Speaking Out of Place

Today I talk with Huda Fakhreddine, writer, translator, and scholar of Arabic literature. Among the many topics we touch upon are the challenges of teaching Arabic literature, especially Palestinian literature, in a time of genocide, when universities, professional organizations, and political groups militate against any honest discussion of these topics, and punish those who do.  We talk about th...

Today it’s my honor to speak with Danica Savonick about her marvelous book entitled Open Admissions: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College. This is a riveting and deeply inspiring story of how each of these luminaries in the fields of literature and feminism found their way into the City University of New York in the 1...

 Today I'm delighted to talk with Quinn Slobodian about his new book, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right . We take a deep dive into the genesis of a weird and powerful merging of two seemingly different groups the Far Right and neoliberals. Slobodian writes, “as repellent as their politics may be these radical thinkers are not barbarians the gates of neolibe...

Today we are deeply honored and privileged to speak with journalist-activist Yousef Aljamal, one of the editors of a remarkable, gripping, and altogether inspiring collection, Displaced in Gaza: Stories from the Gaza Genocide , 27 stories written by Palestinians in Gaza. We talk about the conception behind the book, and concentrate on certain keywords like obligation, pride, inventiveness, and res...

Recently, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, saying, “The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur.”  Today we are joined by three of Albanese’s predecessors—John Dugard...

How do not only monuments, but also the very idea of monumentality, serve to mystify and perpetuate beliefs that maintain social orders that deserve to be strenuously re-evaluated? Archaeologist and anthropologist Dan Hicks traces the development of a particularly virulent strain of monument-worship, that which emerges out of what he calls “militarist realism,” which harnesses technologies of war,...

Today we speak with Daniela Navin and Jeanette de La Riva, two members of Grupo Auto Defensa, a community organization based in Pasadena CA which has come about in response to attacks by ICE which have violently disrupted everyday life and led people to form new relations of mutual support and care. We hear their stories of how Trump lieutenant Stephen Miller's demand that ICE arrest 3,000 pe...

Today I talk with Rahim Kurwa about a powerful study of housing rights and police repression in Southern California. Tapping into a vast historical archive as well as oral histories with residents of Antelope Valley, California, Rahim traces the complex relationship between this region and the City of Los Angeles.  Using David Harvey’s famous notion of a “spatial fix,” Kurwa argues that for decade...

On May 15, international legal experts Lara Elborno, Richard Falk, and Penny Green joined me to discuss the work of the Gaza Tribunal, a group devoted to creating an archive of facts and a set of documents and arguments to help international civil society fight against the genocide in Gaza and the Zionist regime that, along with the United States, has perpetrated this atrocity.  Today they all ret...

Today we welcome Malcolm Harris back to the show.  Previously he talked with us about his mammoth study, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. This time we are looking not at a history of Capitalism and the World, but our possible futures under the threat of catastrophic climate change. We talk about not only failed policies, but failed perspectives on society, politics, a...

Ever since its publication, Abolish Silicon Valley—How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism has proven to be more urgent and insightful. Today I talk with author Wendy Liu about how developments like AI and LLM, further erosions of intellectual property, and increased invasions of privacy make the case for abolishing Silicon Valley even more important. We talk about how abolition is critical at...

Today we talk with Samar Al-Bulushi about her rich and complex work on Kenya, which, across multiple scales of time and place, discovers how the War on Terror both tapped into colonial ideologies of the past and present-day political calculations at the intersection of the local and global. We find out how the War has taken many different forms that often escape the eye—embedded as they are in str...

Last week, over 100 agents from nine federal agencies stormed a bucolic public park in Los Angeles, claiming it was a hotbed of terrorism and lawlessness. In fact, heavily armed soldiers in camouflage found a group of young children attending a summer camp. This was a show of force meant to intimidate, shock, and awe, but just like Trump’s military parade in Washington, DC, it ended up pathetic an...

Today on Speaking Out of Place we have a special episode on Israeli attacks on Iran that resulted in 12 days of bombings and culminated with the US dropping bunker bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting this war with the genocide in Gaza and Israe...

On today’s episode I talk with geographer, artist, photographer, and activist Linda Quiquivix about her new book: Palestine 1492: A Report Back . Combining her work learning and working alongside the Zapatistas and Palestinians, and incorporating anti-fascist politics from the Black Panthers, Quiquivix reaches back to the 15th century to see the beginnings of the Western project to carve the surfa...

In today’s episode we speak with Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood about Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory in the recent primary for in New York mayor’s race.  We first learn more about this 33-year-old socialist, and remarkable campaign he and his team put together to defeat ultimate political insider and ex-governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo.  We probe behind the headlines to see the ways Mamdani’...

Today I speak with Gabrielle Apollon and Pooja Bhatia about the histories behind the persecution of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and beyond. Targeted as exemplary “bad people” by demagogue Donald Trump, the stories of both the town and the people of Springfield are brought forward by Pooja Bhatia, who lived both in Haiti and as a journalist lived with the people in Springfield.  Compleme...

Today on Speaking Out of Place I am joined by two of my favorite guests—Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood.  As always, this is a free-wheeling, unscripted conversation amongst friends and political allies. This time we talk about the New York City mayor’s race, Elon Musk and DOGE, the unbridled wave of greed we see on display amongst the oligarchy, and the need to think beyond Trump and single is...

The academic year has just ended, but student activists for Palestinian liberation are already making plans for next year. On today’s show I talk with organizers from the University of Oregon (Cole Herman), from CUNY Graduate Center (Flora deTournay), and from Stanford (Iman Deriche) about this past year’s hunger strike campaigns—we learn of concerted efforts to change the narrative and raise supp...

Today on Speaking Out of Place I talk with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson about her new book, Theory of Water .  Theory of Water is a rich, complex, and deeply personal reflection on world-making and life-giving processes best captured in the fluidity of water as it circulates through all our bodies and the planet.  It is a largely collective project that enlists our listening and love, and helps us...

Today I talk with M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi about their dazzling and challenging book, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052 to 2072. They imagine a world haunted by genocide, ecocide, disease, fascism, and viral capitalism, but rather than writing a dystopian novel, O’Brien and Abdelhadi create a complex mosaic of oral histories, in which they each play the...

Worries about the so-called “pussification of Silicon Valley” are not at all new.  Becca Lewis’ work reaches far back in American history to trace the nexus of gender, technology, and entrepreneurship, such that what we find today seems a foregone conclusion. In today’s wide-ranging discussion we talk about the central figure in this history—George Gilder, whose first book, Sexual Suicide , and su...

This episode of Speaking Out of Place is being recorded on May 15, 2025, the 77th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, which began the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land. We talk with Lara Elborno, Richard Falk, and Penny Green, three members of the Gaza Tribunal, which is set to convene in Saravejo in a few days.  This will set in motion the process of creating an archive of Israe...

In one of the most timely and urgent shows we have ever done, today I speak with law scholar Aziz Rana about his brilliant and bracing article recently published in New Left Review , “Constitutional Collapse.” We talk about how the Trump administration and its enablers are shredding a liberal “compact” which was established in in the 1930s through the Sixties and extending an imperial presidency a...

Today I have the honor and the pleasure to speak once again with celebrated poet and physician, Fady Joudah. The last time Fady was on the podcast was in November, 2023, shortly after the outbreak of war in Gaza. At that point we spoke about the impossibility of, even then, quantifying the genocide. Today we focus on the politics of language—in particular, the distinction Fady Joudah makes between...