Bedrosian Bookclub Podcast
130 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★ - 29 ratingsAn audio book club. Our geeks read and discuss new and classic works in the policy field – fictional and non. Social justice, tech, politics, policy … we cover it all and more. Let's think about what is at the heart of being a citizen in America. This book club helps us get at the heart of what it means to be a citizen in a democracy.
Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center
http://bedrosian.usc.edu/
Recorded at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy
http://priceschool.usc.edu
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Episodes
Dream Cities
August 28, 2016 00:00 - 1 hour - 197 MBWade Graham's latest book Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World is ostensibly about the architects and the seven big ideas that have shaped contemporary cities across the world. Our discussion centers on whether Graham has fulfilled that mission or whether he's trapped in the confines of an under 350 page book for this massive introduction to urban planning and city history. The answer may lie in the reader rather than the book, listen to the conversation for a lively jaunt th...
Citizen: An American Lyric
July 22, 2016 00:00 - 1 hour - 198 MBThis month's book is both poetry and criticism, Citizen: An American Lyric. Rankine's piece is a revolution. A political, a poetic, complex revolution in 169 pages. We look at it through an unusual lens - what should we take away from works of art as we think about governance in America? Featuring Raphael Bostic, Aubrey Hicks, Lisa Schweitzer, David Sloane, and Donnajean Ward. Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center http://bedrosian.usc.edu/ Recorded at the USC Sol Price School of Public...
The Nine
June 28, 2016 00:11 - 1 hour - 192 MBThe Nine is Jeffrey Toobin's reveals the lives of post-WWII Supreme Court Justices. He explores the notion of ideology and politics within the role of the judicial branch. We've chosen this 2007 title as a general look at the Supreme Court in order to discuss rule of law, personal politics, and the judicial branch more broadly. Featuring Steve Cooley (former Los Angeles County District Attorney), Jody David Armour (USC Gould School of Law), Pamela Clauser McCann (USC Price School of Public P...
The Rise And Fall Of Urban Economies
May 23, 2016 00:00 - 1 hour - 191 MBAudio book club discussion of THE RISE AND FALL OF URBAN ECONOMIES: LESSONS FROM SAN FRANCISCO AND LOS ANGELES for links to some of the things we talk about, see the show page: https://bedrosian.usc.edu/podcast/the-rise-and-fall-of-urban-economies/ Michael Storper, co-author of our latest book club pick, The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies said recently in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times: "To succeed in the new economy ... Southern California has to face its mistakes over the last 30 year...
The Water Knife
April 13, 2016 00:00 - 1 hour - 176 MBThis podcast features *spoilers – so, please listen after you’ve read the book unless you are okay with hearing about major plot details and the ending of this amazing novel. Listen on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-water-knife/id897258118?i=1000367510106&mt=2 Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife looks at our use and manipulation of water and water rights in the US and brings us to an ultimate conclusion. In a Southwest decimated by climate change, with the Colorado River a...
Evicted
March 20, 2016 00:00 - 1 hour - 181 MBEvicted is written by Harvard sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Award winner Matthew Desmond. It is being hailed as a "landmark work of scholarship and reportage that will forever change the way we look at poverty in America." In this engaging, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond follows families in poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story their lives depths of poverty. According to Desmond, evictions used to be rare - even in the most poorest areas of American cities. Today, mo...
Your Heart Is A Muscle The Size Of A Fist
February 18, 2016 00:00 - 1 hour - 172 MBSunil Yapa's debut novel, Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, returns us to 1999 during the WTO protests in Seattle. Taking on multiple perspectives during the first day of the meeting/protests, Yapa brings us stories that get to the nature of power versus empathy in democracy, in civil society. He said in an interview with Bethanne Patrick, "Empathy is a profound act of imagination and human connection. In fiction, we imagine ourselves into other people’s experiences. Of course, anot...
Richard II
January 21, 2016 00:00 - 1 hour - 187 MBRichard II, the first of four Shakespeare plays known as the "Henriad," is the tale of strife between Richard II, the rightful but terrible king, and his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. Followed by Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, and Henry V, Shakespeare explores the question of political legitimacy and accountability. We meet Richard soon after he has commissioned the assassination of one of his uncles, a rash decision which brings him into conflict with his cousin Henry. Richard banishes Henry...
The Great Inversion
December 21, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 99.4 MBAlan Ehrenhalt begins THE GREAT INVERSION by taking a tour of 19th century European cities - 5-story Paris and Vienna. He argues that the demographics of the urban and suburban landscape are in the midst of a grand change. After the great sprawl of the 50s, the affluent are reclaiming urban spaces while minorities and immigrants are moving to the edges. New urbanism is winning and Ehrenhalt uses several examples to prove his point. Find out if our readers agreed with the thesis. Featuring: R...
