Best David Palumbo Liu Podcasts (2025)

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Policing Black Lives: Abolition, not Reform, and on a Transnational Scale—A Conversation with Robyn Maynard 42:36

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1d ago42:36

42:36

In 2017, activist-scholar Robyn Maynard published her groundbreaking study, Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. Today, I have the privilege of talking with her about the second edition of this study, which has just been published by Duke University Press. Robyn tells us what has happened since 2017 that compe…

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Discussing the Sudanese Solidarity Collective with Nisrin Elamin: Supporting Mutual Aid & Resistance Organizations 55:42

4d ago55:42

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Today I talk with Professor Nisrin Elamin about the situation in Sudan, where we find both a war between rival factions and these same factions continuing counter-revolutionary campaign against pro-democracy forces. We discuss how regional actors such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have contributed to the repression of democracy, and …

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By-passing “Tradition,” Governmental Norms, and Global North Saviourism: Talking with Zachariah Mampilly About Rural Protest in Africa 47:34

11d ago47:34

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How have young people in rural areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo invented new forms of radicalism in response to the impact of new flows of foreign investment and the inability of normal national and international politics to serve their needs and interests? Zachariah Mampilly explains how rural and urban spaces have seen a complex transit …

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South Bay Youth Changemakers: Going Beyond the Stereotype of “Asian American” to Realize a Broad Sense of Community and Activism in Silicon Valley 47:24

14d ago47:24

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Today I have the pleasure of talking with Supriya Khandelwal and Koa Tran, two members of the South Bay Youth Changemakers, and one of its co-directors, Amulya Mandava. This Asian American organization, located at the heart of Silicon Valley, seeks to both challenge and expand the label, Asian American. The SBYC directs its energy into projects tha…

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Breaking Free from the First Amendment to Make Fearless Speech and Counterpublics: A Conversation with Mary Anne Franks 51:04

18d ago51:04

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Today I have the honor and the pleasure of speaking with legal scholar Mary Anne Franks, about her book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment. As the title of the book indicates, this is a fearless and iconoclastic critique of the ways that the First Amendment has been interpreted and mobilized in ways that protect and extend rac…

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The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters: A Conversation with Christine Webb 50:10

22d ago50:10

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Today I am delighted to speak with primatologist Christine Webb about her new book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters. The title of the book itself is a concise and precise description of its two constituent halves. First, Webb tells us how science itself, from premodern times onward, has operated with an assumpt…

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The Terrible Connections between Detention and Prisons, and Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition: A Conversation with Silky Shah. 40:10

25d ago40:10

40:10

Today I have the honor of speaking with longtime activist Silky Shah, Executive Director of the Detention Watch Network, about her new, and extremely important book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition. Shah provides a critical discussion about the intersection between detention, the prison industrial complex, and anti-immigrant ra…

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The Politics and Power of Palestinian Storytelling—A Proud History and A Vivid Present 54:14

1M ago54:14

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Today I have the real pleasure of speaking with Maytha Alhassen and Halah Ahmad, two prominent feminist activists, writers, and scholars deeply committed to exploring the connections between the Arabic language, storytelling, and political agency, from the historical past to the present. We talk about the continuity of storytelling forms and techni…

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Maya Salameh: How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave and A New Grammar of Diaspora 38:30

1M ago38:30

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Today I talk with poet Maya Salameh about her poetry collection, How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave, which won the prestigious Etal Adnan Poetry Prize in 2022. The judges remarked, “Maya Salameh’s poetry stood out for its inventiveness in cracking the code of life ‘between system and culture'…The turns and swerves the poems make are astonish…

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The Genocide in Gaza--What International Law Demands of Israel and Third States: A Discussion with Ardi Imseis and Chris Gunness 50:58

1M ago50:58

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Today I am extremely grateful to Ardi Imseis and Chris Gunness for joining me for an urgent discussion of Israel’s accelerated genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. These eminent international human rights scholars discuss Israel’s longstanding violations of international law and the complicity of the US. We also discuss at lengt…

