S3E6 - Season 3 Gab: Taking Stock, Making Resolutions

One year is over, another just begun! In this mid-season gab we talk about how to look back over the past year and share strategies for making New Year's resolutions that stick. Discover the official Noorain Khan method for taking stock at the end of a year, hear our goals for 2017, and get some concrete advice on how to make  a good resolution courtesy of kids.usa.gov. We also reveal our greatest resolution successes (Maria's involves Mordor, kind of) and swear that THIS is the year we're going to stay active - really!! Ready to take on the new year? Tune in for a chilled-out chat about taking the next steps! 

Links to Stuff we Talk About

On Noorain's love of self-improvement, quantified and otherwise:

S1E8: Our Quantified / Cyborg Selves http://www.intheory.us/episodes/2015/9/16/episode-8-our-quantifiedcyborg-selves

S3E1 - Self Help http://www.intheory.us/episodes/2016/10/18/s3e1-self-help

Stephanie Pappas, “Why We Make New Year's Resolutions,” LiveScience. December 31, 2013. http://www.livescience.com/42255-history-of-new-years-resolutions.html

Tips from kigs.usa.gov to help you reach your New Year's resolutions: https://kids.usa.gov/exercise-and-eating-healthy/new-years-resolution/index.shtml

Music by Bing Crosby, New Buffalo, and (of course!) Prince.

S3E3 - International Activism

Want to go out and change the world? Great! WE NEED IT. But how to avoid doing more harm than good, especially when working for people from other contexts and cultures? We dig into this tricky question with Dr. Ryan Richard Thoreson: human rights lawyer, LGBTIQ activist, and one of our personal faves. Along the way we encounter white savior Barbie, grapple with the notion of cultural relativism, and each reveal some of our most facepalm-worthy moments abroad. Ryan also catches us up on the state of international LGBTIQ rights and activism, and we share some real talk about the colonialist legacy of the Rhodes Scholarships that Ryan, Noorain, and Maria all held. Theory helped shape how we approach making positive change, so join us for this ep and then get out there and make a difference where you can!

Links to Stuff We Talk About

Theory

Jack Donnelly, “Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly 6.4 (Nov. 1984): 400-419. http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/Class%20Readings/Donnelly/Cultual%20Relativism.pdf

Ryan Richard Thoreson, Transnational LGBT Activism: Working for Sexual Rights Worldwide (University Of Minnesota Press, 2014) https://www.amazon.com/Transnational-LGBT-Activism-Working-Worldwide/dp/0816692742/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Articles

Teju Cole, “The White-Savior Industrial Complex,” The Atlantic. March 22, 2012. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/

Nadia Khomami. "Oxford scholars reject hypocrisy claims amid row over Cecil Rhodes statue." The Guardian. January 13, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/12/cecil-rhodes-scholars-reject-hypocrisy-claims-amid-row-over-oriel-college-statue

Courtney Martin, "The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems," Medium. January 11, 2016. https://medium.com/the-development-set/the-reductive-seduction-of-other-people-s-problems-3c07b307732d#.944npi1zl

Sarah Schulman, “Israel and ‘Pinkwashing,’” The New York Times. November 22, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html

Context

Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Taylor, Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos (University of California Press, 1997) https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Cultural-Filmmaking-Handbook-Documentary-Ethnographic/dp/0520087607 

Zeba Blay, "'White Savior Barbie’ Hilariously Parodies Volunteer Selfies In Africa," The Huffington Post. April 18, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-savior-barbie-hilariously-parodies-volunteer-selfies-in-africa_us_570fd4b5e4b03d8b7b9fc464 and Barbie Savior Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/barbiesavior/ 

"Government and Philanthropic Support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Communities," 2013/2014 Global Resources Report. June 2016. http://www.lgbtfunders.org/files/2013-2014_Global_Resources_Report.pdf

Bonus

Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden”: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478/

Maria's documentary Momentum: Math and Science Teachers in Zambia (2006) on YouTube:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWd1YQCdhEU
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMV8Pxux_5c

Statement from the Rhodes Trust on Cecil Rhodes’ legacy http://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/rhodesandlegacy

Guest Speaker BIO! Ryan Richard Thoreson is the author of the book Transnational LGBT Activism: Working for Sexual Rights Worldwide, and has worked with a number of sexual rights groups including OutRight Action International and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association. He completed his doctorate in Anthropology at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and holds a JD from Yale Law School. He is currently completing a two-year fellowship researching and writing about LGBT children’s rights at Human Rights Watch.  

Music this time by the Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys, and MJ. 

