Eighty years on, Lin Poyer's book War at the Margins: Indigenous Experiences in World War II(U Hawaii Press, 2022) offers a global and comparative view of the impact of World War II on Indigenous societies. Indigenous peoples, Poyer shows, had a distinct experience of WWII, as those on the margins of Allied and Axis empires and nation-states were drawn in as soldiers, scouts, guides, laborers, and victims. Using historical and ethnographic sources, Poyer examines how Indigenous communities emerged from the trauma of the wartime era with social forms and cultural ideas that laid the foundations for their twenty-first-century emergence as players on the world’s political stage.
Lin Poyer is a cultural anthropologist and professor emerita at the University of Wyoming.
Holger Droessler is an Assistant Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His research focuses on the intersection of empire and labor in the Pacific.
Emily Bazelon talks with author Peter Singer about his updated and re-released book, Animal Liberation Now. The classic text has been an integral part of the animal rights movement since its publication in 1975. They discuss what we’ve learned about animals in the last several decades, including the intelligence of animals, why people should become vegan to help with climate change, and a passage in the Bible we’ve gotten very, very wrong.
Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Police killings of Black men have their own grim, but established, rituals in American society. But what happens to those who survive police violence? On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by Leon Ford, who survived being shot multiple times by Pittsburgh police more than a decade ago. In his new memoir An Unspeakable Hope, Ford candidly describes his legal, physical, and mental health challenges, and why he eventually dedicated himself to working with police, including reaching out to the man who shot him. He also discusses The Hear Foundation—his non-profit group that builds partnerships between the community and police—and his complicated views of politics, gun violence, and activism.
Today’s book is: The Lost Journals of Sacajewea(Milkweed Editions, 2023), by Debra Magpie Earling, which is a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea. Among the most memorialized women in American history, Sacajewea served as interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery.
In this visionary novel, acclaimed Indigenous author Debra Magpie Earling brings this mythologized figure vividly to life, casting unsparing light on the men who brutalized her and recentering Sacajewea as the arbiter of her own history. Raised among the Lemhi Shoshone, in this telling the young Sacajewea is bright and bold, growing strong from the hard work of “learning all ways to survive”: gathering berries, water, roots, and wood; butchering buffalo, antelope, and deer; catching salmon and snaring rabbits; weaving baskets and listening to the stories of her elders. When her village is raided and her beloved Appe and Bia are killed, Sacajewea is kidnapped and then gambled away to Charbonneau, a French Canadian trapper. Heavy with grief, Sacajewea learns how to survive at the edge of a strange new world teeming with fur trappers and traders. When Lewis and Clark’s expedition party arrives, Sacajewea knows she must cross a vast and brutal terrain with her newborn son, the white man who owns her, and a company of men who wish to conquer and commodify the world she loves. Written in lyrical, dreamlike prose, The Lost Journals of Sacajewea is an astonishing work of art and a powerful tale of perseverance—the Indigenous woman’s story that hasn’t been told.
Keywords from today’s episode include: Sacajewea, Agai River, Appe, Bia, Charbonneau, Lewis and Clark, The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Otter Woman, Pop Pank, MMIW, Lemhi Shoshone, Shoshone, Mandan, Hidasta.
Today’s guest is: Debra Magpie Earling, who is the author of The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. An earlier version of The Lost Journals of Sacajewea was written in verse and produced as an artist book during the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. She has received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She retired from the University of Montana where she was named professor emeritus in 2021. She is Bitterroot Salish.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a freelance book editor. She has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.
Welcome to the Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Missed any of the 150+ Academic Life episodes? You can find them all archived here. And check back soon: we’re in the studio preparing more episodes for your academic journey—and beyond!
In celebration of Pride month, we’re bringing you some extra episodes of the Outward podcast. This week, host Christina Cauterucci talks to two people who recently visited every lesbian bar in the United States: Krista Burton, author of the newly published book Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America, and Naomi Gordon-Loebl, a writer and sommelier. They discuss the purpose of lesbian bars, trends in dyke-bar decor, and whether lesbian bars are still sexy.
Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers talk about the SEC lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. Then they are joined by Slate’s own Henry Grabar for a chat about his new book, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.
In the plus segment: More conversation with Henry Grabar
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On this week’s episode of The Waves, we talk about living a life alone, but without loneliness. Slate senior editor Rebecca Onion talks with author Amy Key about her new book, Arrangements in Blue, and how Key has found fulfillment without romantic love.
In Slate Plus: The influence of Joni Mitchell’s album, Blue.
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery.
Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on How To!. Sign up now at slate.com/thewavesplus to help support our work.
This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy’s and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.
In celebration of Pride month, we’re bringing you some extra episodes of the Outward podcast. This week, host Bryan Lowder talks to Slate contributor John Culhane about his new book More Than Marriage: Forming Families After Marriage Equality. In the book, Culhane explores legal arrangements other than marriage that could protect people’s relationships and finances. While we might once have decried these options as consolation prizes, contracts such as designated beneficiary agreements offer exciting possibilities for queer and other nontraditional families.
We'd love to hear about your Pride plans in this challenging year. Please send a voice memo, along with feedback, topic ideas, and advice questions to outwardpodcast@slate.com.
On the centenary of her birth another chance to hear much-loved author Judith Kerr discussing her memorable young adults' novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit with Harriett Gilbert and readers around the world.
Set during the Second World War, this semi-autobiographical novel traces the story of a young Jewish girl and her family who flee Berlin just as the Nazis come to power. The journey of a family splintered by conflict, driven by fear and eventually rewarded with reunion is seen through the eyes of the nine-year-old Anna.
Judith Kerr’s novel, by turns heart-lifting and heart-rending has stood the test of time and continues to be enjoyed by readers of all ages to this day.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Mom and Dad are Fighting. Sign up now at slate.com/momanddadplus to help support our work.
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Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson and Maura Currie.
This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy’s and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.
