Social Justice & Activism - The Creative Process - Activists, Environmental, Indigenous Groups, Artists and Writers Talk Diversity, Equity and inclusion

Microplastics and nanoplastic pollution are currently blanketing the planet. They are in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink, infiltrating our bodies and even brains and human embryos. Coca-Cola alone sells 100 billion+ single-use plastic bottles each year, ending up in landfills and the ocean. Earth’s population will reach 9.8 billion people by 2050. Two-thirds of humans w...

“I was fortunate to be able to be out in Hollywood in the 90s and to be able to work early on seminal LGBT-presenting shows like Tales of the City series, and Six Feet Under with Alan Ball. When it comes to Tokyo Vice, I did push hard for there to be a queer storyline because in the late 90s, in Japan, there was a huge thriving gay subculture. But it wasn't on the table to...

What does learning another language and living in another culture do for your humanity and creative process? Alan Poul is an Emmy, Golden Globe, DGA, and Peabody Award-winning producer and director of film and television. He is Executive Producer and Director on the Max Original drama series Tokyo Vice, written by Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers and starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe...

“I would go back to that very simple thing of treating animals the way that you would like to be treated. And I know that humane education is becoming a more welcome subject or way of teaching in schools. And I definitely think we need more of that where it's not just you go to school and learn about maths and science and history and so on, but you learn about those subjects within the realm of re...

How can we improve animal-human relationships? How can we increase our sensitivity to the other animals who share this planet with us? Poorva Joshipura is PETA U.K. Senior Vice President. She is the Author of Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals is Key to Human Existence and For a Moment of Taste: How What You Eat Impacts Animals, the Planet and Your Health. “I would go back to that ver...

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Michael Link, Palestinian human rights attorney, scholar, activist, and teacher Noura Erakat, and Burmese scholar and dissident in exile, Maung Zarni. They discuss the recent International Court of Justice ruling on the Gaza genocide case, which found t...

“When people say, oh, yeah, AI is going to help everyone or change humanity or all these claims, they don't realize people don't have access to the Internet in some places or cell phones or the fact that the data used by AI models is not representative of many parts of the world. It's mostly in English, and the data generated on the Internet and AI is mostly by educated, white, male users who post...

What are the pros and cons of AI’s integration into our institutions, political systems, culture, and society? How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? Dr. Sasha Luccioni is a leading scientist at the nexus of artificial intelligence, ethics, and sustainability, with a Ph. D. in AI and a decade of research and industry expertise. She spearheads research, co...

"My area of work is sustainable development with a focus on climate. And you can ask what does sustainable development mean? To put it very simply, it means how do you have economic growth that is socially equitable and environmentally sustainable? It's not just that you have ecological sustainability; hence, that is sustainable development. Because lots of examples of economic, ecological, and ec...

How do urbanization and rural development impact communities differently? How can we make public policy and enlightened self-interest advance climate action? Dr. Shiv Someshwar is a Development Clinician, diagnosing development of cities and nation states. A Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York and at Sciences Po, Paris, he was the founder chair-holder of the European Chair for Sust...

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with artists and activists Isabella Frémaux and Jay Jordan about their book, We are ‘Nature’ Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones Vagabonds/Pluto/Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, 2021. They tell the story of a 40-year struggle to preserve 4,000 acres of wetlands...

"Global restoration really means finding and empowering the millions of local communities, indigenous populations, and farmers who are promoting biodiversity. Restor is a digital platform, sort of like Google Maps, but for restoration. So rather than seeing coffee shops and supermarkets, you will see conservation projects and Indigenous-led restoration initiatives. And that means you can find a cu...

Although they comprise less than 5% of the world population, Indigenous peoples protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity. How can we support farmers, reverse biodiversity loss, and restore our ecosystems? Thomas Crowther is an ecologist studying the connections between biodiversity and climate change. He is a professor in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich, chai...

As we reach the tipping points of climate change, how will our world change? Greenland has already lost 4,700 billion metric tons of ice, an amount that is enough to flood the entire United States in 1.5 feet of water. Peter D. Ditlevsen is an Associate Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University. The institute was founded in 1921 as the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Ditlev...

"Capitalism when it first developed was a very significant part of life, but it wasn't all of life. In other words, it had its place, but that place wasn't every place. And what's happened over the years, what some people call economic imperialism, is that the incredible efficiencies of the market started being exported to other aspects of life. And so the classroom, the educat...

Does having too many choices make us unhappy? How can we learn practical wisdom? Dr. Barry Schwartz is the Dorwin P. Cartwright Professor Emeritus of Social Theory and Social Action in the psychology department at Swarthmore College. He is the author of many books, including Why We Work, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, and co-author of Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing...

Can we stop talking about growth and mediate an environmental crisis through the structures of capitalism? In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with Japanese scholar Kohei Saito, whose book, Marx in the Anthropocene sold over half a million copies. In it, Saito shows how late in life Marx came to a richer sense of production when he released that...

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with noted researcher and scholar Ben Franta about two new articles he has written that add to his growing archive of seminal work on climate change.  Ben tells us now the fossil fuel industry paid economists to join scientists in denying the true nature of the fossil fuel industry’s destruction of the en...

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji are joined by state crime expert Penny Green and Holocaust historian Omar Bartov to discuss the applicability of the term genocide, the history of its framing, and ways of moving beyond genocidal dynamics. For weeks, hundreds of international law and genocide experts have been warning that the situation...

“I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but yo...

How does the place we’re born influence our beliefs? What would it be like to live in a world run by women, where it’s perpetually night, and the dead can speak to the living? In this episode, we discuss the new season of HBO’s True Detective: Night Country with award-winning cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister. Known for his work on Tár, Pachinko, Great Expectations , and most recently, the new s...

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with Frédéric Mégret, Neve Gordon, and Nicola Perugini. As the devastation of Gaza is permitted to continue to unfold, and colonial violence also intensifies in the West Bank, we discuss the role and responsibility of international law in enabling and structuring mass violence, the enduring importan...

“I tried to go through the history that I know of and the studies that I have researched from where educational processes started. And usually, when I say young, we're talking college age or more. And so I find I just finished a semester at Union Theological Seminary in New York and graduate and postgrad students, they either were angry or sad or just, you know, in shock that they have never heard...

How can we learn to speak the language of the Earth and cultivate our intuitive intelligence? Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host and Executive Producer of “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”) for the last 31 years in New York City a...

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Len and Hwei-ru Tsou, Taiwanese activists whose main commitment, over a period of decades, has been to discover and disclose the involvement of Asian and South Asian anti-fascists in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. Today’s conversation is perhaps one of the most unusual and unusuall...