of war and how conflicts of sympathy shape the lives of refugees and the new cultures they join.