Bedrosian Bookclub Podcast

The Fact of a Body by *Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is a true crime memoir. After encountering the child murderer Ricky Langley, Alexandria's desire to work as a lawyer to fight against the death penalty is up-ended. They spend several years investigating Ricky's story as a way to confront the story of their own child abuse. This is a deeply moving book, and a relatively easy read given the morose topic - a testament to the author's skill.

Our conversation ranges from the effects of trauma on individuals and communities to the genre itself. If you haven't read it yet, beware that we assume you've read it, spoiler alert!

Featuring Jeffery A. Jenkins (@jaj7d ‏), Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer), Brettany K. Shannon (@brettanyshannon), and Deborah Winters

*Please note that since recording in 2017, the author has designated a preferred pronoun of they/them/theirs; they are misgendered in the recording.

Follow us on Twitter! @BedrosianCenter

Special thanks to Flatiron Books for sending us review copies!

To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of The Fact of a Body click the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, or Google Play

https://bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub/the-fact-of-a-body

Polarization is at a high point, political violence surrounds us, joblessness, homelessness, the country's need to face the great wrongs of the past, and the specter of climate change hanging over all of this.

What if ...? What if we imagined a different future?

How can we rethink leadership for a new age? How can we relate to one another amidst constant uncertainty? Can we rethink what a good life is and how we can go about it?

How do we heal ourselves, our communities, and our planet?

Listen as we discuss Emergent Strategy, by Adrienne Maree Brown for insights.

Our guests include Jennifer Bravo, Megan Goulding, Jessica Payne, Founder, and Brettany Shannon. Thank you to Mockingbird Analytics for this partnership!

For more about our guests, links to things we discuss, and more check out the showpage.

Activists, scientists, most of us ... we know that the truth of the climate crisis is monumental. It's overwhelming the size, scope, interconnectedness of the problem.

All We Can Save asks us to rethink, reimagine, and co-create a possible future. It's easy to imagine the worst ... in this collection of essays and poems, the authors bring a unique clarity along with hope and optimism for solutions.

We might not save everything ... let's work together to save all we can.

Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Anna Cummins (The 5 Gyres Inst), Jen Bravo (Price Alum & Consultant), and Lauren Turk (Fera Zero).

For links and more, check out the showpage.

Ostensibly, editor Gary Paul Nabhan's collection of friends' essays, The Nature of Desert Nature is about the desert.

Rather ... it's human nature that we encounter delving into this collection of essays. The writers reminisce on their own beingness as they encountering one specific desert: the Sonoran. The Sonoron is the desert covers vast area in the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico. Most of the essays focus on Tucson and its environs.

For our guests, living on the edge of the desert also has meaning ... what is the nature of desert nature?

Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla and Stacy Patterson.

For June, we're reading Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown! Join us for the LIVE Recording on Tue, June 22nd at 5pm pacific

Twilight of Democracy is a memoir. It is also a condemnation of the many intellectuals and opportunists who have not only given up on democracy, but given up on truth.

Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize winning author, recalls the last 20 years in Poland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, and briefly, the United States. What drew many of people she thought of as friends, staunch anti-Communist conservatives, toward authoritarianism? This is the story of elites who think they're entitled, who crave power enough to wield conspiracism like a cudgel against the very institutions they once protected.

Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Jen Bravo, Richard Green, Olivia Olson, and Lisa Schweitzer on this episode of the Bookclub.

In direct contrast to the myth of the "American Dream," we live in a society in which factors outside of our control determine our fates. From skin color to zip code, only the lucky or exceptionally determined are able to break free of the invisible chains binding them to their caste.

In Isabel Wilkerson's latest book, Caste, the Hindu caste system in India is a mirror to reflect how this invisible stratification continues to lock in inequity in the U.S.. This richly historic book uncovers how the Third Reich used the American caste system as a model for their dynasty in Germany.

Then she uses personal stories, her own among them, to outline the harm and costs our caste system has reeked since 1619.

Read the book, then listen to host Aubrey Hicks discuss the book with LaVonna Lewis, Christine Beckman, and Olivia Olson.

What does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be an individual, to have an identity? How does one become normal? Who gets to decide what is normal?

In One of Us, Alice Domurat Dreger uses stories of conjoined twins to help readers through questions of identity, othering, and belonging.

Aubrey Hicks is joined by Christine Beckman, Liz Falletta, and Lisa Schweitzer.

We're reading Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum for March. Check out the whole list, click here.

"The first time I can remember feeling truly powerless, I was three, and I was trapped sideways in a bucket in the garage."

The first line of Allie Brosh's latest illustrated memoir, Solutions and Other Problems, lets the audience know that we still can know what to expect her to say. Using short illustrated essays, stories of her life, Brosh walks us through a few important experiences. The absurdity, the childlike wonder, the laugh-out-loud humor contained in the stories all the while she shares her grief, depression, and anxiety is utterly relatable.

In this, the first book we read this month, we discuss mental health and our various reactions to this treasure of a book.

Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla, Liz Falletta, and Stacy Patterson.

Reading A Promised Land by Barack Obama in January 2021 is a bit of a trip. In some places, the reader feels the swell of nostalgia, the remembrance of governance and a time free of COVID-19. Other times, the juxtaposition Obama's words, with a deep reverence for democracy, and the insurrection of January 6th feels painful. A Promise Land is part one of what will be a two part Presidential memoir. Much of the book is process and policy heavy, giving the reader a close glimpse of the daily life of the leader of the free world. Even when the topic is heavy, Obama's writing lifts that heaviness and delivers a long fireside chat filled with the intelligence and humor we've come to associate with him. Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by LaVonna Lewis, Olivia Olson, David Sloane, and Ehsan Zaffar. We discuss the things we missed, the things we loved, and the book that also needs be written - and whose responsibility that might be. For links to some of the things we talked about, visit our showpage.

In our new series on Community Impact we speak with Victoria Ciudad-Real, John Roberson III, Gary Painter, and Jeffery Wallace about findings from their collaborative project Accelerating Fair Chance Hiring among Los Angeles employers.

The project, in which the Price Center partnered with LeadersUp and the State of California Workforce Accelerator Fund, used an employer survey and co-design sessions with Angeleno employers to determine the best way forward with Fair Chance hiring processes.

What can employers take away from this project?

Find more about the findings: https://socialinnovation.usc.edu/fairchance/