Culture

The band members have evolved from one-time punk jesters to creative activists. They have become tough-minded advocates for democracy.read more

My guest this week is Sol Thea Kelley-Jones, a playwright, director, and human rights activist whose recent play is about the similarities between the West Bank and the U.S.-Mexico border.

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He tweaked the Academy for being a “commie and homo-loving” crowd, thereby taking the sting out of those epithets.read more

Like others before it, this was a voyeuristic look at the Third World’s poor and vulnerable. There was no sense of history, no glimpse of peoples’ struggles and really no dignity.read more

My guest in 2008 was the performance artist and singer/songwriter Laurie Anderson.

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The Progies are the “un-Oscars” annually awarded by the James Agee Cinema Circle – an international group of left movie critics and historians -- for the Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers of conscience and consciousness. The envelopes please.read more

I rise to defend Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem.

Members of the vanguard of modern poetry have thrown their barbs, labeling it “perfunctory” and “bureaucratic” and full of cliches.read more

My guest this week is Bill V. Mullen, the author of "Afro-Orientalism" and "Popular Fronts: Chicago and African-American Cultural Politics." We talk about Obama's political background and his prospects.

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The PROGIE NOMINEES ARE
For best picture: "Milk," "Che," "Battle in Seattle," "The Visitor," "Waltz with Bashir," and "Wendy and Lucy." For best actor...read more

Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter whose absurdist and realistic works displayed a despair and defiance about the human condition, has died. Here's one of the most illuminating and political interviews he ever gave.read more

My guest this week is Fred Ho, a scholar on the politics of African Americans and Asian Americans, as well as an innovative jazz musician.

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My guest this week is the poet Patricia Smith, whose latest work, "Blood Dazzler," has been nominated for a National Book Award.

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An interview with the great poet Martín Espada, author of The Republic of Poetry, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

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The loss of Miriam Makeba is a blow to music lovers and human rights activists the world over.read more