In 2009, a year after falling short in the election, former VP candidate Sarah Palin visited with Oprah to mend some bridges — and sell some books. It was a moment when Palin was trying to shift her image, but she’d already sowed the seeds for much of our modern politics.
Special guest: Nicole Hemmer of Columbia, co-host of This Day In Esoteric Political History and author of “Messenger of the Right” and the forthcoming “Partisans.”
Eve Ng’s new book Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis(Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), examines the phenomenon of "cancel culture" from a critical media studies perspective, as both cancel practices (what people and institutional actors do) and cancel discourses (commentary about cancelling). Ng traces multiple lines of origins for cancel practices and discourses, in the domains of Black communicative practices (e.g. cancelling relationship to "dissing"), celebrity and fan cultures, consumer culture (especially around consumer nationalist cancellings), and national politics (U.S. conservative criticisms of cancelling, and nationalist cancelling events in mainland China). Her analysis moves beyond popular press accounts about the latest targets of cancelling or familiar free speech debates, and underscores the different configurations of power associated with “cancel culture” in specific cultural and political contexts.
Louisa Hann recently attained a PhD in English and American studies from the University of Manchester, specialising in the political economy of HIV/AIDS theatres. She has published work on the memorialisation of HIV/AIDS on the contemporary stage and the use of documentary theatre as a neoliberal harm reduction tool. She is currently working on a monograph based on her doctoral thesis. You can get in touch with her at louisahann92@gmail.com.
Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology(Harvard UP, 2021) is a searching account of nineteenth-century salvage anthropology, an effort to preserve the culture of “vanishing” Indigenous peoples through dispossession of the very communities it was meant to protect.
In the late nineteenth century, anthropologists, linguists, archaeologists, and other chroniclers began amassing Indigenous cultural objects—crafts, clothing, images, song recordings—by the millions. Convinced that Indigenous peoples were doomed to disappear, collectors donated these objects to museums and universities that would preserve and exhibit them. Samuel Redman dives into the archive to understand what the collectors deemed the tradition of the “vanishing Indian” and what we can learn from the complex legacy of salvage anthropology.
The salvage catalog betrays a vision of Native cultures clouded by racist assumptions—a vision that had lasting consequences. The collecting practice became an engine of the American museum and significantly shaped public education and preservation, as well as popular ideas about Indigenous cultures. Prophets and Ghosts teases out the moral challenges inherent in the salvage project. Preservationists successfully maintained an important human inheritance, sometimes through collaboration with Indigenous people, but collectors’ methods also included outright theft. The resulting portrait of Indigenous culture reinforced the public’s confidence in the hierarchies of superiority and inferiority invented by “scientific” racism.
Today the same salvaged objects are sources of invaluable knowledge for researchers and museum visitors. But the question of what should be done with such collections is nonetheless urgent. Redman interviews Indigenous artists and curators, who offer fresh perspectives on the history and impact of cultural salvage, pointing to new ideas on how we might contend with a challenging inheritance.
Alex Golub is associate professor of anthropology, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
We're talking about one of the most controversial issues in politics right now: who's responsible for inflation. American leaders weighed in.
Also, we'll explain a new report that found we're in one of the most violent eras in the U.S. in decades.
Plus, two public school teachers are getting tickets to space, goodbye to the iPod, and an NFL legend made the most lucrative deal in sports broadcasting history.
You asked, we answered! Andy asks Dr. Ashish Jha, current White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, the top 10 questions submitted by listeners, including our overall risk levels, what’s next for vaccines, how to diagnose long COVID, and minute by minute timing of the approval process for young kids. He explains who’s still dying from COVID, predicts when waves will hit different parts of the U.S., and breaks down the best therapeutics.
Find vaccines, masks, testing, treatments, and other resources in your community here: https://www.covid.gov/
Order Andy’s book, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250770165
Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.
As the Supreme Court considers overturning or scaling back Roe, online privacy and pro-choice advocates are concerned about how police might use data from someone’s phone or computer to prosecute or charge them for seeking an abortion in states where it could be deemed illegal. Sara Morrison, a senior reporter for Recode, joins us to discuss the need for more data privacy laws in a post-Roe world.
Parents nationwide are facing extreme difficulty feeding their newborns amid a widespread shortage of baby formula. Nearly 40 percent of retail stores across the country are out of stock of formula, and over half of U.S. states have out-of-stock rates as high as 50 percent.
And in headlines: Protests continue in Sri Lanka following months of food and fuel shortages, the House of Representatives voted to pass a $39.8 billion aid package for Ukraine, and gasoline climbed to its highest national average price ever.
Show Notes:
Recode: “What police could find out about your illegal abortion” – https://bit.ly/3smK6nt
The Biden administration’s “Disinformation Governance Board” provided momentum for two states to sue the federal government that alleges pressure on and collusion with Big Tech companies to censor political content that challenges the government line.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt last week filed a federal lawsuit that alleges top-ranking government officials worked with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to censors free speech and truthful information regarding COVID-19, election integrity and other matters.
The lawsuit by Louisiana and Missouri names President Joe Biden, White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, Disinformation Governance Board Director Nina Jankowicz, and other administration officials.
Landry, Louisiana's attorney general, joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about the lawsuit and whether the Biden administration is outsourcing censorship to Big Tech.
Do you know the difference between good and bad debt? Laura explains why it's a critical concept for saving money, building wealth, and creating more financial security. Plus, she covers a simple 7-step plan for paying off debt fast.
Curious explosions in a Russian stronghold of Moldova have the world wondering if Putin is making his next play. Why is a tiny country on Ukraine’s western border of such strategic importance?
Guest: Monika Pronczuk, Brussels-based reporter for the New York Times.
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Are we in an unprecedented era of military peace on the seas? Gregg Easterbrook, a prolific author and a writer and editor at The Atlantic for over 40 years, shares how the Navy, innovation, space travel, and prosperity go hand in hand.
