Advertise on podcast: The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective

This Friday, Sept. 4, at 3pm, join our livestream with Palestinian writer and activist susan abulhawa in conversation with AISC member Corinna Mullin.  The discussion will explore the role of art in resistance, the ongoing struggle for Palestinian national liberation in the face of zionist-imperialist genocide, the coloniality of Western "left" solidarity, and the repression of Palestine solidarity in the belly of the beast—including recent attacks on abulhawa by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other zionist organizations engaged in a witchhunt following announcements by Simon & Schuster subsidaries to republish her backlist.  The conversation will cover abulhawa's oeuvre—including her debut novel Mornings in Jenin (2010), which has been translated into thirty languages, sold over a million copies worldwide, and is considered a classic in Palestinian literature. Her other works include The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015) and Against the Loveless World (2020), an Aspen Words Literary Prize and Atheneum Prize finalist and winner of the Arab American Book Award and the Palestine Book Award. She is also the editor of the incredibly moving collection Every Moment Is a Life: Gaza in the Time of Genocide (2026), featuring firsthand essays from 18 young Palestinian writers enduring the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children's organization dedicated to uplifting Palestinian children. The discussion will also address the recent counterinsurgent Guardian letter—a document that abulhawa describes as creating a "wholly unfair representation of what is in reality a profound asymmetry of power" by equating a besieged Iran with the imperialist powers attacking it. As abulhawa insists: "Iran owes no one an explanation. The Islamic Republic is the last bastion of true anti-imperial resistance, and the whole world is rooting for them." The conversation will further draw on her recent Mondoweiss piece examining the politics of translation and solidarity surrounding Sally Rooney's work in Hebrew translation. As part of the background for this discussion, we urge everyone to read the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective's response to The Guardian letter, which condemned the document for creating a "false and dangerous equivalence" and providing "ideological cover for the intensification of the ongoing war against Iran." Links: https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/08/24/774969/iran-is-last-bastion-true-anti-imperial-resistance-owes-no-one-explanation-writer https://mondoweiss.net/2026/05/on-972-magazine-sally-rooney-and-the-centering-of-israelis-in-an-anti-colonial-movement/ https://www.anti-imperialists.com/statements/dc121068-bd7d-4408-8a5f-c23c8f70e4d1/ Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel https://youtube.com/live/eXMqOz58cEo Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

On this episode, Ju-Hyun Park (Nodutdol) and Christine Hong (Korea Policy Institute and author of A Violent Peace:  Race, U.S. Militarism, and Cultures of Democratization in Cold War Asia and the Pacific) join AISC members Betsy Yoon (Nodutdol) and Nina Farnia to talk about the recent Jaju Solidarity Brigade to South Korea, organized by Nodutdol with participation from dozens of anti-imperialist organizations. The brigade visited cities and villages impacted by US militarism and built solidarity with organizers on the frontlines of Korea's ongoing struggle for national liberation at a time when the US is readying the Pacific for war against China, with South Korea as a lynchpin in the US military strategy in the region.  South Korea hosts the third largest overseas presence of the US military, with 80 US military installations and bases, 28,500 troops, and the largest overseas base in the world hosted in Pyeongtaek. Dangerous US-ROK joint military exercises which began in 1955, are now conducted annually with such regularity that it has become a part of everyday life.  As the US drive towards the Pacific War ramps up, people-to-people exchanges and solidarity across movements are needed now more than ever. The Jaju Solidarity Brigade is part of this broader effort to bridge international struggles and to bring back lessons from our homeland to fortify our fight here. Link to Christine Hong's book: A Violent Peace:  Race, U.S. Militarism, and Cultures of Democratization in Cold War Asia and the Pacific https://www.sup.org/books/literary-studies-and-literature/violent-peace   Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel https://youtube.com/live/nF2cTriHIq0 Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) strongly condemns "To Iran's political prisoners, trapped 'between two blades of a scissors'," the open letter published on 20 August 2026 in The Guardian and signed by Western academics and cultural workers in the imperialist core. The letter distorts history, obfuscates the current geopolitical conjuncture, and provides ideological cover for the intensification of the ongoing war against Iran.[1] Similar to accusations against the Palestinian resistance that equate the zionist genocide to resistance-to-genocide, the letter creates a false and dangerous equivalence between the defensive actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the aggressions of the United States and Israel, the most powerful and genocidal imperialist forces in world history. The letter names multiple historical events without analysis, context, or citations. The absence of Iran's resistance to the century-long genocide of the Palestinian people is deeply troubling. Additionally, the letter does not address the past century of imperialist intervention, during which Europe, the United States and most recently, Israel, have undermined Iranian and Arab sovereignty through coup attempts, kinetic wars, mercenaries, information warfare, sanctions, economic violence, and sabotage. Instead of addressing this execrable record, the authors offer a vague reference to "the anniversary of the 1988 mass executions in Iran" and a deracinated acknowledgement of the 1953 US-backed coup. As US imperialism accelerates and the resistance against it strengthens, the battle of ideas continues to intensify. This is the time when the responsibility of the anti-imperialist intellectual is to be rigorous and vigilant. We therefore find it necessary to name the stakes and clarify the distortions and obfuscations in the Guardian letter. The claims must be challenged and the motivations for its publication unearthed, especially because, as of the writing of this response, the letter's authors remain obscured, the social media page that originally posted the letter is erased, while imperialist war drums continue apace. What follows is AISC's initial response to this alarming, pro-imperialist document."   Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel https://youtube.com/live/nF2cTriHIq0 Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