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Great Uehling on Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea, and Why Rights are Needed, Not Just Recognition 32:19

2M ago32:19

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Today I have the pleasure of speaking with cultural anthropologist Greta YOU-LING about her new book, Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom, a fascinating story about an indigenous group in Crimea fighting for its rights. Uehling tells us of the complex history of the Crimean Tatars, a Sunni Muslim group who …

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Talking with Karen Hao About Empire of AI and the Colonizing Logic Behind AI 43:35

2M ago43:35

43:35

In this episode of Speaking Out of Place, investigative journalist Karen Hao explains that OpenAI is anything but “open”—very early on, it left behind that marketing tag to become increasingly closed and elitist. Her massive study, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI had a rather different subtitle in its UK edition: “Inside …

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Arabic Literature in the Time of Genocide: A Conversation with Huda Fakhreddine 45:38

2M ago45:38

45:38

Today I talk with Huda Fakhreddine, writer, translator, and scholar of Arabic literature. Among the many topics we touch upon are the challenges of teaching Arabic literature, especially Palestinian literature, in a time of genocide, when universities, professional organizations, and political groups militate against any honest discussion of these …

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The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College: A Conversation with Danica Savonick 42:46

2M ago42:46

42:46

Today it’s my honor to speak with Danica Savonick about her marvelous book entitled Open Admissions: The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College. This is a riveting and deeply inspiring story of how each of these luminaries in the fields of literature and feminism found their…

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Neoliberals meet MAGA: A Conversation with Quinn Slobodian on Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right 52:11

2M ago52:11

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Today I'm delighted to talk with Quinn Slobodian about his new book, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right. We take a deep dive into the genesis of a weird and powerful merging of two seemingly different groups the Far Right and neoliberals. Slobodian writes, “as repellent as their politics may be these radical think…

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Displaced in Gaza: Stories from the Gaza Genocide--A Conversation with Yousef Aljamal 31:12

2M ago31:12

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Today we are deeply honored and privileged to speak with journalist-activist Yousef Aljamal, one of the editors of a remarkable, gripping, and altogether inspiring collection, Displaced in Gaza: Stories from the Gaza Genocide, 27 stories written by Palestinians in Gaza. We talk about the conception behind the book, and concentrate on certain keywor…

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On the Significance of US Sanctions on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese: Three Former UN Special Rapporteurs Weigh In 43:01

3M ago43:01

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Recently, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, saying, “The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur.” Today we are joine…

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Every Monument Will Fall: Talking with Dan Hicks About the Present’s Responsibility to Itself 55:51

3M ago55:51

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How do not only monuments, but also the very idea of monumentality, serve to mystify and perpetuate beliefs that maintain social orders that deserve to be strenuously re-evaluated? Archaeologist and anthropologist Dan Hicks traces the development of a particularly virulent strain of monument-worship, that which emerges out of what he calls “militar…

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Fighting Back Against ICE: Grupo Auto Defensa’s Courage and Love 54:47

3M ago54:47

54:47

Today we speak with Daniela Navin and Jeanette de La Riva, two members of Grupo Auto Defensa, a community organization based in Pasadena CA which has come about in response to attacks by ICE which have violently disrupted everyday life and led people to form new relations of mutual support and care. We hear their stories of how Trump lieutenant Ste…

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From Indefensible Spaces, Police, and the Struggle for Housing, to the Case of Abolitionist Housing: A Conversation with Rahim Kurwa 43:14

3M ago43:14

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Today I talk with Rahim Kurwa about a powerful study of housing rights and police repression in Southern California. Tapping into a vast historical archive as well as oral histories with residents of Antelope Valley, California, Rahim traces the complex relationship between this region and the City of Los Angeles. Using David Harvey’s famous notion…

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The Final Phases of Genocide: What Global Civil Society Must Do. A Conversation with International Jurists Lara Elborno, Penny Green & Richard Falk 40:06

