Speaking Out of Place: IMRAAN MIR & HALEY DUSCHINSKI discuss Human Rights in Kashmir

Speaking Out of Place: IMRAAN MIR & HALEY DUSCHINSKI discuss Human Rights in Kashmir

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Activist/Author/Educators growing Global Awareness of Kashmir to Secure Human Rights for its People

It's a complex history. I think the key thing to understand about Kashmir is that it is a place that was never decolonized, and it was recolonized in what is a nominally post-colonial world. This is the 75th anniversary of the UN Security Council's recognition of Kashmir as an international dispute. And, along with Palestine, Kashmir is the longest-running unresolved dispute on the agenda of the Security Council.

Speaking Out of Place: ADAM ARON discusses “The Climate Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements”

Speaking Out of Place: ADAM ARON discusses “The Climate Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements”

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Author of The Climate Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements
Professor of Psychology at UC San Diego · Climate Activist

Psychology has something to tell us about why so few people are really engaged in the climate struggle. There are different components to this. First of all, there is what I call epistemic skepticism in the book, which is to say, skepticism about the facts of climate change. The second thing is threat perception, that threat levels are not as high as they should be. And the third is that people are skeptical about the response. They don't think that they can do anything, or they don't believe that groups or even countries can make a difference. Epistemic skepticism: psychologically this means that quite a lot of people, for example, the United States, don't believe in the human cause of heating. And the reason for that is very much to do in fact, with the systematic campaign of misinformation that's been fostered by the fossils industry, systematically set out to confuse people about the scientific consensus. We should be very threatened by this. In fact, the youth, generally speaking, are anxious to some extent about it. In effect, Mother Earth is saying, "I can't deal with what you're doing to me, people. I'm putting up my temperature." And if you're not feeling anxious, then you're not paying attention. That's the right way to feel on Planet Earth.

Speaking Out of Place: ASHLEY DAWSON discusses “Environmentalism from Below”

Speaking Out of Place: ASHLEY DAWSON discusses “Environmentalism from Below”

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Author of Environmentalism from Below (Haymarket 2024) · Extinction: A Radical History · People’s Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons · Professor of English at the Graduate Center / CUNY and the College of Staten Island

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu interviews Ashley Dawson, Professor of English at the Graduate Center / City University of New York and the College of Staten Island. Dawson’s recently published books focus on key topics in the Environmental Humanities, and include People’s Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons (O/R, 2020), Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R, 2016). Dawson is the author of a forthcoming book entitled Environmentalism from Below (Haymarket) and the co-editor of Decolonize Conservation! (Common Notions, 2023).

Speaking Out of Place: NAOMI ORESKES discusses “The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government & Love the Free Market”

Speaking Out of Place: NAOMI ORESKES discusses “The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government & Love the Free Market”

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Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science & Affiliated Professor · Earth & Planetary Sciences · Harvard University
Co-author of The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government & Love the Free Market

I think the word consortium is a good word. It's not a conspiracy, although at times it takes on conspiratorial elements, but it's a kind of network or consortium of people who are working over a very long period of time, going back to the early 20th century to build an ideology that basically says we should trust the marketplace. That markets are not merely an efficient way of developing and delivering goods and services, but that they're actually playing a crucial role in protecting political freedom, protecting political democracy, and they build that story in order to persuade people that government regulation of the marketplace, whether it's to protect workers, consumers, or the environment - even though it might seem attractive superficially - what they're saying is: yeah, but don't be fooled by that because it will actually undermine freedom and democracy. And it's a very clever move because it takes what is initially a self-interested defense of the prerogatives of the privileged, the prerogatives of the captains of industry, and turns it into a seemingly virtuous defense of democracy. And, of course, who wouldn't want to defend democracy?

Introducing: Speaking Out of Place: Ep 1 - What Is Behind the Revolutionary Moment in Iran?

Introducing: Speaking Out of Place: Ep 1 - What Is Behind the Revolutionary Moment in Iran?

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We’re pleased to introduce “Speaking Out of Place,” Professor David Palumbo-Liu’s new podcast, which carries on the spirit of his book of the same title, argues against the notion that we are voiceless and powerless, and that we need politicians and pundits and experts to speak for us.

In this episode, Palumbo-Liu is in conversation with scholar, activist, and poet Dr. Persis Karim, director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University. Karim provides indispensable background information reaching back to 1979, explains the long history of gender apartheid in Iran and why today there has been an explosion of mass protests led by young women joined by tens of thousands of others, including rappers, educators, human rights workers, ethnic minorities, artists, children, and others. She also explains the tremendous gaps in Western media coverage and fills in missing information.  She ends with a reading from her own poetry, and a plea to link these protests to all protests against authoritarian regimes.

