Speaking Out of Place

In response to the attacks launched against the Palestinian people in Gaza by the State of Israel, on Oct 12 Speaking Out of Place created a special episode on Gaza with legal experts Diana Buttu and Richard Falk. We did so with the aim to address and correct the proliferation of misinformation that the mainstream press was spewing out. We also solicited and received many statements of solidarity...

Today we talk with Joseph Pierce and Liza Black about the vast number of questions that are opened up when people pretend to be Native when they in fact are not. These cases take on a specific significance when such false identifications allow these people access to privilege and positions of authority. When these falsehoods are found out, they place scholars and activists who have allied themselv...

The volatile situation in Gaza has been grossly distorted in the mainstream western press. By omission, selective editorializing, and misstatement of so-called “facts,” a particular caricature has emerged that has invisibilized the Palestinian people, the history and the nature of the Occupation, and the actual conditions of life in what many have called the world’s largest open air prison. To get...

On today’s episode we speak with two of the founders of the Polis Project—Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia—about their new book, How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners. We are also deeply honored that the eminent Dalit intellectual, and former political prisoner Dr. Anand Teltumbde is with us as well to lend his unique insight into the political situation in Ind...

Amidst great fanfare, Stanford University created the Doerr School for Sustainability, which immediately said that it would accept funding from the fossil fuel industry. A group of students has pushed back, and built an impressive movement to dissociate from such funds. In this episode, we talk to some of the people leading the movement about what drives them and sustains them in building a True S...

Attacks on those protesting the Israeli state policies and practices which have maintained the violent dispossession of Palestinians have commonly misrepresented, distorted, and even manufactured disinformation. This has done great damage to the lives and careers of many.  As public opinion shifts against the Israeli state, attacks by extreme Zionists have increased. On today’s show we speak with...

Today we talk with Liza Featherstone about this huge victory for ecosocialists, and for everybody actually, in New York, that came with the passage of a bold piece of legislation, the Build Public Renewables Act, or BPRA. Featherstone explains the genesis of the bill, and the specific wrk that activists put into its passage. What obstacles did they confront, how did they work together to overcome...

Today we talk with Sara Ahmed about her new book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook . How and why is it that complaining about sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry, is considered impolite?  How is civility uncivil, and the mandate to be “happy” a tool for silencing grievances? Sara Ahmed tackles all those questions, and gives us strength and courage to keep on killingj...

Today on Speaking Out of Place we talk with Michael Hardt about his new book, The Subversive Seventies .  This expansive study of a broad range of subversive movements across the globe shows us how the 70s were actually ahead of us in terms of confronting key issues and contradictions that remain with us today and shows what we can learn from them.  Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Li...

Today we talk with Manijeh Moradian about her book, This Flame within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States , which documents the formation of Iranian student activists in the US in the 1970s, and their impact on the Iranian revolution. This Flame Within is not only a book about history, but also a book about memory and the importance of retrieving these memories of anti-imperialist pasts...

Today on Speaking Out of Place we talk with Dr. Tim Hewlett, co-founder of the international protest organization Scientist Rebellion.  With more than a thousand members in more than 25 countries, Scientist Rebellion stages non-violent protests, organizes events and talks, and lobbies other scientists and national leaders to draw attention to the need for immediate and meaningful action with regar...

Today in Speaking Out of Place, we are joined by Anthony Arnove and Haley Pessin, who are the co-editors of a marvelous new volume entitled Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21st Century: Documents of Hope and Resistance .  This book is not only a beautiful archive of people's struggles in the 21st century, but also a powerful tribute to and continuation of the work of...

Today we are speak with renown scholar, activist, and writer Silvia Federici about her powerful and inspiring collection of essays, Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. These essays, written over the span of several decades, display her abilities to diagnose and indeed predict the most important issues facing us today, demanding a collective struggle for a new social...

Today we speak with Emmaia Gelman and Christine Hong, two of the founders of the new Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism . They tell us what motivated them and others to take up this project to create a space where the critical study of Zionism could take place in conversation with many other fields. We hear why the organizers wish to separate critical Zionist studies from conventional Jew...

Today on Speaking Out of Place we talk with award-winning novelist and activist Susan Albuhawa about a major literary festival she is organizing entitled “ Palestine Writes ,” which will take place in Philadelphia from Sept 22 to Sept 24. “Palestine Writes” is the only North American literature festival dedicated to celebrating and promoting cultural productions of Palestinian writers and artists....

In 1980, a synagogue in Paris was bombed, killing four and injuring 40 others. Thirty-four years later, French authorities settled on one suspect--Hassan Diab. This, despite the fact that it is likely that the bombing was undertaken by a neo-Nazi group, commemorating the anniversary of another one of its anti-semitic attacks. After being extradited from Canada to France in 2014, Diab was arrested...

This August, the Asian American Literary Festival was to take place in Washington, DC.. The event had already garnered substantial investments and expectations from both national and international groups and states. Thus there was considerable shock and outrage when Acting Director Yao-Fen You abruptly cancelled the entire festival, without a word of explanation. The Washington Post and other sour...

On today’s Speaking Out of Place we talk with journalist., activist, and public intellectual Jeff Chang.  Jeff’s most recent book, We Gon' Be Alright: Notes On Race and Resegregation   (Picador), was called by the Washington Post   “the smartest book of the year,” and inspired a four-episode digital series adaptation for PBS Indie Lens Storycast. He was named to the Frederick Douglass 200 , a...

Today on Speaking Out of Place we talk with Jennifer Jacquet, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Director of XE: Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement at NYU . She is also deputy director of NYU's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection . Her research focuses on animals and the environment, Agnotology , and attribution and responsibilit...

Today we talk with Cynthia Franklin about her new book, Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea . Taking on pivotal historical moments like the murder of George Floyd and the emergence of #BlackLivesMatter, the on-going struggle of the Palestinian people against the ethno-nationalist Zionist state, and the fight for Indigenous rights in Hawai’i, Franklin...

In today’s episode of Speaking Out of Place we speak with Dr Jennifer Gomez about her new book, The Cultural Betrayal of Black Women and Girls: A Black Feminist Approach to Healing from Sexual Abuse, which takes on the particular difficulty of centering the voices and experiences of Black women and girls when confronting sexual violence in the Black community. In her foreword the book, Thema Bryan...

On today’s episode of Speaking Out of Place we talk with Olivia Harrison, author of a new book entitled, Natives Against Nativism: Antiracism and Indigenous Critique in Postcolonial France , which takes on the appropriation of the figure of the “native” to serve progressive and indeed revolutionary causes, but also its appropriation by the alt-right both in France and internationally to drive a re...

In today’s episode of “Speaking Out of Place” we speak with Dr. Haley Duschinski and Mr. Imraan Mir, who people active in trying to grow global awareness of Kashmir and in working to secure human rights for the people of Kashmir. They give us important historical background on Kashmir, which is normally reduced to simply a place of struggle between India and Pakistan. To counter that image, Duschi...

In November 20, 2015, a resolution presented to the members of the American Anthropological Association for a boycott of Israeli institutions narrowly missed adoption (2,384 in favor and 2,423 opposed; 49.6% - 50.4%). Responding to the new petition members submitted on March 3, the American Anthropological Association has scheduled a vote on the boycott of Israeli academic institutions from June 1...

In today’s episode of “Speaking Out of Place” we talk with Professor Adam Aron, author of the book, “The Climate Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements.” As the title of the book indicates, it is a systematic and thorough discussion of not simply the Climate Crisis, but also, and very importantly, all the key elements we need to know about to do effective activism...