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KPFA - Letters and Politics

Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.

news politics

All Episodes

59:58

What Monsters Tell Us About Us

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/11

Guest: Natalie Lawrence, author of Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meaning.The post What Monsters Tell Us About Us appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Serial Killers & Toxins: The Correlation

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/10

Guest: Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for best biography of the year. She is also the author of God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her latest Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers.The post Serial Killers & Toxins: The Correlation appeared first on

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21:17

A History of the American Jewish Left and Cultures of...

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/09

Guest: Benjamin Balthaser is associate professor of multi-ethnic US literature at Indiana University, South Bend. He is the author of Anti-Imperialism Modernism: Race and Transnational Radical Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War and his latest Citizens of the Whole World: The American Jewish Left and Cultures of Anti-Zionism.The post A History of the American Jewish Left and Cultures of Anti-Zionism appeared first on KPFA.

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6:26

Shirley Chisholm, A Revolutionary Thinker

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/08

Guest: Zinga A. Fraser is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women’s Activism. She is the author of Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words: Speeches and Writings. Photo credit: Wikimedia The post Shirley Chisholm, A Revolutionary Thinker appeared first on KPFA.

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1:12

Federal Takeover of D.C.

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/04

Guest: Clarence Lusane is an author, activist, scholar, and journalist. He is a Professor of Political Science at Howard University and is the author of many books including his latest Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy. Photo credit: Airmen from the D.C. National Guard were deployed in response to protests and riots after the death of George Floyd. (U.S. Army photo by Kevin Valentine) The post Federal Takeover of D.C. appeared first on

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59:58

Understanding the Current Redistricting War

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/03

Guest: John Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. He has written, co-written, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, co-written with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.Credit: Wikipedia by Elkanah Tisdale

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6:52

Ending Isolation with Dr. Terry Kupers

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/02

Guest: Dr. Terry A. Kupers is a psychiatrist and professor emeritus at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. He is an expert on the intersection of mental health and incarceration and is the author of several books including Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars, Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation, and most lately, Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement co-authored with Christopher William Blackwell, Deborah Zalesne, and Kwaneta Harris.The

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59:58

The Black Wobbly: Ben Fletcher

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/09/01

Guest: Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University in Macomb and a research associate in the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of the Vitvatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cole is the author of the award-winning Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area and Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia. He coedited Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW. He is the

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45:52

Dispossession: The Indian Removal Act of 1830

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/28

Guest: Claudio Saunt, author of Unworthy Republic:The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. Claudio Saunt is the Richard B. Russell Professor in American History at the University of Georgia.The post Dispossession: The Indian Removal Act of 1830 appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

The Pirates That Halted The Slave Trade

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/27

Guest: Angela C. Sutton is an Assistant research professor at Vanderbilt University, where she has taught Seapower in History, the Golden Age of Piracy, and Comparative Slavery. She is the author of Pirates of the Slave Trade: The Battle of Cape Lopez and the Birth of an American Institution.The post The Pirates That Halted The Slave Trade appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

IDF: A History of Israel’s Army of Occupation

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/26

Guest: Haim Bresheeth-Zabner is a Professor of film studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He is the author of An Army Like No Other: How the Israeli Defense Force Made a Nation.The post IDF: A History of Israel’s Army of Occupation appeared first on KPFA.

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8:11

The Shahnameh & Iran’s Ancient Past

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/25

Guest: Dr Reza Shaghaghi Zarghamee is a Post-doctoral Fellow in Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World (Mage: 2013), and his latest Myth and History in Ancient Persia: The Achaemenids in the Iranian Tradition The post The Shahnameh & Iran’s Ancient Past appeared first on KPFA.

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49:35

Letters and Politics – August 21, 2025

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/21

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich.The post Letters and Politics – August 21, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

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0:06

How Adam Smith Became A Capitalist Icon

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/20

Guest: Glory Liu is a lecturer in social studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism.The post How Adam Smith Became A Capitalist Icon appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

THE BEGINNING OF CALIFORNIA & THE EVERGREEN REVIEW

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/19

Part 1: THE EARLY HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA Guest: Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author who has covered business, technology, and public policy for the Los Angeles Times for more than 40 years. He currently serves as the Times’s business columnist. He is the author of The Golden State: The Making of California Part 2: THE EVERGREEN REVIEW: A HISTORY Guest: Pat Thomas is a counter-culture historian and author of the book Evergreen Review: Dispatches from the Literary

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15:04

Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/18

Guest: Guest: Lisa Duggan is a journalist, historian, activist and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is a journalist, historian, activist and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is the author of the new book Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed The post Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed appeared first on KPFA.

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11:01

THE GRANDMOTHERS OF THE DISAPPEARED

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/14

Haley Cohen Gilliland is a journalist and the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. She is the author of the book A Flower Traveled in my Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children.The post THE GRANDMOTHERS OF THE DISAPPEARED appeared first on KPFA.

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59:57

Africa and the Making of the Modern World

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/13

Guest: Howard W. French is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and former New York Times bureau chief in the Caribbean and Central America, West and Central Africa, Tokyo, and Shanghai. He is the author of the book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.The post Africa and the Making of the Modern World appeared first on KPFA.

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59:58

Early Christianity & The Making of Hell

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/12

Guest: Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian TraditionThe post Early Christianity & The Making of Hell appeared first on KPFA.

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59:57

The Empire of Artificial Intelligence

KPFA - Letters and Politics ·

2025/08/11

Guest: Karen Hao is an award-winning journalist covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society. She writes for publications including The Atlantic and leads the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series. She is the author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The post The Empire of Artificial Intelligence appeared first on KPFA.

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