Bonus: Interview With Rez Life author David Treuer
December 13, 2015 00:00 - 27 minutes - 37.8 MBSpecial bonus track! An interview with Rez Life author David Treuer. To participate in Native American History Month, we read Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life by USC Professor David Treuer. Novelist David Treuer's book "blends memoir and history" to render the uniquely beautiful story of the uniquely American places known as reservations. Treuer spirals in and out of personal story, interviews, and historical narrative to paint a full picture of life as an Ojibwe from L...
Rez Life
November 23, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 125 MBTo participate in Native American History Month, we read Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life by USC Professor David Treuer. Novelist David Treuer's book "blends memoir and history" to render the uniquely beautiful story of the uniquely American places known as reservations. Treuer spirals in and out of personal story, interviews, and historical narrative to paint a full picture of life as an Ojibwe from Leech Lake Reservation. An important book about the power of individua...
What I Saw At The Revolution
October 25, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 186 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we’re taking a look to the past. We read Peggy Noonan's 1990 memoir, What I Saw at the Revolution. This is a political memoir for those who don't usually read political memoirs. This book is a testimony to the power of language in politics. Noonan was a speechwriter for President Reagan, in both of his terms. This is a portrait of life in Washington, D.C. as well as both the Reagan and Bush administrations. She has a critical eye for the me...
Between The World And Me
September 25, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 125 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we’re continuing our conversation about race in America, with the book Toni Morrison calls “required reading.” Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is ostensibly a letter to his son about growing up a black male in America. This prize winning (GENIUS) correspondent of The Atlantic tackles the very big questions of our time. How do we find a way to live in our country, with all its fraught history and its fraught present? How can he ...
The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey
August 31, 2015 00:00 - 59 minutes - 81.8 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we're continuing our conversation about race in America, from a slightly different angle. Walter Mosley, most known for his LA crime fiction, tackles aging and agency in this beautiful novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. Ptolemy Grey is 91 years old and spends most of his time locked in a cluttered apartment in South LA hiding from rotten neighbors and the dangers of his neighborhood. When his grandnephew and part-time care taker is murde...
The New Jim Crow
July 23, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 87 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we’re neck deep in one of the most important issues of the day: mass incarceration. The US has used the War on drugs to create a racial caste system: a successor to the Jim Crow days we thought we left behind. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is one of the most important American books in the last decade. Alexander systematically explores the policy changes from the days of Nixon through the present – exploring how each decision has c...
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep
June 29, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 90.2 MBIn this edition, we’re looking at the sci-fi classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. DADES follows bounty hunter Rick Deckard on a mission to find and destroy 6 state of the art, rogue androids. The novel is the source material for the film Blade Runner. Written in 1968, DADES is set in a near future San Francisco amid a vast desertion to off-world colonies. Those remaining on Earth contend with nuclear fallout dust and other dangers. Dick asks fundamental questions in...
On Such a Full Sea
May 27, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 114 MBFeaturing Raphael Bostic, David Sloane, Jeremy Loudenback, and Aubrey Hicks In this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we’re looking at the dystopian novel On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee. Lee's novel follows Fan, a young woman from one of the labor communities, as she leaves her home in search of her love. In a corporatized future world - where the wealthy fly in helicopters, workers try to compete with robots, and the really poor live in favelas - what becomes of social mobili...
A Neighborhood That Never Changes
April 29, 2015 23:12 - 1 hour - 91.3 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we're looking at a book on gentrification called A Neighborhood That Never Changes, by Japonica Brown-Saracino. This podcast features Raphael Bostic, Sarah Mawhorter, Brettany Shannon, David Sloane, and Tess Thorman. Brown-Saracino, through studying people in four different neighborhoods, redefines the types of newcomers and how they interact with the standing neighborhood and neighbors. We question the notions of quality, authenticity, and...
Silent Spring
March 24, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 88.7 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we're looking at the classic nonfiction book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, the book that launched the environmental movement. Edward O. Wilson said of the book, “We are still poisoning the air and water and eroding the biosphere, albeit less so than if Rachel Carson had not written. Today we understand better than ever why we must press the effort to save the environment all the way home, true to the mind and spirit of the valiant author...
Interview with Daria Roithmayr (Author of Reproducing Racism)
March 09, 2015 00:00 - 14 minutes - 19.4 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, Center Director Raphael Bostic talks with USC Gould Law Professor Daria Roithmayr on her new book Reproducing Racism: How Everyday Choices Lock In White Advantage. Find out why Roithmayr began this project, what some of the reactions have been, and what’s next on Roithmayr’s plate. For links to some of the things we discuss view our show page at : https://bedrosian.usc.edu/programs/bedrosian-book-club-podcast/bonus-interview-with-daria-roi...
