Citizenship

How to Stop Feeling Marginalized and Start Engaging in Politics

by Anthony W. Orlando

You may think politics isn’t for you. It’s for the elites. It’s for the rich and powerful. It isn’t for people who look like you or talk like you or live like you. Well, that may be the world we’ve constructed, but it’s not inevitable. You deserve better.

Still not convinced? Good! This episode is for you! Learn how you can become a part of the solution.

In this episode, inspirational speaker and social work professor Melissa Bird knocks down the misconceptions that marginalize us and replaces them with the attitude we need to take on the injustices in our nation today.

To listen to this episode of Our American Discourse, click the arrow in the Soundcloud player here. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcasts, Soundcloud, or Google Play.

Community Engagement Post #2: On being genuine and building trust

by Patricia Quintero Estades

Building trust is paramount for genuine community engagement

As I mentioned in our first community engagement post, Arnstein’s article on citizen participation (1969) shows us that there are wrong and illegitimate ways to do community or stakeholder engagement. In my research and my classes at Price, I’ve found that the first step to a legitimate process seems to be a legitimate desire by the engager to listen to the stakeholders and take their input into account when making decisions.

Policy at the Playhouse

by Bedrosian Center

Theatre can bolster the status quo. It can foment revolution. It can make us question our identities and the identities of those around us. It makes us yearn and strive. It gives us closure, it leaves us wanting more. Theatre is a weapon. It holds up a mirror. It is politics. Theatre dissolves the distance between people. Theatre exposes humanity and inhumanity. Theatre connects us.

The Policy at the Playhouse podcast features conversations about how art, theater in particular, is an integral part of our civic lives, allowing us to question and inform our conceptions of citizenship and community.

Listen to individual episodes on the player here, the Policy at the Playhouse page, or subscribe at iTunes, Soundcloud, or Google Play.

The Ethics of Governing

by Anthony W. Orlando

PhD candidate Anthony Orlando discusses the “Ethics of Democracy” in the latest episode of Our American Discourse.

Democracy is a dialogue. It requires our leaders to ask, to listen, and to react. Good governance thus hinges on conversation and consent—and whether we like it or not, conflict. Planners and policymakers have to balance competing needs, never more so than in today’s polarized environment. How do they do the right thing? Does such a thing even exist? Citizenship demands that we engage with these uncomfortable questions, especially in this troubled era.

Listen to this episode of Our American Discourse by clicking on the orange play arrow on this post, or subscribe at iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Price Projection Room

by Bedrosian Center

The Price Projection Room features conversations about film and television with interesting folks from across USC (theatre, cinema, public policy, and governance) to look at visual storytelling, media literacy, diversity, and the public good. We want to be smarter about the TV and movies we fill our time with, what our stories tell us, and how can be better together.

This podcast is sponsored by Price Video Services and USC Bedrosian Center, and continues our ongoing efforts to bring policy and its impact into the public discourse.

Listen to individual episodes on the Price Projection Room page, or subscribe at iTunes, Soundcloud, or Google Play.

Our American Discourse

by Bedrosian Center

Great knowledge need not wither on the academic vine. We bring you the smartest minds from the University of Southern California and beyond, wrestling with the defining challenges of our time. In their research, we find wisdom. In their voice, hope.

Hosted by Anthony W. Orlando, Our American Discourse reminds us that we’re never too different to learn from each other, nor too divided to find common ground.

Listen to the individual episodes on the Our American Discourse page, or subscribe at iTunes, Soundcloud, or Google Play.

BONUS – Interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen

by Bedrosian Center

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s recent works, both fiction and non, are award winning. The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize in the fiction category. Less than a year later, USC Professor Nguyen’s nonfiction book Nothing Ever Dies is on the National Book Awards shortlist. The two were written together over the last 13 years or so, are part of Nguyen’s exploration of the underlying issues of war and the aftermath of war on those countless affected. The themes in both the novel and the nonfiction that follows it are vital to explore when thinking of public policy & governance in a global world.