3M ago40:06

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On May 15, international legal experts Lara Elborno, Richard Falk, and Penny Green joined me to discuss the work of the Gaza Tribunal, a group devoted to creating an archive of facts and a set of documents and arguments to help international civil society fight against the genocide in Gaza and the Zionist regime that, along with the United States, …

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What’s Left?—Addressing the Disaster of Capitalism with Malcolm Harris 40:10

3M ago40:10

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Today we welcome Malcolm Harris back to the show. Previously he talked with us about his mammoth study, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. This time we are looking not at a history of Capitalism and the World, but our possible futures under the threat of catastrophic climate change. We talk about not only failed policies…

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Abolishing Silicon Valley, Building the Commons--A Different Way to Spend Your Life: A Conversation with Wendy Liu 48:41

3M ago48:41

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Ever since its publication, Abolish Silicon Valley—How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism has proven to be more urgent and insightful. Today I talk with author Wendy Liu about how developments like AI and LLM, further erosions of intellectual property, and increased invasions of privacy make the case for abolishing Silicon Valley even more impo…

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War-Making as Worldmaking: A Discussion with Samar Al-Bulushi on Kenya and the Workings of Blackness, Place, and International Politics 39:46

3M ago39:46

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Today we talk with Samar Al-Bulushi about her rich and complex work on Kenya, which, across multiple scales of time and place, discovers how the War on Terror both tapped into colonial ideologies of the past and present-day political calculations at the intersection of the local and global. We find out how the War has taken many different forms tha…

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ICE’s “Photo-Op” Military Attack on MacArthur Park and Community Pushback: Talking with Journalist Mel Buer 23:18

4M ago23:18

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Last week, over 100 agents from nine federal agencies stormed a bucolic public park in Los Angeles, claiming it was a hotbed of terrorism and lawlessness. In fact, heavily armed soldiers in camouflage found a group of young children attending a summer camp. This was a show of force meant to intimidate, shock, and awe, but just like Trump’s military…

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Bombs Will Never Liberate Iran: Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian in Conversation 1:03:34

4M ago1:03:34

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Today on Speaking Out of Place we have a special episode on Israeli attacks on Iran that resulted in 12 days of bombings and culminated with the US dropping bunker bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting…

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Walking with the Below: Zapatistas, Palestinians, and Panthers—A Conversation with Linda Quiquivix 49:42

4M ago49:42

49:42

On today’s episode I talk with geographer, artist, photographer, and activist Linda Quiquivix about her new book: Palestine 1492: A Report Back. Combining her work learning and working alongside the Zapatistas and Palestinians, and incorporating anti-fascist politics from the Black Panthers, Quiquivix reaches back to the 15th century to see the beg…

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What Was Behind Zohran Mamdani’s Upset Victory and What Does This Tell Us About American Politics Today?: A Conversation with Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood 32:22

4M ago32:22

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In today’s episode we speak with Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood about Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory in the recent primary for in New York mayor’s race. We first learn more about this 33-year-old socialist, and remarkable campaign he and his team put together to defeat ultimate political insider and ex-governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. We pro…

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Disspelling the Myths and Correcting the Record About Haitian Migrants: A Conversation with Human Rights Activists Gabrielle Apollon and Pooja Bhatia 43:20

4M ago43:20

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Today I speak with Gabrielle Apollon and Pooja Bhatia about the histories behind the persecution of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and beyond. Targeted as exemplary “bad people” by demagogue Donald Trump, the stories of both the town and the people of Springfield are brought forward by Pooja Bhatia, who lived both in Haiti and as a journali…

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“The Best Social Movements and the Worst Governments”: A Conversation on American Politics with Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood 42:24

4M ago42:24

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Today on Speaking Out of Place I am joined by two of my favorite guests—Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood. As always, this is a free-wheeling, unscripted conversation amongst friends and political allies. This time we talk about the New York City mayor’s race, Elon Musk and DOGE, the unbridled wave of greed we see on display amongst the oligarchy,…

