Unpacking 1619 - A Heights Libraries Podcast

Episodet

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  Episode 115 – Why Everyone Hates White Liberals with Kevin M Schultz 18.08.2026

  Kevin M. Schultz discusses his book Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals). In it Schultz lays out some of the objections to liberals—ineffective, spineless, judgmental, authoritarian—placing these objections in a historical frame. It turns out that how one defines a “white liberal” is less a reflection of reality and more a Rorschach test […]
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  Episode 114 – Modern Yoga and the Far Right with Stewart Home 04.08.2026

  Stewart Home discusses his book, Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremist, and the New Order in Wellness. Home sweeps away the half-truths of Western yoga to expose a world full of grifters, cult leaders, TV celebrities and fake gurus, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity. Stewart Home is […]
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  Episode 113 – Racial Formation Theory with Michael Omi and Howard Winant 21.07.2026

  Michael Omi and Howard Winant discuss their foundational work, Racial Formation in the United States. Unlike other traditional race theories, in Omi and Winant’s view, racial meanings pervade US society, from defining individual racial identities to the structuring of collective political action. Race as a master category, the rise of colorblindness, and how the Right […]
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  Episode 112 – James Baldwin and Racial Innocence with Kristine Taylor 07.07.2026

  Kirstine Taylor on her article “Racial Capitalism and the Production of Innocence.” James Baldwin’s concept of “racial innocence” has been understood as a matter of practiced unconsciousness about the reality of racism in the United States. Taylor revisits his essays highlighting racial capitalism to show how segregated urban space, racialized labor relationships, and policing contribute […]
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  Episode 111 – Plantation Goods – A Material History of Slavery with Seth Rockman 23.06.2026

  Seth Rockman discusses his book, Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery which tells one of the biggest stories of early American history through everyday consumer goods: shoes manufactured in Massachusetts for the use of enslaved people in Mississippi, for example, or woolen dresses stitched in Rhode Island for enslaved women in South Carolina […]
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  Episode 110 – Doomsday Cults and America with Jane Borden 09.06.2026

  Jane Borden discusses her book, Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America. She explains why the doomsday beliefs of our Puritan founders still drive American culture. Tracing threads of our latent Puritan indoctrination through eugenic cults, prosperity gospel, and the current rise in far-right extremism, she proposes that the United States might just be […]
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  Episode 109 – African Kings, Iberian Traders, and Black Slaves with Herman Bennett 26.05.2026

  Herman Bennett talks about his book, African Kings and Black Slaves Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic. It is an examination of how early modern African-European encounters offer a rethinking of these exchanges as being solely about the slave trade and racial difference. By asking how Europeans and Africans thought about sovereignty, polities, […]
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  Episode 108 – The Violence of the Great Replacement with Luke Baumgartner 12.05.2026

  Luke Baumgartner discusses his paper “Where did the white people go? A thematic analysis of terrorist manifestos inspired by replacement theory.” By delving into the long history of immigration resentments and fears, Baumgartner defines two stages of the imagined “great replacement” grievance. Further, he examined four mass shooter manifestos to demonstrate how this toxic ideology […]
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  Episode 107 – Race and The Roberts Courts’ Criminal Cases with Daniel Harawa 28.04.2026

  Daniel Harawa discusses his article, “Lemonade: A Racial Justice Reframing of The Roberts Court’s Criminal Jurisprudence. Professor Harawa points out how the Court has recently issued a series of decisions addressing racism in the criminal legal system: Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado and Flowers v. Mississippi. Both teach that race history matters, those who discriminate must be […]
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  Episode 106 – Pregnancy, Birth, and Doulas with Andrea Ford 14.04.2026

  Andrea Ford discusses her book, Near Birth: Contested Values and the work of Doulas, in which she discusses how pregnancy, birthing, and infant care offer a microcosm of cultural debates. Ford examines how people’s birthing decisions and experiences relate to and construct the American ideal of the individual and family in various ways and forms. […]
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  Episode 105 – Post-Racial Deception of the Roberts Court with Cedric Merlin Powell 31.03.2026

