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Interview

Law & Justice, Politics

The Problem Isn't Just Police—It's Politics

In this interview, sociologist Alex Vitale explains how the policing crisis in the United States begins with politics—the decision to embrace neoliberal austerity and to turn the social problems it creates over to police.

Alex Vitale, Scott Casleton

Race

Decolonizing the University

In this interview, Lorgia García-Peña, who was denied tenure by Harvard in late 2019, discusses why ethnic studies has never been more urgent and the important role it can play in protest.

Lorgia García-Peña, Mordecai Lyon

Class & Inequality

Deaths of Despair

Boston Review talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton about COVID-19, the relationship between culture, financial hardship, and health, and why capitalism’s flaws are proving fatal for America’s working class. 

Joshua Cohen, Angus Deaton

Arts in Society

Painting the New York Times

Nicky Nodjoumi is one of Iran’s greatest artists, but his politics have kept him in exile since 1980.

Nicky Nodjoumi, Daniel Penny

Politics, Race

Missing Zinn

On the tenth anniversary of radical historian Howard Zinn’s death, Cornel West opens up about their friendship and what Zinn would have made of the decade—including whether he would have voted for Bernie.

Cornel West, Mordecai Lyon

Arts in Society

Elizabeth Hand’s Curious Toys

Celebrated novelists John Crowley and Elizabeth Hand discuss Hand’s new novel and the ways that historical fiction can and cannot answer our questions about the past.

John Crowley, Elizabeth Hand

Philosophy & Religion

The Radical Equality of Lives

Judith Butler talks with Brandon M. Terry about MLK, the grievability of black lives, and how to defend nonviolence today. 

Brandon M. Terry, Judith Butler

Arts in Society

The Historian’s Art

After retiring from Princeton, celebrated historian Nell Irvin Painter decided to go to art school. In this interview with Walter Johnson, she discusses what it’s like to be an old student, and how art lets her tell truths about history that she couldn’t as an academic.

Jonathan M. Square, Walter Johnson, Nell Painter

Arts in Society, Race

Ally: From Noun to Verb

Robin D. G. Kelley talks with musician Vijay Iyer about systems of oppression, the responsibility of artists, and how jazz sells proximity to blackness to white people.

Robin D. G. Kelley, Vijay Iyer

Race

The Revolutionary and the Historian

Harvard professor Walter Johnson and rapper Tef Poe reflect on their shared activism, and the place they see for allies—accomplices, even—in the long struggle for racial justice.

Walter Johnson, Tef Poe, Mordecai Lyon

Race

The Conservative Black Nationalism of Clarence Thomas

Joshua Cohen and Corey Robin discuss the black nationalism at the heart of Thomas’s conservative jurisprudence—and what it means for those on the left who often dismiss the justice’s use of race. 

Joshua Cohen, Corey Robin

Class & Inequality

Everyday Economists

The postwar generation understood why a prosperous working class is crucial to the economy. Can economics be accessible again to ordinary Americans?

Samuel Bowles, Joshua Cohen

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THINKING IN A PANDEMIC

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