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Hunger Striking for Palestine: Three Organizers Share Stories and Strategies 59:16

5M ago59:16

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The academic year has just ended, but student activists for Palestinian liberation are already making plans for next year. On today’s show I talk with organizers from the University of Oregon (Cole Herman), from CUNY Graduate Center (Flora deTournay), and from Stanford (Iman Deriche) about this past year’s hunger strike campaigns—we learn of concer…

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World-Making, Life-Giving, and Indigenous Internationalism: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and the Theory of Water 43:14

5M ago43:14

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Today on Speaking Out of Place I talk with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson about her new book, Theory of Water. Theory of Water is a rich, complex, and deeply personal reflection on world-making and life-giving processes best captured in the fluidity of water as it circulates through all our bodies and the planet. It is a largely collective project tha…

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The Journey Toward Everything for Everyone: A Conversation with M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi 43:59

5M ago43:59

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Today I talk with M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi about their dazzling and challenging book, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052 to 2072. They imagine a world haunted by genocide, ecocide, disease, fascism, and viral capitalism, but rather than writing a dystopian novel, O’Brien and Abdelhadi create a complex mos…

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‘Genius’ Entrepreneurs, Technofacists, and Phobic Misogynists: A Conversation with Becca Lewis 35:22

5M ago35:22

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Worries about the so-called “pussification of Silicon Valley” are not at all new. Becca Lewis’ work reaches far back in American history to trace the nexus of gender, technology, and entrepreneurship, such that what we find today seems a foregone conclusion. In today’s wide-ranging discussion we talk about the central figure in this history—George …

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The Gaza Tribunal: Creating an Archive Against Genocide 50:24

6M ago50:24

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This episode of Speaking Out of Place is being recorded on May 15, 2025, the 77th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, which began the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land. We talk with Lara Elborno, Richard Falk, and Penny Green, three members of the Gaza Tribunal, which is set to convene in Saravejo in a few days. This will set in m…

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Constitutional Collapse and the Possibilities of a New Democracy: A Conversation with Aziz Rana 42:39

6M ago42:39

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In one of the most timely and urgent shows we have ever done, today I speak with law scholar Aziz Rana about his brilliant and bracing article recently published in New Left Review, “Constitutional Collapse.” We talk about how the Trump administration and its enablers are shredding a liberal “compact” which was established in in the 1930s through t…

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“Truth is Never Finished”: The Time of Palestine in Arabic--A Conversation with Fady Joudah 59:10

7M ago59:10

59:10

Today I have the honor and the pleasure to speak once again with celebrated poet and physician, Fady Joudah. The last time Fady was on the podcast was in November, 2023, shortly after the outbreak of war in Gaza. At that point we spoke about the impossibility of, even then, quantifying the genocide. Today we focus on the politics of language—in par…

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The 2025 National Day of Action: Talking with the Coalition for Action in Higher Education about "the World We Live in and the World We Want." 46:21

7M ago46:21

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Today we talk with members of the organizing collective of the Coalition for Action in Higher Education, or CAHE, about their second National Day of Action, taking place on Thursday, April 17. The Day of Action is a call for free higher education in every meaning of that term. CAHE calls for “the elimination of all existing student debt, making all…

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A Conversation with Nasser Abourahme on The Time Beneath the Concrete: Palestine between Camp and Colony: The Struggle Over Historical Time 46:13

7M ago46:13

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Today I speak with Nasser Abourahme about his new book, The Time Beneath the Concrete: Palestine between Camp and Colony. Drawing on a wealth of diverse materials including, but not limited to, state documents, political philosophy, literature, and historical archives, The Time Beneath the Concrete focuses on the “struggle over historical time itse…

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The Radical Healing of Organized Remembering: Jesse Hagopian on Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education 53:09

7M ago53:09

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Today I have the great honor of speaking with activist and educator Jesse Hagopian about his new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education. We talk about the assault on public education that takes the form of criminalizing the truth itself. We note both the powerful corporate forces behind this movement and what they are afraid of, a…

