Bedrosian Bookclub Podcast

Today's book: The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú.

The southern border between Mexico and the U.S. can be a violent place. Yet isn't as easily defined as it seems.There are places where the border is permeable, invisible. The border is a construct, and the racialized rhetoric of The Border combined with two decades of militarization have wreaked havoc on the people and the land.

Cantú becomes a border patrol agent to understand the realities on the ground ... but the complicity he feels drives him away. Can he escape the border, or does that mirage move with him?

Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Juan De Lara, Jaime Lopez, and Aubrey Hicks for a far ranging discussion of borders, metaphors, and life in between.

Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at [email protected].

What is a summer book club without a good detective novel?

Our conversation today dives into Robert Galbraith's third installment of the Cormoran Strike novels, Career of Evil. Today's host is convinced that Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) might have the best descriptions of the complexity of London since Dickens!

Host Richard Green is joined by Lisa Schweitzer and Aubrey Hicks.

Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at [email protected].

If models of the world are all wrong, why are they critical to understanding our complex world?

Today, host Pamela Clouser McCann discusses the book The Model Thinker with guests Jeffery A. Jenkins and James Lo.

For links to some of the things we discuss, check out the showpage!

Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at [email protected].

Can the way a person plays golf really explain their whole personality? Famed golf writer Rick Reilly aims to make the case in Commander in Cheat. Detailing with excruciating detail and humor the myriad of ways President Trump cheats in the golf world.

Does Reilly make the case for using golf as a metaphor for President Trump's governance? Listen as we hash that out.

Host Lisa Schweitzer is joined by Anthony W. Orlando, David Sloane, and Richard Green.

Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at [email protected].

Layli Long Soldier is the author of our book for June 2019, Whereas, winner of the National Book Critics Circle award, and finalist for the National Book Award. She is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Whereas in response to an "apology" to Native Americans which was buried in a department of defense appropriations bill during the Obama administration. It is a stunning use of language to build and re-build America, the land of the Plains Indians as others before the colonizers.

The book is at turns devastating, celebratory, adept, clever, playful and always unique.

Apologies for our terrible attempts at Lakota, while we tried to find proper pronunciation we failed. Our failure is another record of the violence perpetrated in our name again our Native brothers and sisters.

David Sloane and Deborah Natoli join host Aubrey Hicks in discussion of this work by Layli Long Soldier, Lakota and American.

In today's episode, we discuss Nnedi Okorafor's Afrofuturist novel Who Fears Death. A young woman, named Onyesonwu meaning Who Fears Death learns she is a child of rape, deals with being an outcast, and after a trauma finds out she has special powers. She learns she is at the center of a prophecy that could change the world.

We discuss some themes of the book: gender, friendship, love, hatred, violence, nature, the desert, cities, and life during and after genocide.

Joining host Aubrey Hicks for this discussion are Marisa Turesky and David Sloane.

Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at [email protected].

Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by professors Chris Redfearn and Liz Falletta in a discussion of the New York Times bestselling book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.

On today's podcast, we talk about how white fragility works to sustain and reproduce the racist institutions & socialization which we all inherited.

Scheduling in the Spring semester is always hard. We decided to go ahead with a three white person panel for this particular book. We hope to model the kinds of conversations we hope are happening across the country in predominately white communities. To echo DiAngelo, this isn't about guilt, it is about the responsibility we have to make the world better for our fellow citizens.

We make mistakes and welcome feedback.

Thanks to all of you who have shared feedback with us before & to those of you brave enough to share with us in the future.

Join the conversation about each episode on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Or email us at [email protected].

State of Resistance: What California's Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America's Future by Manuel Pastor

Another bonus episode!

Host Lisa discusses Professor Manuel Pastor's latest book, State of Resistance. The book looks at the last several decades of economic, social, and environmental transformations in California. Pastor then looks to the future to ask what these transformations can predict for the larger United States.

Warnings: spoilers

Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.

Our April read: White Fragility: Why It's So hard for White People To Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

This month, host Lisa is joined by David Sloane, Denise McIver, and Aubrey Hicks to discuss An Unkindness of Ghosts, the science fiction novel about a young neuroatypical woman on a generation ship in search of the "promised land" looking for evidence her mother had discovered something important about the ship and its journey.

We talk about slave allegories, generation ships, spatial hierarchies, gender, autism ... so much to talk about with this debut novel from Solomon.

Warnings: spoilers & triggers, and we apologize for any misgendering speakers may have done on this podcast.

Other things we're reading:

Lisa: Mueller, She Wrote, State of Resistance by Manuel Pastor Denise: Quicksand and Passing, by Nella Larsen Aubrey: The Savage Shore, by David Hewson

Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.

Our April read: White Fragility: Why It's So hard for White People To Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo

Bonus episode: an interview with Professor Manuel Pastor on his book State of Resistance: What California's Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Means for America's Future, coming soon.

Body Horror: Capitalism, Fear, Misogyny, Jokes by Anne Elizabeth Moore

This month, Lisa is joined by Marisa Turesky, Chris Redfearn, and Aubrey Hicks to discuss Body Horror, a book of essays on the interaction between the abnormal, frail, resilient, squishy bodies of women and the world, from journalist Anne Elizabeth Moore.

Warnings: spoilers, cursing, & triggers.

Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.

Our March read: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @BedrosianCenter, @drschweitzer, @AubreyHi