The Dark Side of Fashion (w/ Alyssa Hardy)
Alyssa Hardy is a fashion journalist whose work has turned in recent years to exposing the underbelly of the industry, from the labor conditions of those who make the clothes to the colossal amounts o...
12 Feb 202437min
How To Make Schools That Children Actually Enjoy Going To (w/ Lauren Fadiman)
School sucks. But why? And must it? For our print magazine, Lauren Fadiman writes about how radical leftists have historically tried to rethink schooling entirely, to create alternative schools that t...
9 Feb 202444min
How Rupert Murdoch Killed The Only Good Social Media Platform (w/ Michael Tedder)
Perhaps only those between the ages of about 30 and 35 will remember the golden years of MySpace, which dominated social media before Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. MySpace was a mess, but it's looked...
7 Feb 202436min
How Labor Can Drive a Hard Bargain (w/ Jane McAlevey and Abby Lawlor)
On this program, we have previously discussed the inspiring fight waged by the Amazon Labor Union on Staten Island, and the confrontational tactics that can help unions win recognition despite the bes...
5 Feb 202436min
Learning From Neglected Novels By 1900s Radicals (w/ the Rickard Sisters)
The Rickard Sisters, Sophie and Scarlett, have produced two wonderful graphic novel adaptations of books by early 20th century radicals. First they made The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, adapted f...
2 Feb 202437min
Why Minimalism? (w/ Kyle Chayka)
Kyle Chayka is a cultural critic and staff writer for the New Yorker. (Incidentally, he also wrote a piece back in 2017 that covered the early years of Current Affairs.) Kyle's book The Longing For Le...
31 Jan 202440min
Is U.S. Democracy Just Going To Be Dysfunctional Forever? (w/ Benjamin Studebaker)
Benjamin Studebaker's new book The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way is Shut is a provocative critique of contemporary American politics. Studebaker argues that "none of the existing polit...
29 Jan 202459min
What Happens to the Disappointed When Social Movements Fail? (w/ Sara Marcus)
Sara Marcus is the author of Political Disappointment: A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis. A lot of studies of social movements look at movement triumphs, but Marcus is interest...
26 Jan 202435min
