Tiny Spark

Journalist and author Eyal Press’ book Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America examines the morally troubling jobs that are done in our name, and shines a light on the workers who do them. Press argues that these workers are hidden by the powerful in society who want to keep the violence of prisons, slaughterhouses, and battlefields out of the public eye.

As the federal government pours billions of dollars into private detention facilities, new research shows political donations from these for-profit companies are influencing policymakers to support legislation criminalizing undocumented immigrants. University of New Mexico associate professor Loren Collingwood talks about his findings, and emotionally shares why they matter.

‘There have been so many important critiques of the nude in art history,’ writer and art curator Macushla Robinson tells us, and she’s added her own critique in the form of an upcoming book project. Every Rape at the Met Museum digs into the way sexual violence has been publicly displayed and even artistically praised in exhibition and catalogues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In this candid conversation, Robinson explains how the images of women on art museum walls, and the bodies of women in the art world today, are still subject to misogyny and sexual violence.

As the U.S. deals with a severe crisis with up to 600,000 people experiencing homelessness each night, we tour the Community First! village in Austin. This unique community was established to provide affordable, permanent housing for the chronically homeless in Central Texas. Why do the residents think it works? 

We speak to the authors of System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong, and How We Can Reboot. The trio of Stanford professors use a cross-disciplinary approach to critique technologists and the outsized power they wield in society. By weaving together philosophy, engineering and social science disciplines, the authors make a compelling case that we need ethics and an active democracy to ensure tech serves the public interest above shareholder’s interests.

Broadway has returned after closing eighteen months ago. We speak to actors, writers and directors about what the break meant for their lives and work. One prepares to make his Broadway debut, another looks beyond the stage, and all tell us that they hope the future improves representation and equity in the theater.

In light of troubling events in Afghanistan, we speak to collaborating artists Chitra Ganesh and Mariam Ghani on threats to the country's archives, the ‘radical archivists’ who have preserved them to date, and how this pair of artists practice radical archiving as way to confront and surface government erasures.

For Nora Kenworthy, GoFundMe is “the research topic that I can't escape.” She recently studied 175,000 GoFundMe campaigns from the COVID era and discovered nearly half didn’t receive a single donation. We discuss the stark inequities around these platforms and ask whether crowdfunding can offer equitable relief during a complex public health disaster.

Are women and girls forgotten in crises and conflicts in Myanmar, Ethiopia and Afghanistan? We speak to women's rights activists about what drives them, and ask whether they feel women & girls are sidelined in these kinds of conflicts. TW: This podcast discusses sexual violence.

The Pillars fund, run by young Muslim philanthropists, has teamed up with academics and Hollywood actors to gather data proving what they’ve long suspected: Muslims are poorly represented on screen. Pillars’ Arij Mikati and Kalia Abiade lay out the problem, and share their solutions to shift the narrative in order to pave a more inclusive path forward. NB: This podcast contains explicit language and words of a derogatory nature.

We speak to Dr. Sophia Yen, entrepreneur and outspoken advocate for women’s reproductive health and empowerment. Dr. Yen founded a birth control startup to “just ship women birth control and keep shipping it until they tell us to stop.” She speaks frankly about sexual health, health justice, and the sexism she has experienced in her career. 

In his new book The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, Chuck Collins unmasks how billionaires protect their wealth, power, and privilege.

Half a century ago, billionaire philanthropist Doris Duke funded universities to record Native American oral histories. Today, her foundation is supporting an effort to digitize the recordings and return them to the tribes. Alyce Sadongei is leading the project and says while it is meaningful, it also raises concerns about how archives are conceived and created in the first place.

The People's Kitchen Collective uses food and art to address racial and social justice issues. Co-founder Jocelyn Jackson talks to us about their large-scale meals, which offer time and nourishment for communities to heal.  

Food Rescue Hero gets volunteers to pick up excess food from restaurants and grocers and deliver it to people who need it. Founder and CEO Leah Lizarondo shares her journey creating a tech tool that says it has rescued some 50 million pounds of food.

Climate scientist Ndoni Mcunu and climate activist Evelyn Acham celebrate the African scientists and activists fighting for the planet. We speak to the pair about the difficulty of this work, and learn what inspires them to keep going.

Found in Translation, a Boston-based nonprofit, trains bilingual women as medical interpreters. In this podcast, founder Maria Vertkin and three graduates who speak Vietnamese, Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese, explain why this life-changing work is so necessary.

Independent art curator Kelli Morgan shares personal, painful experiences of institutional racism and says it’s time to call out the art world’s toxic white supremacist culture.

Physician and anthropologist Eugene Richardson’s book ‘Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health’ critiques practices that perpetuate inequality. In this podcast, he argues that global health equity requires not just medicine, but reparations that undo Western colonial harms.  

A diverse group of women discuss the power of giving circles as a way to build community, democratize philanthropy, and support local grassroots organizations.