Against the Grain Radio

17/09/2025

Erin McElroy on the technologies deployed by landlords and on what McElroy calls Silicon Valley imperialism:

Facial recognition cameras, tenant screening platforms, digital property management—many landlords use sophisticated technology to monitor and screen tenants. Erin McElroy weighs the impact of so-called proptech on prospective renters, on tenants’ lives and well-being, and on people’s ability ...

09/09/2025

John Sanbonmatsu makes the case for opposing and abolishing the animal economy in tandem with capitalism.

Is it possible to eat animal products ethically, as proponents of small-scale animal agriculture advocate? Or, as critical theorist John Sanbonmatsu argues, is consuming animals unjustifiable not just for reasons of disease and the climate emergency, but also because of the emotional complexity and....

03/09/2025

Vincent W. Lloyd talks about his co-edited Duke University Press book “Political Theology Reimagined":

What is political theology, and where is this field of inquiry headed? Vincent Lloyd points to various connections between religion, power, and political discourse; he also considers the impact of feminist, Black, decolonial, and other perspectives on the field’s trajectory. Alex Dubilet and Vince...

26/08/2025

Alice Lovejoy reflects on the history of film companies like Kodak in the making of the atom bomb, chemical warfare, and the legacy of radioactive fallout.

Film in the 20th century conjures up the glamor of the big screen, as well as the intimacy of family snapshots. According to film historian Alice Lovejoy, celluloid and its successors should also bring to mind war. She reflects on the history of film companies like Kodak in the making of the atom bo...

22/08/2025

Benjamin Balthaser considers the history of American Jews and the left, including in opposition to Jewish nationalism, arguing that the recent florescence of Jewish anti-Zionism is a return to a much longer tradition.

Jews and the left have been closely associated with each other for well over a century, both in Europe where the N***s genocidally linked one with the other, and in the United States. Scholar Benjamin Balthaser considers the history of American Jews and the left, including in opposition to Jewish na...

20/08/2025

Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin on what’s lost when technologies deemed creepy are dismissed out of hand:

Many new and emerging smart technologies are characterized as creepy. What’s the basis for these claims, and how should we respond to them? Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin consider creepy technologies and their impact with an eye toward collective ethics, politics, and futures. They contest the ...

19/08/2025

Coming up today at noon PT: Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin discuss their co-edited book “Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen.”

18/08/2025

Historian David Roediger looks back at how he became a radical antiracist.

White working class people are frequently dismissed by liberals as intractably racist — the purported bedrock of reaction in this country. While the support of working class whites has never been sufficient to explain the rise of Donald Trump, it’s still worth asking what does it take to shift t...

13/08/2025

David A. McDonald on the political potential of returning privatized services like water and electricity to public control:

The Left has decried the privatization of services like water and electricity. Is it enough to return them to public ownership and control? According to David A. McDonald, the goal should be more equitable, democratic, and non-marketized forms of public services. He considers the role that so-called...

16/07/2025

Feyzi Ismail on what today's climate movement can learn from the struggles of the British suffragettes:

They fought to secure the vote for women. They used direct action, civil disobedience, and increasingly militant tactics to pursue their goals. Feyzi Ismail assesses the strategies and tactics of a group of British suffragettes with an eye toward building a more effective climate movement. Gregory A...

14/07/2025

Owen Clayton talks about his new co-edited volume “The Popular Wobbly: Selected Writings of T-Bone Slim":

Over the course of two decades, publications of the Industrial Workers of the World featured the influential writings of a hobo, transient worker, columnist, poet, and songwriter named T-Bone Slim. Owen Clayton talks about Slim’s focus on workers’ everyday lives under capitalism, his political s...

08/07/2025

Alexander Menrisky argues that contemporary American culture furnishes a wealth of material for the far right, from the ubiquity of apocalyptic and misanthropic ideas to concerns with Wellness and bodily purity.

As the environmental crisis worsens, not everyone is drawing the same lessons. On the far right, xenophobic and racist ideas are increasingly dressed up as means of protecting nature. And, as scholar Alexander Menrisky posits, contemporary American culture furnishes a wealth of material for the righ...