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.
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Kevin M. Schultz discusses his book Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals). In it Schultz lays out some of the objections to liberals—ineffective, spineless, judgmental, authoritarian—placing these objections in a historical frame. It turns out that how one defines a “white liberal” is less a reflection of reality and more a Rorschach test […]
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 […]
