Unpacking 1619 - A Heights Libraries Podcast: Recent Episodes
Heights Libraries
Unpacking 1619 features interviews with scholars from around the country in which we unpack topics relating to the 1619 Project and race in America. Hosted by Adult Services Librarian John Piche.
Stewart Home discusses his book, Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremist, and the New Order in Wellness. Home sweeps away the half-truths of Western yoga to expose a world full of grifters, cult leaders, TV celebrities and fake gurus, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity. Stewart Home is […]
Michael Omi and Howard Winant discuss their foundational work, Racial Formation in the United States. Unlike other traditional race theories, in Omi and Winant’s view, racial meanings pervade US society, from defining individual racial identities to the structuring of collective political action. Race as a master category, the rise of colorblindness, and how the Right […]
Kirstine Taylor on her article “Racial Capitalism and the Production of Innocence.” James Baldwin’s concept of “racial innocence” has been understood as a matter of practiced unconsciousness about the reality of racism in the United States. Taylor revisits his essays highlighting racial capitalism to show how segregated urban space, racialized labor relationships, and policing contribute […]
Seth Rockman discusses his book, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery which tells one of the biggest stories of early American history through everyday consumer goods: shoes manufactured in Massachusetts for the use of enslaved people in Mississippi, for example, or woolen dresses stitched in Rhode Island for enslaved women in South Carolina […]
Jane Borden discusses her book, Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America. She explains why the doomsday beliefs of our Puritan founders still drive American culture. Tracing threads of our latent Puritan indoctrination through eugenic cults, prosperity gospel, and the current rise in far-right extremism, she proposes that the United States might just be […]
Herman Bennett talks about his book, African Kings and Black Slaves Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic. It is an examination of how early modern African-European encounters offer a rethinking of these exchanges as being solely about the slave trade and racial difference. By asking how Europeans and Africans thought about sovereignty, polities, […]
Luke Baumgartner discusses his paper “Where did the white people go? A thematic analysis of terrorist manifestos inspired by replacement theory.” By delving into the long history of immigration resentments and fears, Baumgartner defines two stages of the imagined “great replacement” grievance. Further, he examined four mass shooter manifestos to demonstrate how this toxic ideology […]
Daniel Harawa discusses his article, “Lemonade: A Racial Justice Reframing of The Roberts Court’s Criminal Jurisprudence. Professor Harawa points out how the Court has recently issued a series of decisions addressing racism in the criminal legal system: Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado and Flowers v. Mississippi. Both teach that race history matters, those who discriminate must be […]
Andrea Ford discusses her book, Near Birth: Contested Values and the work of Doulas, in which she discusses how pregnancy, birthing, and infant care offer a microcosm of cultural debates. Ford examines how people’s birthing decisions and experiences relate to and construct the American ideal of the individual and family in various ways and forms. […]
Cedric Powell is the Wyatt, discusses his article, “The Post-Racial Deception of the Roberts Court” in which he argues that the supposed colorblind rhetoric masks an agenda to strip precedent, history and reality away from Supreme Court decisions. By looking at the Civil Rights and Civil War Amendment cases, Powell shows how the Roberts Court […]
Adam Shatz discuss his book, The Rebel’s Clinic: the Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon. Shatz brings to life Fanon as a man shaped by philosophy, psychiatry, and the anti-colonial struggles in Algeria and Africa. While also detailing how his two books, Black Skin, White Masks and Wretched of the Earth, combined Fanon’s empathy and anger […]
Elaine Weiss discusses her book, Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement. It is the story Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by a white southerner with roots in the labor movement. The school became a focal point inspiring Rosa Parks, Pete Seeger, and originating Citizenship […]
Rina Bliss discusses her book, What’s Real about Race?: Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society. Professor Bliss begins by posing the question, what is the true relationship between genetics and race? While genetics proves race does not exist, racism persists. By looking into the history of racial science and eugenics, Professor Bliss explains how these false […]
Andrew Lawler discusses his new book, “Perfect Frenzy: a Royal Governor, his Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution.” It is the story of the colony of Virginia on the eve of the American Revolution and Lord Dunmore, infamous British villain. But what is fact and what is fiction? Lord Dunmore issued […]