S3E2 - Restorative Justice

Ready to rethink what justice might look like in courts, schools, nations, and even our personal lives? In this episode, we take on restorative justice, the fledgling movement to engage victims and perpetrators (yes, we know, a loaded word!) of all kinds in constructive dialogue. This model offers a powerful alternative to the punitive paradigm of the American incarceration system, and ideally can lead to understanding, growth, and community-building. Human Rights lawyer and all-around badass Beth Compa talks us through some practical applications of RJ, and we get into both its promise and limitations. And along the way, we brush up on theories of justice (haaaayyy John Rawls), connect to themes from past eps, AND use a restorative justice lens to analyze her royal highness Queen Bey’s LEMONADE. Sorry, we ain’t sorry. 

Links to Stuff We Talk About

Theory

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, 1971) https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Theory_of_Justice.html?id=vcVEPc30ut0C

"About Restorative Justice," Centre for Justice & Reconciliation, A Program of Prison Fellowship International. http://restorativejustice.org/restorative-justice/about-restorative-justice/

Articles

Carly Berwick, "Zeroing out Zero Tolerance." The Atlantic. March 17, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/zeroing-out-zero-tolerance/388003/

Paul Tullis, "Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?" New York Times Magazine. January 4, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magazine/can-forgiveness-play-a-role-in-criminal-justice.html.

Melinda D. Anderson, "Will School-Discipline Reform Actually Change Anything?" The Atlantic. September 14, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/will-school-discipline-reform-actually-change-anything/405157/.  

Context

Growing Fairness. Teachers United (2013). http://www.teachersunite.org/documentary

Code of Hammurabi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission: http://www.justice.gov.za/Trc/

Ira Glass, (Narrator). (2016, August 26). "Deep End of the Pool," (No. 595) [Audio podcast] - includes a great story about a private lawyer drafted to become a public defender, and what he learns about that system. This American Life. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/595/deep-end-of-the-pool?act=1

Bonus

Beyonce's Lemonade (2016) http://www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/

Equal Justice Initiative https://eji.org/

In Theory S1E4:  Childhood http://www.intheory.us/episodes/2015/7/1/childhood-those-golden-years-or-are-they (relevant to our conversation on schools)

In Theory S3E1:  Self Help http://www.intheory.us/episodes/2016/10/18/s3e1-self-help (relevant to our conversation on adversarial systems and the fetishization of competition)

Guest Speaker BIO! Most recently a staff attorney at the Promise of Justice Initiative, Beth Compa began her career with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, where she examined the effects of privatization on Georgia’s prison and misdemeanor probation systems. Beth holds a B.A. in History from NYU (2004) and a J.D. from Yale (2011), where she was Editor in Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, a director of the Rebellious Lawyering conference, and a member of the Detention & Human Rights clinic.

S2E3 - Patriotic Party in the U.S.A.!

America? F YEAH-- in this episode we take patriotism back from the haters and talk about our own progressive brown lady versions of loving up on our country. We share personal stories, like the creepy Scandinavian encounter that got Maria defending the red white and blue, and how the Shiite genocide relates to Noorain's patriotism. And OF COURSE we've got to talk about country music's uncanny ability to articulate certain kinds of America love! We also give you the theoretical low-down on why we even have nations, how nationalism gets cultivated, and Benedict Anderson's work on "imagined communities". There's some real talk on how to love our country in the face of islamophobia, racist police brutality, and inequality everywhere, too. Welcome to our own Party in the U.S.A.! 

 

Links to Stuff We Talk About

Theory
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983) http://www.amazon.com/Imagined-Communities-Reflections-Nationalism-Revised/dp/1844670864

Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983) http://www.amazon.com/Nations-Nationalism-Second-Edition-Perspectives/dp/0801475007

Context
More on Benedict Anderson:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/world/asia/benedict-anderson-scholar-who-saw-nations-as-imagined-dies-at-79.html?_r=0    

Articles
Murtaza Hussain, "Pakistan's Shia genocide." Al Jazeera America. November 26, 2012. 
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/11/201211269131968565.html

"Pakistan: Rampant Killings of Shia by Extremists." Human Rights Watch. June 29, 2014. 
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/06/29/pakistan-rampant-killings-shia-extremists

Calvert Jones. "The surprising effects of study abroad." The Washington Post. August 20, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/08/20/the-surprising-effects-of-study-abroad/

Adrienne Varkiani. "The Disturbing Rise Of Islamophobia In America." Think Progress. February 10, 2016. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/10/3748058/chapel-hill-anniversary/