Reproducing Racism
February 18, 2015 00:00 - 1 hour - 86.7 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we discuss the new book Reproducing Racism: How Everyday Choices Lock In White Advantage by USC Gould Professor Daria Roithmayr. The book gives new language to the ongoing dialogue of racial inequality in America, distilling research from different fields into a highly readable argument that historical actions matter more than current prejudices in locking in inequality. Roithmayr uses the term locked in to describe the feedback loops that ...
Invisible Cities
February 04, 2015 00:53 - 1 hour - 94.2 MBIn this special edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we discuss the Italian classic novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. The ancient emperor, Kublai Khan is so busy running the empire that he needs merchants to describe his vast empire, the great explorer Marco Polo is the only one whose imaginative descriptions of the cities of the empire help Khan learn about his dominion. Framed between the conversation between the two are Polo’s fantastical descriptions of the cities he visits...
If Mayors Ruled The World
January 24, 2015 01:13 - 59 minutes - 82.5 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, Raphael Bostic, William G. Resh, and Ronald O. Loveridge discuss political theorist Benjamin Barber's book If Mayors Ruled the World. The book outlines Barber's hypothesis that cities are in better position to solve some global problems. Can cities provide the leadership that nations states used to by mobilizing local civic action and the sharing of best practices between cities? Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center http://bedrosian.usc...
The White Album
January 09, 2015 20:07 - 1 hour - 98 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we discuss Joan Didion's book of essays about history and politics, The White Album. Published in 1979, these essays reflect a time of change here in California and America as a whole. If as she writes in the opening line, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Do we still live by these stories she told? Or is the world a different place now? Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center http://bedrosian.usc.edu/ Recorded at the USC So...
The Castle
November 19, 2014 00:00 - 1 hour - 71.7 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we discuss The Castle, by Franz Kafka. Three policy professors discussing the great modernist classic ... listeners are in for a treat this month. Can fiction inform policy? How does this novel, in particular, stand the test of time? Does it represent governmental bureaucracy as it is today? Will K. ever get to the castle, and why should we care? Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center http://bedrosian.usc.edu/ Recorded at the USC Sol P...
Beyond The University
October 27, 2014 18:17 - 1 hour - 70.5 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we discuss Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, by Michael S. Roth. The book has been getting a lot of media attention in the higher ed circles. And we think it’s a decidedly important topic, one that impacts governance dramatically. Roth takes an historic look at thought on education in America. From Jefferson to DeBois to Dewey, there has always been a sense that education makes good citizens; that liberal education allow...
Enforcing Order
September 29, 2014 21:32 - 1 hour - 71.3 MBThis month, Director of the Bedrosian Center Raphael Bostic, Director of the USC Digital Library Matt Gainer, and USC Price professors Martin Krieger and LaVonna Lewis discuss Didier Fassin's Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing, a study of anti-crime squad in the outskirts of Paris. Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center http://bedrosian.usc.edu/ Recorded at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy http://priceschool.usc.edu
Citizenville
August 08, 2014 17:34 - 1 hour - 71.7 MBIn this edition of the Bedrosian Book Club Podcast, we discuss California lieutenant Governor, Gavin Newsom's book Citizenville. Ostensibly, the book is about how government has not caught up with the ubiquity of smart phones and technology found in the rest of our everyday lives. It is a rallying cry for innovation from within government to revolutionize the way things are accomplished. Newsom argues that technological innovation will both create more efficiency and create a wider public re...
Capital in the Twenty-First Century Part 2
June 19, 2014 22:25 - 26 minutes - 31.4 MBIn this inaugural edition of the Bedrosian Book Club podcast, four of our faculty discussed Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, the French economics book on inequality that is taking the world by storm. Already 9 weeks on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list, the book looks at the history of wealth distribution and predicts worsening inequality. The faculty discuss this 600 page behemoth in two parts. In part 2, our discussion turns to Piketty's predicti...
Capital in the Twenty-First Century Part 1
June 19, 2014 22:25 - 1 hour - 81.2 MBIn this inaugural edition of the Bedrosian Book Club podcast, four of our faculty discussed Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, the French economics book on inequality that is taking the world by storm. Already 9 weeks on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller list, the book looks at the history of wealth distribution and predicts worsening inequality. The faculty discuss this 600 page behemoth in two parts. In part 1, they take a look at Piketty's grand schola...