Amanda Moore is a freelance journalist covering the far right. We discuss her year undercover in the Alt-Right and her continued work exposing Nazis. Moore’s work has centered on far-right influencer Nick Fuentes’s misogyny and neo-Nazi rhetoric. Most recently, she’s monitoring the J6 insurrectionists and the continued appeal of those who’s convictions were commuted and […]
Tonja Jacobi discusses her article “Supreme Court Interruptions and Interventions: The Changing Role of the Chief Justice.” Recent scholarship has focused on how often the Supreme Court Justices get interrupted, especially when female Justices are speaking. To fix this, the Court changed how hearings are run. This article looks at whether these interruptions—and the gender […]
Bennett Parten discusses his book, Somewhere Toward Freedom Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation. The book tells the story of Sherman’s March through the south as a social history of the refugee crisis brought on by the war and the Emancipation Proclamation. As freed slaves rushed toward the Union forces, they brought […]
Annie Menzel discusses her book, Fatal Denial Racism and the Political Life of Black Infant Mortality. Drawing on her own experience as a midwife as inspiration, Prof. Menzel lays out the history of white innocence, flawed racial science, and the cult of true babyhood all contribute to real violence to black maternal outcomes. As overt […]
Robert Craig discusses his article, “Fundamental Rights and Private Prisons after Dobbs: Shifting Sands and Opportunities.” He details the history of private prisons next to the history of state-run prisons. Additionally, the competing interest of for-profit prison incentivizes extended incarceration and cost cutting practices that set the stage for a legal argument based on Plyler […]
Katharina Motyl discusses her chapter, “From “Feminist Lies” to “White Replacement”: Digital Anti-Feminist Forums as Spaces of Collective Radicalization.”Which explores how the “manosphere” draws men and boys into a world of increasingly radical far-right ideologies, through grievance and misogyny . Prof. Motyl explores how digital platforms enable the spread of extremist ideologies, transforming individual grievances […]
Alexia Rauen discusses the article she co-authored, “Experiences of immigrant survivors of violence with law enforcement.” She explains how immigrant victims of domestic violence viewed their interactions with responding police officers. Based on interviews with survivors, she found that experiences with police varied widely based on factors such as immigration status, English proficiency, and gender. […]
Julie Farnam discusses her book, “Domestic Darkness: An Insider’s Account of the January 6th Insurrection, and the Future of Right-Wing Extremism” After being named Assistant Director of Intelligence for the Capitol Police just days before the 2020 election. She warned Capitol Police leadership of planning and coordination online which led to the insurrection. Her report […]
Andra Watkins discusses her substack, “For Such a Time as This: A Guide to Decode the Country America Has Chosen To Be.” Ms. Watkins’ life growing up in a Christian Nationalist Southern church indoctrinated her into a worldview and understanding of a coded language based on Christian Biblical Literalism. Since leaving the church, she has […]
This episode deals with sexual topics and abuse, all trigger warnings apply. Aidan Beatty discusses his article, “The Pornography of Fools: Tracing the History of Sexual Antisemitism.” Professor Beatty looks into historical sexual depictions, emotions and desires developed in the middle ages that continue to work in contemporary far-right antisemitic rhetoric. Aidan Beatty is a […]
Spencer Sunshine, PhD discuss his book, Neo-Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism: The Origins and Afterlife of James Mason’s Siege. Sunshine describes how Ohio native and lifelong Neo-Nazi James Mason’s newsletter Siege, which praises terrorism, serial killers, and Charles Manson, influenced today’s generation of hate groups and alt-right influencers. Spencer Sunshine, PhD, has written extensively about […]
César García Hernández talks about his book, Migrating to Prison America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants. Professor Hernandez lays out the history of immigration imprisonment and detention through the lens of politics and law. Additionally, noting the way in which the way immigration changed during the 1970 and 80s during the Cuban and Haitian influx. […]
Emily Widra discusses her article, “Despite fewer people experiencing police contact, racial disparities in arrests, police misconduct, and police use of force continue.” By looking at the newly released Bureau of Justice Statistics report that collects data of police contact in 2022, she finds that even while fewer people interacted with police than in prior […]
Khiara M. Bridges has written many articles concerning race, class, reproductive rights, and the intersection of the three. Today’s episode focus on her 2022 Harvard Law Review article, “Race in the Roberts Court”. Professor Bridges talks about Dobbs, Bruen, and the fate of Affirmative Action in relation to how each uses arguments about black history […]
