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Caitlin and Trent talk with Maureen Kosse, a linguist from Colorado who researches the semiotics of alt-right and far-right discourse. We talk about how everything is cuck—the right-wing cannot get over their insecurities about masculinity, sexual control of women, and people of color, and their visceral horror of people
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Trent and Caitlin talk to Layla al-Sheikh, who provides the history and context of the establishment of the Israeli state on Palestinian land, the many displacements and violent ethnic cleansings of the last century in that region, and the evolving relationships of the surrounding nations with the United States. Half
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Trent and Caitlin talk to…each other??? Caitlin presents the reasoning behind her recent Liberal Currents essay on the rhetorical strategies used by pundits and politicians when they don’t want to appear unsympathetic to trans people but won’t commit to supporting the full range of human and civil
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Caitlin and Trent join Associate Professor Victor Ray to talk about DEI. What is meant by DEI depends on who is using it and what they’re trying to get done. Victor explains the history of DEI as a set of legal standards that insulated companies from accusations of discrimination,
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Trent and Caitlin talk to Liberal Currents author Vikas Valiveti about the current state of scientific consensus on how trans girls and women compete in sports. What are the correct ways to measure athleticism? When does it actually matter? How should we think about fairness and the right to participate?
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Caitlin and Trent talk to Clay Jackson, a litigator from Dallas, Texas. Clay describes the disconcerting experience of having secret police show up to his door the same day he gave boilerplate know-your-rights information to some neighbors who were concerned about being targeted by ICE. They discuss the rapidly escalating
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Trent and Caitlin speak with cognitive scientist, linguist, and AI researcher Hagen Blix about his book, co-authored with Ingeborg Glimmer, called Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares. What do those selling AI-branded products have to gain from telling everybody that AI could take over the world? What
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Trent and Caitlin talk with journalist Evan Urquhart about the ways trans rights get discussed in mainstream media, including the notion that supporting trans people’s full participation in society and protecting their right to bodily autonomy represents a viewpoint that is out of touch, too extreme, or endangers the
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Trent and Caitlin talk with Dr. Aris Clemons, an Assistant Professor in Linguistics, about the various slanders and misapprehensions that plague her field of study. We discuss language ideologies, the illusion of objectivity, the futility of being “apolitical” in a political institution, ethnography and lived experience, “other ways of knowing,
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Trent and Caitlin talk with Adam Gurri, founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal Currents, about his take that the most accurate way to view the Trump presidency is as an example of “personalism.” What is personalism? What are other examples of personalist systems? What can a nation do once a personalist
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Caitlin and Trent ask Alan Elrod, President and CEO of the Pulaski Institution, about what nationalism is and what kinds of nationalism are at play today. We discuss how white nationalist and Christian nationalist proponents justify it, and how U.S. progressives can participate in a national identity that celebrates
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Trent and Caitlin ask podcaster and philosopher Toby Buckle about the claim that heroic masculinity will save us. Do all men want to be heroes? Is someone stopping them? Does asking boys and men to be considerate squash their inherent manly essence? The hosts and their expert guest dig into