Episode 941: Monumentality

Diversion, denial, sanitation: On the ideology of public memorials.

Art historian Harriet Senie examines the ways American memorials shape ideology - from the utilization of form and space to create a dominant "civic religion," to the depoliticization of history and individualization of grief found in the contemporary memorial-cemetery paradigm - and calls for the building of memorials beyond victimhood, and towards contemplation.

What Trump doesn't understand about trade, jobs and the global economy.

Economist Dean Baker debunks President Trump's claims about US jobs and trade deals - from his framing of who wins and who loses in trade with China and Mexico, to the other, less visible economic policies harming US workers, like drug patent protectionism - and wonders if Trump might be the one to convince the American public that wealth doesn't buy political insight.

A history of American expertise on the Middle East, from T.E. Lawrence to Breitbart.

Historian Osamah F. Khalil explores decades of shifting US foreign policy in the Middle East through the battle within the US for control of Middle East expertise - from the Cold War rise of the national security establishment, to the contemporary militarization of knowledge as government-aligned think tanks challenge academia for the lens through which we view the region.

Osamah is author of America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State from Harvard University Press.

Interview transcript via Antidote Zine

How neuroscience is shaping our understanding of crime and punishment.

Journalist Kevin Davis discusses the impact of neuroscience in the criminal justice system, as new knowledge of the brain function and developement starts to transform how the law deals with mental illness and recidivism in the era of mass incarceration, and society at large reconsiders assumptions about free will, guilt and responsibility.

On silver linings, and other cloud-based Christian marketing strategies.

In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen looks up to his inspiration, beyond the Christian silver-lining-meteorological paradigm, past the turd-burden of Hillary friends on Facebook, to the good people making resistance out of lemons in the existential fight against folly, stupidity and Creamsicle-flavored fascism.