Lasana Kazembe, discusses his article, “The Steep Edge of a Dark Abyss: Mohonk, White Social Engineers, and Black Education.” Professor Kazembe discusses the key objectives of the First Mohonk Conference on “the Negro Question” and how this built the education standards for Black Americans. Emerging from the Conference sessions and speakers were themes of racial […]
Kate Weisburd discusses her article, The Carceral Home. As prison walls are replaced with parole and probation rules that govern every aspect of private life, invasive surveillance technologies are used to monitor intimate information. Where does that leave the private home’s primacy as first among equals? Data collection, audio recording, and GPS technologies are expanded […]
Kali Gross discusses her book, Vengeance Feminism: The Power of Black Women’s Fury in Lawless Times. Prof. Gross looks at the stories of Black women who hit back—not always figuratively, and not always legally either. Reckoning with women who lied, robbed, and cheated a racist, misogynistic world, these women’s stories illustrate how they grappled with […]
Anne Quaranto discusses her article, “Dog Whistles, Covertly Coded Speech, and the Practices that Enable Them.” Dog whistles are words or phrases that seem ordinary but send hidden, often derogatory messages. These forms of coded speech are often used by pundits, politicians, and public figures. Why do they use them and what do they mean? […]
David S. Brown discusses his new book, “Hell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War.” With chapters on Emerson, Stowe, Thoreau, and Fitzhugh, alongside with a cast of presidents, abolitionists, and black emigrationists, Professor Brown shows how political, cultural, and literary history foreshadow the […]
Leslie Schwalm discusses her book, “Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America.” Drawing on archives of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, recollections of Civil War doctors and medical, and testimonies from Black Americans, Professor Schwalm exposes the racist ideas the lent authority and prestige to Northern doctor’s and other elites. Leslie Schwalm is a […]
Jessica Pishko is a journalist and lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law School and Columbia University’s MFA program. Jessica Pishko, journalist and lawyer, discusses her book, “The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy,” in which she walks through the long history of the American Sheriff. Since the 1960s, […]
Marcy Dinius discusses her book, The Textual Effects of David Walker’s “Appeal”: Print-Based Activism Against Slavery, Racism, and Discrimination, 1829-1851. David Walker’s “Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829-1830)” was one of the first antislavery texts published that openly called for slave self-defense and resistance. Professor Dinius explores how Walker used research and […]
Professor Gerald Horne discusses his book, The Counter-revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of American Fascism. Prof. Horne explains his thesis that Texas was a goldmine for Euro-Americans since it provided the dual economics of land speculation and the expansion of slavery, praxis for settler colonialism, and a built in […]
Gian Maria Campedelli, research scientist at Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Italy, discusses his research article, “Homicides Involving Black Victims are less likely to be Cleared in the United States.” Drawing upon three databases the FBI’s national incident-based reporting system (NIBRS) and the Murder Accountability Project (MAP), which combines data from the FBI’s uniform crime reporting […]
Jim Wallis, the founding Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice, discusses his book, The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy. He argues that the civic promotion of fear, hate, and violence as the trajectory of our politics under a banner of Christian Nationalism, should be […]
Professor Justin Brooks, director of the LLM Program in U.S. Law in Spanish at the University of San Diego, discusses his book, You Might Go to Prison, Even Though You’re Innocent. Prof. Brooks explains how bad lawyering, bad science, and inadequate investigations, lead to wrongful conviction. We look into how police interrogations and juries all […]
Jaquelyn Jahn, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Drexel University, discusses her articles “Neighborhood Proactive Policing and Racial Inequities in Preterm Birth in New Orleans, 2018‒2019” and “Gestational Exposure to Fatal Police Violence and Pregnancy Loss in U.S. Core Based Statistical Areas, 2013-2015.” Professor Jahn discusses how police violence and over-policing disproportionately affects Black, Native American, […]
Kevin C. Dunn, the Donald R. Harter ’39 Professor of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Hobart and William Smith Colleges talks about his book, Politics of Origin in Africa: Autochthony Citizenship, and Conflict. Prof. Dunn discusses how concepts of origins and land help define African politics, both consolidating and excluding ethnic groups from State rights […]
Fergus Bordewich discusses his newest book, Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction. Mr. Bordewich explains how the Klu Klux Klan was America’s first terrorist organization intent on counterrevolution after the Civil War. How President Grant mobilized the Federal government to challenge and ultimately dismantle the Klan is the subject of […]