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Thinking Through the Archipelago of Resettlement and the New Southern Question with Evyn Le Espiritu Gandhi 42:00

8M ago42:00

42:00

In today’s show, I speak with Evyn Le Espiritu Gandhi about two pathbreaking studies which create new ways of thinking about populations bound by complex and contradictory notions of loyalty and psychological investment. Based on meticulous archival research and oral histories amongst disparate populations in South Vietnam, Guam, and Israel-Palesti…

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The Hidden Humans Behind Artificial Intelligence, and the Sociopathology of Elon Musk: A Conversation with Sarah T. Roberts 59:22

8M ago59:22

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Today on Speaking Out of Place I talk with Sarah T Roberts about the hidden humans behind Artificial Intelligence, which is reliant on executives and business managers to direct AI to promote their brand and low-level, out-sourced, and poorly paid content managers to slog through masses of images, words, and data before they get fed into the machin…

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A Conversation with Laila Lalami on The Dream Hotel: dreaming beyond the algorithmic state 41:35

8M ago41:35

41:35

Today on Speaking Out of Place I talk with award-winning novelist Laila Lalami about her new novel, The Dream Hotel. What happens when the state, with the pretext of protecting public safety, can detain indefinitely certain individuals whose dreams seem to indicate they may be capable of committing a crime? Set in a precarious world where sleep-enh…

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Rushing to the Right: A Conversation with Adrian Daub on the Significance of the Recent Elections in Germany 39:11

8M ago39:11

39:11

Today I have the pleasure of talking with Professor Adrian Daub about the recent elections in Germany, where we saw a surge in votes for the Far Right AfD party, which is now the second-most powerful party in the country. We discuss the significance of this rise in popularity, and the ways the elections reveal a number of shifts in German politics,…

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“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”: The Deadly Consequences of the Liberal Conscience. A Conversation with Omar El Akkad 35:47

8M ago35:47

35:47

Today on Speaking Out of Place I talk with Omar El Akkad about his new book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. The title of the book comes from a tweet he posted three weeks after the bombardment of Gaza began. Since then, the tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times. Horrified at what has transpired since that moment, O…

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The Enduring Power of Palestinian Transnational Identity and Activism: A Discussion with Maha Nasser and Karam Dana 1:05:53

9M ago1:05:53

1:05:53

Today on Speaking Out of Place I am delighted to have Professors Maha Nasser and Karam Dana in conversation. Dr. Nasser is author of Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World; Professor Dana’s new book is entitled, To Stand with Palestine: Transnational Resistance and Political Evolution in the United States. Together, these…

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Tao Leigh Goffe on Poetics, Poeisis, and Un-making the Climate Crisis 37:44

9M ago37:44

37:44

Today I talk with Tao Leigh Goffe about her new, magisterial Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis. Spanning many fields and disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, the humanities and the arts, Professor Goffe weaves together an historically rich and geographically complex picture of how ca…

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We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition—A Conversation with Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson 1:03:49

9M ago1:03:49

1:03:49

Today I am delighted to have Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson on Speaking Out of Place to discuss their new book, We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. We talk about what inspired them to commission a wide range of amazing activists, artists, scholars and organizers to write whatever came to their minds about the topic of parenting an…

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Against “Jewish Innocence”: A Conversation with Peter Beinart on his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. 38:05

9M ago38:05

38:05

Today on Speaking Out of Place we sit down with Peter Beinart to discuss his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. We ask what led him to write this intense, and intensely provocative book, which declares that Jews “need a new story” other than the current one, in which, Beinart argues, Jews see themselves as innocent with regard to…

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Building Worlds Beyond Modernity’s Double Fracture: A Discussion with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand 57:39

9M ago57:39

57:39

Today on Speaking Out of Place I am delighted to be in conversation with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand. We start with a discussion of what Ferdinand calls the “double fracture”—the environmental division of humans from their connection to the biosphere, and the colonial division instantiated by white supremacism and patriarchy. He insists tha…