Last Born In The Wilderness

In this interview with Karina Ramos, historian and member the Brazilian Association of African Studies, we discuss the roots and contemporary struggles of Afro-Brazilian religious traditions and communities in Brazil (in particular Rio), and how contemporary forms of State and social oppression of these communities has manifested. This interview was recorded and filmed in Rio de Janeiro, with inte...

Elisa Quadros, ativista anarquista e co-organizadora do evento 'Mais amor, menos capital' no Rio de Janeiro, conta sua história como uma das dissidentes e prisioneiras políticas mais conhecidas do Brasil devido à perseguição implacável da mídia, da polícia, e de milicianos desde seu envolvimento nos protestos em massa de 2013. Ouça o episódio completo em áudio (inglês): http://bit.ly/LBWmllc Assis...

André Miguéis, da Mídia Independente Coletiva (MIC), discute as origens radicais do evento 'Mais amor, menos capital' no Rio de Janeiro e seu objetivo final de construir solidariedade e poder político de base no Brasil. Ouça o episódio completo em áudio (inglês): http://bit.ly/LBWmllc Assista à segunda entrevista com a ativista Elisa Quadros: https://youtu.be/oUFDj0c66DM Esta entrevista foi gravad...

In this episode, I speak with Timothy Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. We discuss his research into climate tipping points presented in the article, Climate tipping points—too risky to bet against, published at Nature. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/timothy-lenton // Sustain + support: https://ww...

In this episode, I speak with André Miguéis and Elisa Quadros—radical political organizers of the More Love, Less Capital (Mais Amor, Menos Capital) event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, recorded on December 20th, 2019. This is the first episode featuring interviews conducted from Brazil in collaboration with Mirna Wabi-Sabi—political theorist, journalist, and editor at Gods & Radicals Press. // Episod...

In this episode, I speak with Matthew Remski. He is a yoga practitioner, teacher, and author of Practice and All Is Coming: Abuse, Cult Dynamics, and Healing in Yoga and Beyond. As Matthew revealed in his article, Yoga’s Culture of Sexual Abuse: Nine Women Tell Their Stories, published at The Walrus, contemporary yoga has an appalling and pervasive sexual abuse problem. “Modern yoga has been fraug...

In this episode, I speak with social critic, activist, writer, and textile artist Alley Valkyrie, co-founder of Gods & Radicals and author of, Of Monsters and Miso, “a bilingual book of delicious miso sauce recipes.” Waves of protests have swept nations around the globe, with robust examples mass resistance in such places as Hong Kong (http://bit.ly/2Q2LtF8), Chile, and France, just to name a few....

In this episode, I speak with Oliver Belcher, Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Durham University and co-author of, Hidden carbon costs of the “everywhere war”: Logistics, geopolitical ecology, and the carbon boot‐print of the US military, with Patrick Bigger, Ben Neimark, Cara Kennelly. A summary of their research was published at The Conversation, US military is a bigger polluter than as...

In this episode, I speak with Hong Kong citizen, bilingual stand-up comedian, and activist Vivek Mahbubani. Vivek provides a much-needed ground-level view of the historic and ongoing uprising in Hong Kong these past six months. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/vivek-mahbubani // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://...

In this episode, I speak with Mirna Wabi-Sabi. She is a political theorist, writer, and editor at Gods & Radicals. Mirna and I begin this discussion by laying out the nature of our upcoming collaborative work together, as I’ll be traveling to southern Brazil for two months, beginning December 8th. In explaining how our work overlaps in crucial ways, we remark on the absurdity of contemporary polit...

Elliot Robinson, a listener of the podcast that works in land restoration in New Orleans, dropped me a line regarding my episode with social anthropologist Dr. Khalil Avi, featured in episode 220 (http://bit.ly/LBWavi). He posed a great question regarding how to deal with a particular "invasive species" in his work, the Chinese Tallow Tree. I sent the audio of Elliot's call to Avi, and he contacte...

In this episode, I speak with Dark Mountain Project co-founder and writer Dougald Hine. We discuss his new writing series Notes From Underground, published weekly at Bella Caledonia, that explores "the deep context of the new climate movements that have surfaced since mid-2018." In this discussion, we explore this uncharted territory that we have collectively entered into, to which Dougald has rig...

