KPFA - Against the Grain

Are women as strong as men? According to science writer Starre Vartan, in some cases, they are stronger. She argues that scientific research over the last several decades shows that culture shapes strength as much as hormones — and that much of what we presume about sex differences, strength, and athleticism harms all of us.
Starre Vartan, The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us about the Power of the Female Body Seal Press, 2025
Photo by Peter Zhan on Unsplash
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Over the past four centuries, owners have sought to wrest control of the labor process away from the workers in plantations, factories, and warehouse. Ideas about labor management, dressed up as a science, have often failed on the shop floor, but they have served a broader purpose. Labor historian Henry Snow interrogates how theories of discipline and management — from the Bentham brothers’ panopticon to Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ideas of labor optimization to General Electric’s propaganda campaign featuring actor Ronald Reagan — have perennially reinforced the notion that there is no alternative to capitalism.
Henry Snow, Control Science: How Management Made the Modern World Verso, 2026
The post Controlling Workers appeared first on KPFA.

The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of the business class. But since the era of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, the GOP has been marked by internal strife and ideological chaos — and in the last presidential election, the business class overwhelmingly supported Harris over Trump. Historian Paul Heideman considers the makings of a far rightward shift by the GOP, which has not been matched by an equivalent leftward turn of the Democrat Party.
Paul Heideman, Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos Verso, 2025
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
The post How the GOP Lurched Further to the Right appeared first on KPFA.

We inhabit a world in which what we look at — what we see, read, scroll through — has often supplanted what we hear. The visual has replaced sound. But, of course, sounds are everywhere, both human-made and made by the rest of nature. Julian Treasure reflects on the importance of sound in our lives — between ourselves, other living things, and in the surroundings of our built environment.
Julian Treasure, Sound Affects: How Sound Shapes Our Lives, Our Wellbeing, and Our Planet Grand Central Publishing, 2025
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
The post Changing Sound appeared first on KPFA.

Over the last half century, diseases carried by insects — such as malaria and dengue, Zika and Lyme disease — have greatly increased. Sociologists Brent Kaup and Kelly Austin argue that the surge in vector-borne disease has been fueled by neoliberal capitalism, at times in unexpected ways, such as through loosened financial regulations governing mortgages and health insurance, as well as the gutting of health care. (Encore presentation.)
Brent Z. Kaup and Kelly F. Austin, The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease UC Press, 2025
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