Patricia Kullberg hosts this episode of the Old Mole, which includes the following segments:
Libraries as Grammar Schools of the Commons: Joe Clement shares commentary and news on the political significance of libraries, examining the material context of social attacks on them and the utopian potential of their sharing ethos. We hear audio from Mariame Kaba on the podcast Death Panel speaking to how libraries can help us rediscover the grammar of commoning and belonging to one another. Also Shawn Vulliez of the Seriously Wrong podcast speaks as a guest on the LibraryPunk podcast about how the at once practical and yet ideal principle of usufruct, or free use of abundantly circulating public goods, can underpin a “library socialist” solution to the ecological and social crises bearing down on us today. This segment originally aired on April 8, 2024
What is Genocide? The word “genocide” was coined by secular Jew and Polish attorney Raphael Lemkin in 1948. To him the term meant not only physical obliteration of a certain group of people, but their cultural annihilation as well. The legal concept that emerged from the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, however, was so narrowly defined that it has rarely served as legal redress for the many, horrific mass murders since World War II. Linda Kinstler is a junior fellow at Harvard’s Society of Fellows and the author of “Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends.” In a piece titled “The Bitter Fight Over the Meaning of Genocide,” Kinstler explores the history of the concept and how the horror unfolding in Gaza today is spurring activists to reclaim Lemkin’s original and much broader concept. Patricia Kullberg, our Well Read Red, reads excerpts from the article, which was published in the New York Times on August 29 of this year. The full article can be read here.
Portland People’s Photographer: Before arriving in Portland in 2008, and eventually being dubbed "Portland's People's Photographer," the radical queer white elder activist Kendall had already had a wide-ranging life as an educator and organizer. From a childhood of poverty and abuse in Appalachia, Kendall would go on to do oral history in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," teaching theater at Smith College and in universities in Lesotho and South Africa, and more than thirty years of teaching creative writing and Theater of the Oppressed in Louisiana, Texas, and South Africa. Desiree Hellegers speaks with Kendall about their lifelong love of photography and their work documenting Portland social movements.
Woman of Light: Book Mole Larry Bowlden reviews the 2024 novel titled Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine, about Luz Lopez and five generations of a Chicano family. The story, set in Denver in the 1930’s, explores how the racism and colonialism of the past haunts the present and shapes the future.
- KBOO