American Precariat with Zeke Caligiuri

Precarious times, phenomenal times. As protests for peace and freedom explode across the country and around the world, we’re searching for and finding democracy in the streets and in the campus encampments, in prison study groups and collectives of artists and writers. We’re honored tonight to be meeting up at our beloved Pilsen Community Books with Zeke Caligiuri, co-editor with a unique collective of incarcerated writers, for a discussion of their dazzling collection, American Precariat: Parables of Exclusion. While the class of people whose lives lack stability and security, and are increasingly dominated by uncertainty about our jobs and our incomes, our housing and our safety—about our futures—grows steadily and exponentially, it’s particularly illuminating to explore this political moment with the unseen and the unheard, the excluded and the marginalized, those deemed by power the leastwise of the land.

Om Podcasten

“Under the Tree” is a new podcast that focuses on freedom—a complex, layered, dynamic, and often contradictory idea—and takes you on a journey each week to fundamentally reimagine how we can bring freedom and liberation to life in relation to schools and schooling, equality and justice, and learning to live together in peace. Our podcast opens a crawl-space, a fugitive field and firmament where we can both explore our wildest freedom dreams, and organize for a liberating insurgency. "Under the Tree" is a seminar, and it runs the gamut from current events to the arts, from history lessons to scientific inquiries, and from essential readings to frequent guest speakers. We’re in the midst of the largest social uprising in US history—and what better time to dive headfirst into the wreckage, figuring out as we go how to support the rebellion, name it, and work together to realize its most radical possibilities—and to reach its farthest horizons?