AISC member Corinna Mullin, along with Suzanne Adely (NLG), Austin Cole (BAP), and Rosemari Mealy (author of Fidel & Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting) will discuss the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) recent delegation to Cuba for the International Colloquium "Fidel: Legacy and Future." They will cover their participation in this historic gathering, the revolutionary spirit of the Cuban people in the face of the intensifying U.S. genocidal blockade and broader context of imperialist assault on the region, meetings with Cuban and international comrades, material aid and solidarity distributions to local projects and organizations, and ongoing organizing against the blockade and in solidarity with the Cuban revolution here in the belly of the beast as the McCarthyite repression intensifies.   Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel https://youtube.com/live/zSazWIRCEww Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

AISC members, Orisanmi Burton and Toussaint Losier will discuss the origins of Black August, an annual, month-long observance to honor Black political prisoners/POWs, study their struggles, and rededicate ourselves to the liberation struggle. Burton and Losier will also link its origins in California prisons in the 1970s to those taking place today in and outside of prisons, jails, and detention camps. This discussion with be facilitated by AISC member Diego Alcalá. Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel https://youtube.com/live/XKppLEQgroM Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

The Trump regime's racist termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians has left 350,000 people without deportation protection and at the mercy of ICE.  Join us, AISC members Jamima Pierre and Diego Alcalá,  as we discuss TPS in a broader historical and political context. We explain why Haiti remains a key laboratory for US imperial terror. Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel https://youtube.com/live/kTSftJUL87s?feature=share Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

Join AISC livestream producer Sina Rahmani along with AISC members Navid Farnia and Diego Alcalá for a conversation on the latest developments in the global anti-imperialist struggle. Watch the video edition on the AISC YouTube channel https://youtube.com/live/kTSftJUL87s?feature=share Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast

This podcast episode features AISC Members Drs. Charisse Stelly-Burden and Layla Brown  discussing "Pan-Africanism and the Alliance of Sahel States," the recent special issue of The Pen is My Machete. Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

Join ASIC Members Navid Farnia and Diego Alcalá for a critical discussion on the latest developments in the global anti-imperialist struggle. Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

In this emergency livestream, AISC members Nina Farnia, Jemima Pierre and Diego Alcalá are back to discuss the latest aggression by the United States on the Islamic Republic of Iran. We will discuss the history of nuclear armament, the largest funeral in world history, the global impact of the Iran war from Ukraine to the Caribbean, and where the war is heading.  Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

AISC members Nina Farnia, Navid Farnia, Toussaint Losier and Corinna Mullin in breaking down AISC Red Paper #2: "The Multiple Fronts of Iranian Anti-Imperialism" — we'll analyze the material stakes of the multiple zionist-imperialist violations of the ceasefire, including the zionist-imperialist attacks on Iran and Lebanon and ongoing genocide in Gaza, Iran's insistence on keeping both Lebanon and Gaza within the terms of any ceasefire, and the critical role of Iran and the Axis of Resistance in materially decolonizing West Asia. 🔗 For essential background, read the full Red Paper here:  https://www.anti-imperialists.com/red-papers/aisc-red-paper-no-2-the-multiple-fronts-of-iranian-anti-imperialism/ 📖 Plus two key articles from our latest Pen Is My Machete Special Issue on Iran: 🔗 "A Primer on the Axis of Resistance: A World-Historical Force for Liberation" —  https://www.anti-imperialists.com/magazine/a-primer-on-the-axis-of-resistance-a-world-historical-force-for-liberation/ 🔗 "Zionism, US Imperialism, and the Capitalist Ruling Elite" — https://www.anti-imperialists.com/magazine/zionism-us-imperialism-and-the-capitalist-ruling-elite/   Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

Yes. Let's talk about anti-imperialism and the beautiful game. Come join us for this special livestream which promises to be educational, competitive and fun. Let the best team win!   Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

AISC members Jeannette Graulau and Corinna Mullin will discuss the radical ideas behind Latin American Marxist dependency theory, its origins and contributions to Third World Marxism, and why it matters for understanding Latin America today.   Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

AISC members, Navid Farnia, Jemima Pierre, and Aby Sene discuss the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) struggle for sovereignty and fight against imperialist assault, as well as what the federation means for Pan-Africanism in the 21st century.  Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (@penandmachete)  Instagram (@penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete.

AISC members Layla Brown, Charisse Burden-Stelly, and Navid Farnia will discuss Pan-Africanism, its history, and its contemporary significance amid this weekend's annual African Liberation Day celebrations. Watch the livestream edition on the AISC YouTube channel Follow AISC  X (penandmachete)  Instagram (penandmachete) Visit our website to join the newsletter and find our blog, The Pen is My Machete. https://www.anti-imperialists.com Donations to the producer of this show, Sina Rahmani, are welcome at www.patreon.com/east_podcast