Bedrosian Bookclub Podcast USC Bedrosian Center

Today, discourse on restorative justice and public safety lacks imagination. We tend to “do what we’ve always done.”

Covered With Night by Nicole Eustace is a history of how Pennyslvania colony leaders had to learn to restore peace with the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederation after two White men murdered a Native American.

In this book club, we read a powerful history of how we, as peoples, can live together with more equity and justice – how restorative justice has already work

Ostensibly, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, is about a young man who finds a manuscript in a dead man’s apartment.

The dead man, Zampano, was an elderly blind man writing an academic critique of The Navidson Record; a documentary about a family moving into a home, which happens to be bigger on the inside. At the center of Danielewski’s work is the question, “What is real?”

Featuring: Zenya Prowell, Stacy Patterson, Lisa Schweitzer, and Jen Bravo

In Not a Nation of Immigrants, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz strives to look at the ever morphing population of the United States, to uncover the why and how of the mythology that pervades political discourse on American history.

In part, Dunbar-Ortiz recognizes that the looming problems of climate change, polarization, and authoritarianism cannot be fought while sweeping the parts of our history we don't like under the rug. What does our history mean about who we are?

An interview with author of Unconventional Combat, Michael A. Messner.

Messner's latest book is an intimate look at 6 historically excluded veterans and their post military careers as activists in intersectional peace movements.


Explore the ways these veterans are taking there situated knowledge to create a better future.

A "canceled" influencer. An attention seeker with body issues. Man hoards. Enter The Atmosphere, a new retreat where men can detox from social media & learn to become human again.

This first novel from Alex McElroy is a doozy; capturing the manic craziness of the last decade, the sprint for the next cool thing, the quick turn from darling to pariah, the frenetic flitting from one catastrophe to another.

Join us as host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Caroline Bhalla, Lisa Schweitzer, & Donnajean Ward.

The Brutish Museums by Dan Hicks is a necrography wherein each stolen item from Benin City is an unfinished event: the story of colonial violence told and retold through daily viewings by tourists and school children.

It is also a "calling in" for museum curators to work toward a future of restitution; a future of museums free of stolen objects and histories.

Host Aubrey Hicks is joined by Jen Bravo, David Sloane, and Donnajean Ward.

bedrosian.usc.edu/bookclub