A Public Affair

In today’s show, host Ali Muldrow talks with sociology professor Jessica Calarco about how women are shaped by multiple forces in our society to take up the role of mother, of homemaker, and of caregiver. They discuss how, from a young age, girls are trained to put others first, and to do emotional labor. That training spills over into adulthood, where ideas of gender shape the workplace, the division of labor in the family, and how people feel fulfilled. And in the end, women provide much of the labor that enables the public policy choices in the United States, acting as the true safety net for so many people.

Jessica Calarco is a professor of sociology at UW-Madison. She has a new book “Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net.” In it, she recounts the patterns she observed in interviews with over 4000 parents over five years, and then traces those patterns back to public policies that have left so much care work to women.

Image courtesy of Penguin Random House.

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On today’s show, guest host Nada Elmikashfi talks with Professor Kevin L. Clay about his new book “The Promise of Youth Anti-Citizenship: Race and Revolt in Education.” He describes the way the current approach to citizenship does not adequately serve young people, who need greater political power than is available through mere voting. He also talks about the ways in which the current education system forces youth into a middle-class model of success, while simultaneously not providing the resources or support necessary to make that success possible.

Dr. Kevin L. Clay is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies in Education at Rutgers University. He co-edited his book “The Promise of Youth Anti-Citizenship” with Professor Kevin Lawrence Henry Jr., from UW-Madison. It includes essays on the subject of youth resistance to citizenship from a number of contributors.

Image courtesy of the University of Minnesota Press

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Getting a start in gardening can be a daunting process. In today’s show, host Douglas Haynes sat down with Lisa Johnson, a horticulture educator at UW’s Dane County Extension, and Nicholas Leete, Community Gardens Network Director at Rooted Wisconsin to share some gardening tips and tricks here in Southern Wisconsin.

The conversation covers how to get started gardening in Wisconsin, what fruits and vegetables are doing well this year, and what a changing climate means for the region. The guests also talk about the pests that come with a wet spring, new fruit varietals that are now options, and what to do about all those pesky mammals that find their way into your garden.

Photo courtesy of Elenaiks/Pixabay.

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As both political parties in the United States seem determined to continue American involvement in wars across the globe, it can feel like a daunting time to be part of the peace movement. On today’s show, host Esty Dinur talks with two peace activists about how they approach their work in these troubling times.

Coleen Rowley is a retired FBI agent who is a long-time member of Women Against Military Madness and Veterans for Peace. She recently protested at the RNC against the genocide in Gaza.

Matthew Hoh is a former Marine Corps captain who is currently the associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network.

Together the three of them discuss the political impasse Americans find themselves in, and where they still turn to find hope.

Image courtesy of Janne Leimola/ Unsplash

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Dark money is coursing through our political landscape, with massive amounts of money being spent without much public oversight or even public disclosure. To explain the problem, host Allen Ruff talks with Steve Macek, a professor of communication who serves as Chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies at North Central College in Napierville. He has a recent article in the Progressive Magazine covering the issue.

Macek describes the legal money laundering that goes on within a vast web of different non-profits and PACs, as well as how a toothless FEC fails to properly investigate complaints. Meanwhile, the media coverage of the problem is tepid and often fails to convey the seriousness of the problem.

Image courtesy of S K on Pixabay.

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The US Supreme Court had a momentous term this spring, with multiple far-ranging and momentous decisions handed down. One such decision was Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which ended the Chevron doctrine, a long-standing approach to federal regulations.

To help explain just how big of a change this may be, guest host Jessa Nicholson Goetz sat down with Steph Tai, a professor at UW-Madison who works on environmental and administrative law, and Evan Feinauer, a lawyer from Clean Wisconsin who works on water regulations. Together they explore just how murky the future is for federal regulations and administrative law in the wake of a judiciary that seems very confident in its ability to settle fine points of interpretation without much expertise in the underlying field.

Image courtesy of Andrew Martin / Pixabay.

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Last week a Wisconsin state legislature study committee held their first meeting to look at the University of Wisconsin school system. The committee will meet over the next few months before publishing their findings later this year.

Here to discuss the committee’s work is Representative Alex Joers, a democrat from Middleton who is serving on the committee, and Professor Neil Kraus, who works at UW-River Falls and has written a book about neoliberalism in higher ed.

In their discussion of the new committee, they touch on the way students and staff have been excluded from serving on the committee, how the rhetorics of austerity persist despite a large state budget surplus, and how the findings of the committee are likely to be skewed under the current Republican leadership in the legislature.

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NFT’s helped break the glass ceiling for digital art, says investigative journalist Zachary Small. And at the very center of the fast and loose history of NFTs, crypto, and high art, that Small captures in their recent book, Token Supremacy: the Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022,  is an age old question of the value of art–perhaps the very meaning of value itself. 

On today’s show, guest host Nate Carlin talks with Small about the financialization of art and how speculation has always existed in this very decentralized and unregulated world. When crypto and NFTs entered the scene, some of the tools born in the traditional art market were filtered through Silicon Valley’s techno-optimism. And in this brave new mysterious world, some speculated that humans may just become gods.

In their conversation, Carlin and Small touch on the fame of Vera Molnár, algorithmic art, Justin Sun, collectability, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, shams and scams, and the crash of FTX that brought the world to a stumbling halt.

Image courtesy of Penguin Random House.

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Today on A Public Affair, host Allen Ruff opened up the phone lines to WORT listeners. Folks called in with comments about whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee for president or whether he should drop out of the race. Callers shared their opinions on the privatization of public services, the climate crisis, and how the Democratic party should address these pressing issues. 

Thank you to all 18 of our callers!

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. 

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What unites the collaboration between Michael Jordan and Nike, Barack Obama’s meteoric ascent to the White House, and Kendrick Lamar’s historic 2018 Pulitzer Prize win? Hip hop culture.

That’s according to Dr. Todd Boyd in his new book, Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip Hop Made the World. Rapper’s Deluxe is a collection of major moments in hip hop and American history that highlights the genre’s expansive influence on the world’s cultural canon.

Host Ali Muldrow and Dr. Boyd talk about Lauryn Hill’s critical acclaim and commercial success, gender and respectability politics, hip hop’s influence on fashion in iconic moments like Nicki Minaj and Anna Wintour seated next to each other at a fashion show, and much more. 

Dr. Todd Boyd is the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. He has appeared in numerous award winning documentaries and has written over one hundred articles, reviews, and more. A media commentator, author, producer, consultant and scholar, Dr. Boyd is an intellectual and creative force who transcends boundaries and defies conventional categorization.

Image courtesy of Phaidon. 

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