Vida Johnson, professor at law at Georgetown law, discusses her article “White Supremacy and the Bench.” In which she describes how judges maintain and enforce structural racism. Judges benefit from a cultural cache of authority, prestige and as unbiased arbiters of fairness, but they often sustain and amplify racism through jokes, decisions, and rulings that […]
Leoandra Onnie Rogers, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, discusses her article, “Exploring Whether and How Black and White Parents Talk with Their Children about Race: M(ai)cro Race Conversations About Black Lives Matter.” which presents the results of an online survey conducted in 2020-2021. Professor Rogers details the ways in which white and Black parents […]
Professor Deirdre Cooper Owens discusses her book, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology, which traces the origins of American reproductive health to slave hospitals. As white doctors expanded their practices onto plantations, quickly pregnancy and birth became the focus of their practices. Dr. James Marion Sims with other nineteenth-century gynecologists performed […]
Professor Robin Bernstein discusses her book, Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder that Shook America’s Original Prison For Profit. Auburn Prison in Upstate New York was designed […]
Professor Jocelyn Simonson talks about her book, Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration. Beginning with a close look at the […]
Antonia Hylton discusses her book, Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum. Ms. Hylton’s extensive research into Crownsville Hospital in Maryland, a segregated […]
Professor Stephen Kenny discusses his article, “A Dictate of Both Interest and Mercy”: Slave Hospitals in the Antebellum South.” Beginning on the shores of West […]
Professor Sang Kil talks about how “all lives matter” (ALM) has advanced Whiteness in the news. Using critical race theory’s critique of neoliberalism’s use of […]
Professor Diane Negra discusses her most recent scholarship which investigates Irish identity in the United States. She begins with the election of John F. Kennedy […]
Professor Painter discusses her book, THE HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE. Prof. Painter begins with discussing just what it means to be “white” and how ideas […]
Dr. Allison Skinner-Dorkenoo discusses her article, “How Microaggressions Reinforce and Perpetuate Systemic Racism in the United States.” She defines what microaggressions are and how they […]
Professor Leslie Picca discusses her work, Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage, which examines the racial attitudes and behaviors exhibited by whites in […]
Journalist Laura Meckler of the Washington Post discusses her book, Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity. Beginning with a historical overview […]
Professor Marquis Bey discusses their book, BLACK TRANS FEMINISM in which they argue that how we define, label, and identify ourselves can be a way […]
Professor Samantha Pinto discusses her book, Infamous Bodies: Early Black Women’s Celebrity and the Afterlives of Rights. Using the idea of “vulnerability” as a touchstone […]
Professor Erin Thompson discusses her book, “Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments.” Prof. Thompson explains the role of Confederate monuments, what […]
Thomas Craemer obtained a political science doctorate in 2001 from the University of Tuebingen in his native Germany, and a PhD from Stony Brook University, […]
Reginald L. Bell is a Professor of Management in the College of Business at Prairie View A&M University. Bell received his PhD in Business Education […]
Dr. Michael Conklin is the Powell Endowed Professor of Business Law at Angelo State University. He received his JD from Washburn School of Law, MBA […]
Professor Gerald Horne discusses his book, The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth […]
Hasan Jeffries discusses his book Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt. We talk about what made this rural Alabama County […]
In Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business Pamela Newkirk exposes the decades-old practices and attitudes that have made diversity a lucrative business […]
We begin with the shocking history of Virginia’s Racial Integrity Law which sought to identify citizens “passing” as white and how this law served to discipline Segregationist ideologies. Next, we look into how women found racist political power in local school boards, PTA, and other organizations to define the story of Jim Crow and censor […]
John Day looks at the congressional statement drafted and signed by 99 congressmen in response to Brown V. Board of Education. The statement, nicknamed the […]
Professor Krugler discusses his book, 1919: the Year of Racial Violence and How African Americans Fought Back. We specifically focus on Chicago and Knoxville riots […]
Richard Rothstein discusses his book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, which recovers a forgotten history of how […]
Kelsey Klotz is a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She received her PhD in Musicology with a certificate in American Studies […]
Professor of Law at Harvard Law School Alexandra Natapoff discusses her book, Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal.
