How did term gender take on the meaning that it has today? How was it developed as a social pairing to the purportedly fixed notion of sex? Surprisingly, historian Sandra Eder traces its origins to a Pediatric Endocrinology Clinic at Johns Hopkins University in the 1940s. She discusses the significance of the introduction of the idea of a culturally-constructed gender, in the Cold War context of mid-20th century America, and the inherited baggage of the term today.

Resources:

Sandra Eder, How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea University of Chicago Press, 2022

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Does it spark joy? That’s the criterion Marie Kondo has set for deciding which personal belongings to keep, and which to relinquish. Maureen Ryan considers Kondo’s decluttering method and her television show in the context of pervasive burnout and insecurity. (Encore presentation.)

Richard Grusin, ed., Insecurity University of Minnesota Press, 2022

Maureen Ryan, Lifestyle Media in American Culture: Gender, Class, and the Politics of Ordinariness Routledge, 2018

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How should we understand the ecological crisis accelerating around us? In a book that has sparked debate on the European left, Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen trace the origins of the Western mode of production and living, which is now spreading around the world. They connect such resource and emissions-intensive consumption to the political instability of our times, and point to alternatives beyond capitalism. (Encore presentation.)

Resources:

Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen, The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism Verso, 2021

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Is capitalism bad for your health? Gabor Maté thinks so. The acclaimed Canadian physician and Marxist discusses capitalism, stress, and chronic illness, inimitably combining profound humanism, dark wit, and extensive knowledge of science and social justice. He makes the compelling case that the psycho-social needs to be taken into account by both the medical establishment — and the left.

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Renowned mycologist Paul Stamets talks about mushrooms, human health, bee populations, psychoactive fungi, and more.

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Over the last four decades, Americans have been gaining increasing amounts of weight. And they are told that it’s a result of their own personal failings, of not having the will power to control what they consume. But, as a documentary film shows, any serious look at the issue points not to individual self-discipline, but the enormous power of the processed food industry.

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Michael Albert discusses his vision of an equitable, sustainable, and participatory economy.

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Over the past half century, the US economy has undergone a profound change: wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a few, inequality has skyrocketed, and insecurity has reigned. And yet it’s a story mainly downplayed by mainstream pundits and the media. Noam Chomsky, arguably the most important public intellectual in the world, says that any discussion of democracy is pointless if we don’t recognize the corrosive effects of this class war from above.

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In “Polishing the Mirror,” the influential spiritual seeker and teacher Ram Dass shares his insights into human consciousness and awakening.

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The history of slavery in the United States casts a pall over our present. Berkeley-based documentary filmmaker Frances Causey illustrates how and why that is in a compelling and personal work, that traces four centuries of racial oppression in the United States.

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