In this episode, I speak with Stephen Pyne, environmental historian and author of Fire: A Brief History. In this discussion with Stephen, I ask him to elaborate on humanity's long, deep, and complex relationship with fire. He explains how this relationship has informed everything from how our bodies have evolved to the impact this has had on our global environment up to the present moment. As Step...

In this episode, I speak with Social Anthropologist Dr. Khalil Avi, author of the article, Don’t Kill The Messenger!: Invasive Species and Halting Biodiversity Loss, published at Gods & Radicals. Avi addresses some of the underlying (colonialist, nationalist, and provincial) assumptions that surround the efforts to halt biodiversity loss in our age of abrupt climate change and environmental catast...

I speak with renowned political dissident, linguist, and author Noam Chomsky. In this brief discussion, I ask Professor Chomsky to examine the current state and trajectory of the United States empire within the scope of recent history, fitting the recent “withdrawal” of the US military presence in Northeast Syria, under Kurdish governance, as an indication of what the US geopolitical influence in...

In this episode, I speak with Samantha Zipporah, reproductive justice activist and author of Mapping The Yoniverse, a “sex and body positive, gender inclusive and affirming, physical and energy anatomy coloring book,” illustrated by Casandra Johns. This interview with Samantha is about reclaiming what has been lost. When it comes to our bodily autonomy and knowledge of our health, sexual or otherw...

In this episode, I speak with political writer William Hawes. We discuss his sharp and insightful essay, Questioning The Extremely Online. As we dig into William’s insights into how being “extremely online” has informed our social behaviors in the past several decades, his most cutting criticisms are aimed at contemporary political activism — both in its theory and praxis — and how even the most d...

In this episode, I speak with Sam Adler-Bell, freelance journalist and co-host of the Know Your Enemy podcast, “a leftist's guide to the conservative movement.” The subject of this interview is his article, Why White Supremacists Are Hooked on Green Living, published by The New Republic. In this discussion with Sam, I ask him to elaborate on his research into the deeper connections between the roo...

In this episode, I speak with Barbara Cecil and Dahr Jamail, co-authors of the How Then Shall We Live? series published at Truthout. // Episode notes + transcript: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/cecil-jamail // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In the episode, I speak with Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, and author of The Terror of the Unforeseen. How has neoliberalism paved the way for the rise of far right ideologies and populists around the world? As demonstrated in the elections of, and policies enacted by, such leaders...

In this episode, I speak with Steven Elliot Martyn, author of Sacred Gardening: Seeds for the Reemergence of Co-Creative Agriculture, and The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden: Co-creating Integrated Polyculture. He is the co-creator of the Sacred Gardener Earth Wisdom School. In this discussion, I ask Steven to expound on his journey of becoming a “sacred gardener,” which has included years of...

In this episode, I speak with Liyah Babayan, author of Liminal: A Refugee Memoir. In this discussion, we delve into Liyah’s profound, disturbing, and moving retelling of her childhood experiences fleeing the pogroms enacted against the Armenian minority population in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the midst of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-1990, as expressed in her memoir Liminal. After experienc...

In this episode, I speak with the creator of the Nordic Animist Calendar and Historian of Religion, Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen. Rune has spent much of his academic career studying and highlighting various animist spiritual traditions and perspectives, with a special focus on Afro-Atlantic and Nordic traditions—the latter being the focus of this discussion. In his work, Rune has attempted to integrate t...

In this episode with Brian Mier, co-editor at Brasil Wire and correspondent for TeleSur English, we discuss the fires and deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, the United States intervention in the Brazilian political system, and the rise of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. On August 19th, the city of São Palo, Brazil experienced a complete blackout of the sun. To understand the con...

In this episode, I speak Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creep, and Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It. I ask Alexander and Shane to discuss the curious case of Andy Ngo—right-wing provocateur, so-called “independent journalist” (https://nyti.ms/2lwcMuz), former Quillette editor, and grifter. (http://bit.ly/2lvaU5r) Ngo is best known for using hi...