Vida Johnson is an Associate Professor at Georgetown Law. She discusses her article, “Bias in Blue: Instructing Jurors to Consider the Testimony of Police Officer Witnesses […]
The eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” This […]
Jonathan Daniel Wells is a professor of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He discusses his book, Blind No More: African American Resistance, Free-Soil Politics, […]
Paul Finkelman is a chancellor and distinguished professor of history at Gratz College. He discusses his book, Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court, which […]
Cullen Sweeney, the Chief Public Defender for Cuyahoga County, discusses the complicated relationship between race and the criminal justice system.
Ronnie A Dunn is the executive director of the Diversity Institute at Cleveland State University. He shares his work on the article, “Racial Profiling: A […]
Plain Dealer reporters Cameron Fields and Hanna Drown discuss their work on an ongoing series featuring Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Almira Elementary School.
Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University Eric Foner discusses his book The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. By […]
Steve Luxenberg is an associate editor at The Washington Post and an award-winning author. He discusses his book, Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, […]
University of Utah professor of history Eric Herschthal is the author of the article The Science of Antislavery in the Early Republic: The Case of Dr. Benjamin Rush. He discusses how the medical theories of Dr. Rush informed his advocacy for the American Revolution and the end of American Slavery.
Rana Hogarth, Associate Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, discusses the intersections of slavery and medicine.
Ibrahim K. Sundiata, Emeritus Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University, discusses his work on a collection of essays analyzing […]
Randolph McLaughlin, Professor of Law at the Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law, discusses his article, “The Birth of a Nation: A Study of […]
Professor Jennifer Morgan teaches History in the department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University where she also serves as Chair. She discusses her article, […]
Trevor Burnard, Professor of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull, discusses the Royal African Company and the rise of the Jamaican plantation.
Professor Laura Bieger discusses the purpose, successes, and failures of the 1619 Project and examines how the essay, design choices, and other associated media work […]
Dr. Patricia Banks is co-editor-in-chief of Poetics and chair and professor in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College. We discuss her […]
Professor Philip Reichel discusses rural slave patrols, the criminalization of slaves, and the origins of police forces in the South.
Professor Derek Black discusses the themes explored in his new book, Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy.
This week begins our exploration of the intersections of race and education. In this interview, Dr. Nancy Heitzeg discusses the role and consequences of police […]
In this interview, Professor Bronwen Everill discusses a wide range of topics relating to capitalism and slavery, from abolitionist boycotts to consumer culture.
Professor Caitlin Rosenthal discusses the development of business practices on slave plantations and the relationship between plantation management, violence, and innovation.
In episode three, Alexis Hoag, Practitioner in Residence at Columbia Law School’s Holder Initiative, discusses the systemic racial issues at the heart of our Judicial […]
In our second episode we talk to Todd M. Michney, Assistant Professor at the School of History and Sociology at Georgia Institute of Technology, who shares […]
In our first episode, John interviews David Waldstreicher, a professor of history at The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New […]