KPFA - Against the Grain
Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C. S. Soong.
Episodes
July 2, 2025 • 31 mins
The American diet is awash in junk food. More than half the calories Americans eat come from processed food and drink. Three decades ago, with obesity on the rise, the food industry funded scientists to conclude that exercise was the answer, rather than taxing soda and reining in the marketing of processed food. Anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh weighs in on Big Soda’s influence on science — at universities, through front groups — an...
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July 1, 2025 • 59 secs
Massive amounts of money are needed to address the multiple social and ecological crises besetting societies around the globe. According to Thomas Marois, the lion’s share of that financing will need to come from public banks. But many public banking institutions, he argues, must be democratized and definancialized.
Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2025: Openings and Closures: Socialist Strategy at a Crossroa...
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June 30, 2025 • 5 mins
The authoritarianism of the Trump regime calls out for mass radical organizing, but with some exceptions, much of the left has not mounted a coherent response. Journalist Arun Gupta reflects on lessons from the last quarter century – from the Global Justice Movement to Occupy Wall Street, from the George Floyd protests to the Palestine Solidarity Movement, from the primary victory of Zohran Mamdani to immigrant communities’ militan...
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June 25, 2025 • 13 secs
Why are some victims of terror and injustice deemed deserving of care and repair, and others aren’t? David L. Eng looks to the Transpacific, and particularly the atomic bombings of Japan and their aftermath, for answers; he also argues that literature and psychoanalysis can enrich understandings of reparations and human rights.
David Eng, Reparations and the Human Duke University Press, 2025
The post Reparations Reconsidered appear...
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June 24, 2025 • 17 mins
Until the mid-17th century, for the vast majority of Europeans, medical care was administered by women for free in the household and neighborhood, using herbs and other formulas passed down between and among generations. Karen Bloom Gevirtz illustrates how and why only a century later, they were supplanted by men who established the basis of our for-profit medical system. (Full-length presentation.)
Karen Bloom Gevirtz, The Apothe...
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June 23, 2025 • 27 mins
Will artificial intelligence usher in a world of increasing convenience and productivity, as its boosters claim? Or will AI take away our jobs and risk a robot apocalypse? Scholars Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender say: neither. They warn us against falling for either version of AI hype and discuss the impact of purported artificial intelligence—chiefly large language models and text-to-image generation–on surveillance and work, educa...
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June 18, 2025 • 3 mins
The journalist and essayist Rafael Barrett (1876-1910) inveighed against the array of injustices suffered by Paraguayans, including those working in the yerba mate forests. He also espoused political views that resonate today. William Costa talks about Barrett’s keen observations, blistering critiques, and anarchist politics.
William Costa, ed., Paraguayan Sorrow: Writings of Rafael Barrett, A Radical Voice in a Dispossessed Land M...
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June 17, 2025 • 59 mins
Was the populist far right a reaction to neoliberal free market fundamentalism? Or, as historian Quinn Slobodian argues, did such rightwing currents come out of the ideas of neoliberalism itself? Slobodian reflects on neoliberal thinkers’ preoccupation with racist and misogynistic ideas of human nature and intelligence, borders and gold — all in service to their war on the left.
Quinn Slobodian, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, an...
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June 16, 2025 • 20 mins
Critiques of conspiracy thinking abound — but what if our world needs a conspiracy, of people willing to confront their own participation in institutional injustices? Joseph Dumit explains why large corporations knowingly engage in antihuman activities; he also draws from Adrian Piper’s insights into bullying institutions, the impact of bystanding, and the importance of blowing the whistle when we notice harm being inflicted. (Enco...
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June 11, 2025 • 59 mins
As Trump sends troops into Los Angeles, a look at the U.S. Constitution — an object of great political veneration in this country. Legal scholar Aziz Rana examines the contradictions within it, which have allowed for the authoritarianism of the Trump administration.
Aziz Rana, The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them University of Chicago Press, 2024
The post Depending on the Constitution ...