Highlights - Britt Wray - Author, Researcher Working on Climate Change and Mental Health

Highlights - Britt Wray - Author, Researcher Working on Climate Change and Mental Health

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Author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis
Broadcaster and Researcher Working on Climate Change and Mental Health

I think the general waking up that I'm seeing around me in so many different parts of society, people from all walks understanding that this is here, it's not a future threat. It's active now. We need to get smart about addressing it. A lot of people are also asking themselves how can I be of service? What can I do at this time? How am I going to be? And you know, the more climate job boards and networking communities and sites of bringing people together to do that work of figuring out how they're going to go on their climate journey while infusing it with a sense of joy, with a sense of how can we make this fun, right? How can we reshift so this is not just focusing on the negative, but really focusing on what we want to be building and what is abundant and the better life that we're working towards? All of that has been popping up a lot and that gives me an honest sense of hope. So a lot of it is about that relationality, creating conditions of solidarity that bring a sense of stability and security. Even though there's a lot of uncertainty about what the impacts will be and how they're going to affect us, each and every one of us, in the decades ahead. There needs to, amidst all that uncertainty, be other things that can undergird a child and make them feel held, safe, secure, and like they belong to a protective community that's thinking and feeling with them through this.

Britt Wray - Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”

Britt Wray - Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”

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Author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis
Broadcaster and Researcher Working on Climate Change and Mental Health

I think the general waking up that I'm seeing around me in so many different parts of society, people from all walks understanding that this is here, it's not a future threat. It's active now. We need to get smart about addressing it. A lot of people are also asking themselves how can I be of service? What can I do at this time? How am I going to be? And you know, the more climate job boards and networking communities and sites of bringing people together to do that work of figuring out how they're going to go on their climate journey while infusing it with a sense of joy, with a sense of how can we make this fun, right? How can we reshift so this is not just focusing on the negative, but really focusing on what we want to be building and what is abundant and the better life that we're working towards? All of that has been popping up a lot and that gives me an honest sense of hope. So a lot of it is about that relationality, creating conditions of solidarity that bring a sense of stability and security. Even though there's a lot of uncertainty about what the impacts will be and how they're going to affect us, each and every one of us, in the decades ahead. There needs to, amidst all that uncertainty, be other things that can undergird a child and make them feel held, safe, secure, and like they belong to a protective community that's thinking and feeling with them through this.

Highlights - Richard Thompson Ford - Author of “Dress Codes”, “Rights Gone Wrong”, “The Race Card”

Highlights - Richard Thompson Ford - Author of “Dress Codes”, “Rights Gone Wrong”, “The Race Card”

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Stanford Professor of Law · Expert on Civil Rights & Antidiscrimination Law
Author of Dress Codes · Rights Gone Wrong · The Race Card

One of the things that I've tried to do in my work is demonstrate the way that laws that don't seem to be directly related to social equality, to equality of opportunity, to racial justice in fact are and that it's only through also reforming these kind of systemic and institutionalized forms of discrimination that we could truly achieve an egalitarian society. So what I've really wanted to argue against is the idea that civil rights are kind of a magic bullet and that those kinds of laws alone would be sufficient to achieve.

Richard Thompson Ford - Author of “Dress Codes” - Stanford Prof. of Law - Expert on Civil Rights - Antidiscrimination Law

Richard Thompson Ford - Author of “Dress Codes” - Stanford Prof. of Law - Expert on Civil Rights - Antidiscrimination Law

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Stanford Professor of Law · Expert on Civil Rights & Antidiscrimination Law
Author of Dress Codes · Rights Gone Wrong · The Race Card

One of the things that I've tried to do in my work is demonstrate the way that laws that don't seem to be directly related to social equality, to equality of opportunity, to racial justice in fact are and that it's only through also reforming these kind of systemic and institutionalized forms of discrimination that we could truly achieve an egalitarian society. So what I've really wanted to argue against is the idea that civil rights are kind of a magic bullet and that those kinds of laws alone would be sufficient to achieve.

(Highlights) DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

(Highlights) DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

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Writer, Activist, Comparative Literature Professor
Author of Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back

To explore different worlds. That’s what literature has taught me. Reading has taught me how difficult it is to write well, to do you something other than the mundane or the expected, so all those things point to a kind of human creativity and a human capacity to both create and also to learn. To learn about life in different ways and to pass on those lessons to other people. One thing I think great teachers do is to embody what they talk about, the values that they profess, the things they feel are important in their everyday lives outside of the literature. So when I become involved in politics or a cause, it’s a reflection of what I've learned through any number of things including literature. Literature doesn’t stand alone. Literature is part of the world.

DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

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Writer, Activist, Comparative Literature Professor
Author of Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back

To explore different worlds. That’s what literature has taught me. Reading has taught me how difficult it is to write well, to do you something other than the mundane or the expected, so all those things point to a kind of human creativity and a human capacity to both create and also to learn. To learn about life in different ways and to pass on those lessons to other people. One thing I think great teachers do is to embody what they talk about, the values that they profess, the things they feel are important in their everyday lives outside of the literature. So when I become involved in politics or a cause, it’s a reflection of what I've learned through any number of things including literature. Literature doesn’t stand alone. Literature is part of the world.

(Highlights) DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

(Highlights) DAVID PALUMBO-LIU

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Writer · Activist · Comparative Literature Professor

Students come in already knowing what they want to do. And so they've already excluded and taken out of consideration all sorts of options, which is exactly the opposite of what a university is supposed to do. It's supposed to give you a broad set of possible ways of thinking about life and training your mind and your talents. And so I like to open that up more for students.

DAVID PALUMBO-LIU