Bonus
Pure shade hijab:  http://theslot.jezebel.com/this-hijab-is-the-purest-shade-youll-ever-see-on-fox-ne-1743239769

Our original interview that got us started in talking about patriotism with the ICONIC Olive Carrolhach:  http://www.intheory.us/episodes/2016/2/24/interview-with-noorain-maria-part-2

Music this week (both sampled and just referenced) from Miley Cyrus "Party in the U.S.A." + Simon and Garfunkel “America” + Jay-Z and Kanye feat. Frank Ocean “Made in America” + Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings “This Land is Your Land” + Craig Morgan, “That’s What I Love About Sunday” + Jason Aldean "Flyover States" + Beyonce's 2009 rendition of “America the Beautiful” at President Obama's first inauguration + Trisha Yearwood "American Girl" + Louis Armstrong, "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" - that's you, America!

S2E2 - Food for Thought

If you are what you eat...what does that make us as Americans today? In this MEGA-EP we're talking about food: how it gets produced, its impact on people, animals, and the environment, and how to make better decisions in the grocery store. We are super excited to feature an in-depth interview with food activist and all-around legend Kate Galassi. Then Maria and Noorain break open the world of assembly-line chickens, ask some questions about food deserts, and do their best to avoid slave shrimp. Hold on to your jicamas everyone, it's time to chow down on another episode of In Theory!

Links to Stuff We Talk About

Theory

On Fordism: Steven Tolliday & Jonathan Zeitlin, The Automobile Industry and its Workers: Between Fordism and Flexibility (New York: St.Martin's Press, 1987) http://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Empire-Americas-Advance-Twentieth-Century/dp/0674022343

Context

Lisa Ling takes us inside a slaughterhouse: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Inside-a-Slaughterhouse-Video
The US Department of Agriculture’s official definition of food deserts: http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts     

Articles

Roberto A. Ferdman, “The key difference between what poor people and everyone else eat.” The Washington Post. September 17, 2015.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/17/the-depressing-difference-in-what-poor-people-and-everyone-else-eats/?tid=a_inl

Becky Krystal, “How to find shrimp that’s not produced by slave labor in Thailand.” The Washington Post. December 16, 2015.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2015/12/16/how-to-find-shrimp-thats-not-produced-by-slave-labor-in-thailand

Margie Mason, Robin McDowell, Martha Mendoza, and Esther Htusan,“ Global supermarkets selling shrimp peeled by slaves.” The Associated Press. December 14, 2015. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8f64fb25931242a985bc30e3f5a9a0b2/ap-global-supermarkets-selling-shrimp-peeled-slaves  

Margot Sanger-Katz, “Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn’t Mean They’ll Buy It.” The New York Times. May 8, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-easy-access-to-healthy-food-doesnt-mean-theyll-buy-it.html

Bonus

BIO! The wonderful Kate Galassi started her career in food working on an organic produce farm in southern New Hampshire. She’s worked for a dozen small farms and food manufacturers, most of them involved with the New York City Greenmarket. She first trained as a produce buyer at The Spotted Pig and The Breslin. In 2013 she co-founded Quinciple, a home delivery service for curated farmers’ market boxes. She is now the New York Project Head for Natoora, a London based fruit and veg supplier committed to upending the traditional distribution model by working directly with farms of all sizes.

Check out artist Mishka Henner’s amazing/insane/gorgeous/horrifying aerial photos of the toxic runoff from American feedlots:
http://www.businessinsider.com/mishka-henners-photos-of-american-feedlots-2014-8

Music this week from Judy Collins, the Presidents of the United States of America, Weird Al, and our girl Mariah. Special thanks to Beth Pearson for being a brain trust on this week's ep!

Interview with Noorain & Maria: Part 2

Here it is, the exciting second half of our interview! Just one week away from the official start of S2...

Missed us? We’re (almost) back! In the weeks leading up to Season 2 we’re releasing this two-part interview with your co-hosts…and introducing our fab new team member Olive! Listen in for the inside scoop on how Maria and Noorain met, how the podcast came about, and reflections on growing up different in “flyover states.” (Olive’s family raised POT BELLIED PIGS!) We’re putting theory aside for the moment and just hanging out – come join! You know we won’t be able to resist nerding out, high fiving, and getting sentimental about our big-picture hopes for the future. 

Interludes in Part 2 from the Gorillaz and the Roots.