  Cedric Powell is the Wyatt, discusses his article, “The Post-Racial Deception of the Roberts Court” in which he argues that the supposed colorblind rhetoric masks an agenda to strip precedent, history and reality away from Supreme Court decisions. By looking at the Civil Rights and Civil War Amendment cases, Powell shows how the Roberts Court […]
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  Episode 104 – Frantz Fanon and Anti-Colonialism with Adam Shatz 17.03.2026

  Adam Shatz discuss his book, The Rebel’s Clinic: the Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon. Shatz brings to life Fanon as a man shaped by philosophy, psychiatry, and the anti-colonial struggles in Algeria and Africa. While also detailing how his two books, Black Skin, White Masks and Wretched of the Earth, combined Fanon’s empathy and anger […]
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  Episode 103 – Highlander Folk School and the Civil Rights Movement with Elaine Weiss 03.03.2026

  Elaine Weiss discusses her book, Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement. It is the story Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by a white southerner with roots in the labor movement. The school became a focal point inspiring Rosa Parks, Pete Seeger, and originating Citizenship […]
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  Episode 102 – Genetics and Race with Rina Bliss 17.02.2026

  Rina Bliss discusses her book, What’s Real about Race?: Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society. Professor Bliss begins by posing the question, what is the true relationship between genetics and race? While genetics proves race does not exist, racism persists. By looking into the history of racial science and eugenics, Professor Bliss explains how these false […]
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  Episode 101 – Lord Dunmore’s Emancipation Proclamation with Andrew Lawler 03.02.2026

  Andrew Lawler discusses his new book, “Perfect Frenzy: a Royal Governor, his Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution.” It is the story of the colony of Virginia on the eve of the American Revolution and Lord Dunmore, infamous British villain. But what is fact and what is fiction? Lord Dunmore issued […]
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  Episode 100 – Alt-Right, Nazis, and Trump Staffing with Amanda Moore 20.01.2026

  Amanda Moore is a freelance journalist covering the far right. We discuss her year undercover in the Alt-Right and her continued work exposing Nazis. Moore’s work has centered on far-right influencer Nick Fuentes’s misogyny and neo-Nazi rhetoric. Most recently, she’s monitoring the J6 insurrectionists and the continued appeal of those who’s convictions were commuted and […]
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  Episode 99 – Interrupting the Supreme Court with Tonja Jacobi 06.01.2026

  Tonja Jacobi discusses her article “Supreme Court Interruptions and Interventions: The Changing Role of the Chief Justice.” Recent scholarship has focused on how often the Supreme Court Justices get interrupted, especially when female Justices are speaking. To fix this, the Court changed how hearings are run. This article looks at whether these interruptions—and the gender […]
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  Episode 98 – Sherman’s March of Emancipation with Bennett Parten 23.12.2025

  Bennett Parten discusses his book, Somewhere Toward Freedom Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation. The book tells the story of Sherman’s March through the south as a social history of the refugee crisis brought on by the war and the Emancipation Proclamation. As freed slaves rushed toward the Union forces, they brought […]
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  Episode 97 – White Innocence and Black Infant Mortality with Annie Menzel 09.12.2025

  Annie Menzel discusses her book, Fatal Denial Racism and the Political Life of Black Infant Mortality. Drawing on her own experience as a midwife as inspiration, Prof. Menzel lays out the history of white innocence, flawed racial science, and the cult of true babyhood all contribute to real violence to black maternal outcomes. As overt […]
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  Episode 96 – Private Prisons After Dobbs with Robert Craig 25.11.2025

  Robert Craig discusses his article, “Fundamental Rights and Private Prisons after Dobbs: Shifting Sands and Opportunities.” He details the history of private prisons next to the history of state-run prisons. Additionally, the competing interest of for-profit prison incentivizes extended incarceration and cost cutting practices that set the stage for a legal argument based on Plyler […]