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First “Pints with Plato” Session Coming Up Thursday!

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My first monthly live session will start at 7 p.m. US Central Time this Thursday (link below or search Pints with Plato on Eventbrite! If you already support us on Patreon at the Salt of the Earth or Worker Scholar levels you will already have access. In this first session I plan to actually discuss … Read more

“Pints with Plato” Sessions Start Up in January

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Starting one month from now, Dr. Laurie Johnson be going live on first Thursday evenings (7 p.m. Central Time) for “Pints With Plato” (which won’t just be about Plato–it’s just that he’s one of her favorite political philosophers). You can see a full description and sign up for any single session on Eventbrite for a donation, and soon we’ll also have some subscription choices on Patreon for those who want access to all these as well as seminars and series from Laurie and other co-founders of the Maurin Academy, like Spencer, Jakob and Bryant, all of whom have appeared on Laurie’s YouTube channel. Spencer is also co-host of our Dustbowl Diatribes podcast. We’ll also have a newsletter to tell you about upcoming events! My first “Pints with Plato” is on Thursday, January 5! More to come!

Season 2, Ep 1: Why Don’t Pastors Go There? Interview With a Lutheran Pastor

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Laurie and Spencer interview retired Lutheran Pastor Tom Mundahl. Mundahl has made action the center of his ministry, including leading a venture into Catholic Worker hospitality in a Campus student group. We discuss why it is difficult for pastors to move beyond the comfort zones of their parishioners to lead them into new ways of living and interacting with others. We discuss the obstacle of Christian nationalism as the latest inhibitor of Christian action.

Should Seeds Be Mere Commodities?

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This is a segment from Laurie Johnson’s presentation in the first session of The Maurin Academy’s Fall 2022 short series on Agricultural Biotechnology and the Information Economy. She is guided by information from the first part of Jack Kloppenberg’s First the Seed. The short series with Laurie Johnson and Jakob Hanschu brings Kloppenberg’s scholarship to bear on McKenzie Wark’s The Hacker Manifesto, and vice versa.

Dustbowl Diatribes 6: What the Frack?

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Our guest is Nik Gaffron talks to us about his personal experience fighting fracking on public lands in Pennsylvania. We learn a lot about the fracking process as well as the politics and economics, especially how it impacts people who live near a fracking operation. Why do public officials so easily consent to these large-scale industrial operations in or close to residential areas? Why is it so hard to fight fracking in an effort to protect not only public lands but private property and its value? What are the hidden costs financially and to our health?

Coming Up: Agricultural Biotechnology & the Information Economy

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This Maurin Academy short series will run on Tuesdays from 7-8:30 p.m Central US time starting August 23 and ending September 20. Laurie Johnson and Jakob Hanschu will analyze the political economy of agricultural biotechnology using insights from critical studies of the information era. We invite participants to join us. If you would like to … Read more

Registration Open for Agricultural Biotechnology Short Series

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Register for our latest short series on Agricultural Biotechnology and the Information Economy on Eventbrite! We are requesting a donation of any amount for this five session series with Jakob Hanschu and Laurie Johnson. This short series will analyze the political economy of agricultural biotechnology using insights from critical studies of the information era. Through … Read more

Dustbowl Diatribes 4: Talking Dustbowl Blues

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History Ph.D. candidate Bryant Macfarlane joins Spencer Hess and Laurie Johnson for a discussion of the conditions that made for the 1930’s Dustbowl and continue to operate today to deplete soil fertility and instigate climate change. Hannah Holleman’s book, Dustbowls of Empire is the subject of the first part of our conversation. Macfarlane later explains how Latin Common Law was practiced in the American Southwest prior to the Mexican-American War, and how practices that treated water as communal good rather than private property were eliminated by the advent of the English view of property. That began the era of accelerated metabolic rifts that led to the Dustbowl and our current dilemmas, such as ocean dead zones due to fertilizer runoff.