Interview with Noorain & Maria: Part 1

Missed us? We’re (almost) back! In the weeks leading up to Season 2 we’re releasing this two-part interview with your co-hosts…and introducing our fab new team member Olive! Listen in for the inside scoop on how Maria and Noorain met, how the podcast came about, and reflections on growing up different in “flyover states.” (Olive’s family raised POT BELLIED PIGS!) We’re putting theory aside for the moment and just hanging out – come join! You know we won’t be able to resist nerding out, high fiving, and getting sentimental about our big-picture hopes for the future. 

Interludes in Part 1 from Sylvan Esso and Little Dragon.

Episode 4: Childhood: those golden years (or are they?)

Ahhh childhood-- those innocent years when kids use their imaginations, play outside, and have experiences that will shape them for life. Timeless, right? Except not. These understandings of childhood are pretty recent and often assume a white, middle-class, heteronormative child. We talk about where these ideas come from and some of the disturbing results when a kid doesn't conform to popular assumptions about what children "should" be like. Get ready to blow the lid off of childhood!

Links to Stuff We Talk About

Theory

Robin Bernstein. Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights. NYU Press (2011). http://nyupress.org/books/9780814787083/.

Sigmund Freud. "The Development of Sexual Function." An Outline of Psychoanalysis. (1940). http://www.cla.csulb.edu/departments/hdev/facultyinfo/documents/freud_developmentofsexualfunction.pdf. 

Viviana A. Zelizer. Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children. Princeton University Press (1994). http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5452.html.

Context

Hugh Cunningham, “Histories of Childhood,” in The American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (October 1998): 1195–1208. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2651207.

Ezra Jack Keats. The Snowy Day. Viking Books for Young Readers (1996). http://www.amazon.com/The-Snowy-Day-Board-Book/dp/0670867330.

Turnette Powell. "Time Out." In Episode 538: "Is This Working?" This American Life. October 17, 2014.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/538/is-this-working.

Articles

Brit Bennett. "Addy Walker, American Girl." The Paris Review. May 28, 2015. http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/05/28/addy-walker-american-girl/.

Linda Geddes. "Does sharing photos of your children on Facebook put them at risk?" The Guardian. September 21, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/21/children-privacy-online-facebook-photos.

Anna Holmes. "White Until Proven Black: Imagining Race in Hunger Games" The New Yorker. March 30, 2012. http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-until-proven-black-imagining-race-in-hunger-games.

"Black Preschoolers Far More Likely To Be Suspended." NPR.org. March 21, 2014. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/21/292456211/black-preschoolers-far-more-likely-to-be-suspended.

Bonus

More on the Joker's Scar stories in The Dark Knight film (2008) here and here. 

Musical interludes from Taylor Swift and the Jackson Five.
 

Episode 1: Yup, there's a Military-Entertainment Complex...

We kick off In Theory by diving into the Military-Entertainment Complex. In this episode, we figure out how ISIS co-opted one of the most successful video games of all time and that gets us to Top Gun, Katniss Everdeen, and theories of nationhood...

Links to stuff we talk about

Theory

Stephen Stockwell and Adam Muir, “The Military-Entertainment Complex: A New Facet of Information Warfare” The Fibreculture Journal, Vol. 1 (2003). Web. URL: http://one.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-004-the-military-entertainment-complex-a-new-facet-of-information-warfare

Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture. New York University Press, 2006. Print.

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, 2006.

Articles (selection)

On ISIS’s use of gaming in its recruitment video:

Paul Tassi, “ISIS Uses 'GTA 5' In New Teen Recruitment Video,” Forbes.com. September 20, 2014. Web. URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/09/20/isis-uses-gta-5-in-new-teen-recruitment-video/

Jay Caspian Kang, “ISIS’ Call of Duty,” The New Yorker Online. September 18, 2014. Web. URL: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/isis-video-game

Ted Thornhill, “Isis use top video game Grand Theft Auto 5 to recruit children and radicalise the vulnerable,” Daily Mail Online. 22 September 2014. Web. URL: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2765414/Isis-use-video-game-Grand-Theft-Auto-5-recruit-children-radicalise-vulnerable.html#ixzz3PyVyM8wv

On Hunger Games Advertising & Responses:

Brooks Barnes, “How ‘Hunger Games’ Built Up Must-See Fever,” NY Times Online. March 18, 2012. Web. URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/business/media/how-hunger-games-built-up-must-see-fever.html

Jess Denham, "Mockingjay Part 1 pulled from Thai cinemas after students flash three-finger Hunger Games salute at country's prime minister," The Independent Online. November 20, 2014. Web. URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/mockingjay-part-1-pulled-from-thai-cinemas-after-students-flash-threefinger-hunger-games-salute-at-countrys-prime-minister-9873062.html