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June 10, 2025 • 14 mins
What if humans acted with nature, not on it? What would farming look like if we stopped trying to master and dominate the environment? According to Andrew Pickering, the no-plowing, no-weeding form of farming developed by Masanobu Fukuoka is a shining example of poiesis, an acting-with that attunes human activity to the propensities of natural phenomena.
Andrew Pickering, Acting with the World: Agency in the Anthropocene Duke Unive...
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June 9, 2025 • 6 mins
In the decade of the 2010s, more people took to the streets than in any other time in history. And yet those horizontal protests, often spread through social media, were frequently co-opted by the right — and the decade ended with the rise of authoritarianism. Journalist Vincent Bevins spoke to activists around the world about the lessons they drew from the failed mass revolts, and discusses how democratic movements regained power ...
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June 4, 2025 • 12 mins
While we’re told by politicians that the ideas of Karl Marx are foreign and have no place in this country, history proves otherwise. Andrew Hartman shows that Marx and Marxism have had an a significant influence on the United States, from Marx’s journalistic writings for the New York Daily Tribune, on the mass politics of the Socialist and Communist Parties and the Wobblies, on the most radical edge of the New Deal and the New Left...
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June 3, 2025 • 15 mins
At the height of leftwing activism in the Sixties, conservatives funded tax-deducible rightwing groups on campuses to counter Black Power, demands for ethnic studies, and the New Left. As historian Lauren Shepherd illustrates, such groups like Young Americans for Freedom groomed future Republican leaders and influential conservatives, like Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich. There they learned to spin unpopular politics as popular.
Lauren...
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June 2, 2025 • 59 mins
Lasting contributions to radical political thought were made by Antonio Gramsci, the Italian thinker, writer, and politician who was imprisoned by Mussolini’s fascist regime. Andy Merrifield discusses Gramsci’s insights into political economy, everyday experience, social change, and the role of intellectuals.
Andy Merrifield, Roses for Gramsci Monthly Review Press, 2025
(Image on main page by angrodZ.)
The post How Gramsci Thought ...
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May 28, 2025 • 49 mins
The United States has often been celebrated as a nation of immigrants. Yet over the last century, the U.S. government expelled more people than were allowed to stay permanently. Historian Adam Goodman describes the U.S. state’s “deportation machine,” motivated by a shifting combination of bureaucratic self-interest, capitalist gain, and racism, which Trump has now put at the center of his presidency. He also discusses how immigrant...
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May 27, 2025 • 59 mins
Black parents worry about racism’s impact on their children. Jennifer C. Nash is interested in both the nature of racialized anxiety and the way it’s rendered visible to the general public. Among other things, she looks at how Black mothers have used the epistolary form to convey their concerns, fears, and hopes.
Jennifer C. Nash, How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory Duke University Press, 2024
The post Conveying Bla...
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May 26, 2025 • 30 mins
No one escapes trauma or avoids stress. But what happens to our ability to imagine and pursue justice when individual and collective trauma goes unaddressed? Hala Khouri lays out a framework for understanding trauma; she also points to the important role that embodied practices can play in processes of healing and self-care. (Encore presentation.)
Tessa Hicks Peterson and Hala Khouri, eds., Practicing Liberation: Transformative Str...
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May 21, 2025 • 21 mins
While we’re told by politicians that the ideas of Karl Marx are foreign and have no place in this country, history proves otherwise. Andrew Hartman shows that Marx and Marxism have had an a significant influence on the United States, from Marx’s journalistic writings for the New York Daily Tribune, to the mass politics the Socialist and Communist Parties and the Wobblies, on the most radical edge of the New Deal, and the New Left, ...
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May 20, 2025 • 59 mins
Mark Matousek discusses his book “Emerson, the Stoics, and Me: Timeless Wisdom for Living an Authentic Life.”
The post Fund Drive Special: Emerson and the Stoics appeared first on KPFA.
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