Bedrosian Bookclub Podcast

An audio book club. Our geeks read and discuss new and classic works in the policy field – fictional and non. Social justice, tech, politics, policy … we cover it all and more. Let's think about what is at the heart of being a citizen in America. Sponsored by the USC Bedrosian Center http://bedrosian.usc.edu/ Check out our other podcasts at: http://bedrosian.usc.edu/podcasts/ Recorded at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy http://priceschool.usc.edu

Beyond the Personalities: Rethinking 1929 06/05/2026

Beyond the Personalities: Rethinking 1929 Most financial crises are built, not born. In this revitalized format of the Bedrosian Book Club, we discuss 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin, using it as a lens to examine excess, regulation, and the modern blueprint for the cult of personality. The book’s focus on larger-than-life financiers prompts a broader question: how much do these narratives obscure the underlying mechanisms that made the system fragile? The conversation explores how storytelling shapes public understanding of crises and the policy responses that follow. In this episode: How personality-driven narratives can obscure systemic risk What the 1929 crash reveals about leverage, speculation, and market fragility Why regulatory reforms often fall short of structural change Parallels between the 1920s and today’s financial landscape The challenge of balancing deregulation, innovation, and consumer protection Host: Richard K. Green Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate Guests: Liz Falletta Professor (Teaching) USC Sol Price School of Public Policy Aubrey Hicks Client Relations and Development Manager UCLA CRESST (National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing) /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/41554520

The 1619 Project 01/26/2022

The 1619 Project This is the last episode of the Bedrosian Bookclub in this incarnation, it's been a blast. We discuss the importance of , the book, the project, and it's impact on our political discourse. Why should we pay attention to history, how does the historical narrative of a country affect the way we face the future? Aubrey Hicks is joined by Yesenia Hunter, LaVonna Lewis, Jen Bravo, and David Sloane in a conversation on the meaning and joy in the The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. Follow Aubrey on Twitter for a new book club announcement soon! Catch up on past episodes in the meantime! Thanks to all the listeners, to all our guests (past and present), and to all the authors who help us think about the world we find ourselves awed by every day. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/21732995

Eat the Mouth That Feeds You 12/16/2021

Eat the Mouth That Feeds You Three votes for Carribean Fragoza’s Eat the Mouth that Feeds You to be something every high school senior is exposed to. This debut collection of short stories is genius, this is late 20th early 21st century Southern California. This is Chicanx, this is Latinx, this is SoCal, this is women’s literature. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/21486863

Covered With Night 11/22/2021

Covered With Night Today, discourse on restorative justice and public safety lacks imagination. We tend to “do what we’ve always done.” /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/21174917

House of Leaves 10/22/2021

House of Leaves Ostensibly, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, is about a young man who finds a manuscript in a dead man’s apartment. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/20861348

Not a Nation of Immigrants 10/08/2021

Not a Nation of Immigrants 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. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/20700584

Unconventional Combat (Author Interview) 09/06/2021

Unconventional Combat (Author Interview) An interview with author of Unconventional Combat, Michael A. Messner. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/20264183

The Atmospherians 08/30/2021

The Atmospherians 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. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/20238539

The Brutish Museums 07/19/2021

The Brutish Museums 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. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/19800710

The Shadow of the Wind 07/11/2021

The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novel The Shadow of the Wind is one of the best selling books of all time. It is a story within a story. Young Daniel finds a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, in the mysterious Cemetery of Forgotten Books. This simple event begins a lifetime of searching for the book's author, Julián Carax. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/19674683

The Fact of a Body 07/08/2021

The Fact of a Body *Please note that since recording in 2017, the author has designated a preferred pronoun of they/them/theirs; they are misgendered in the recording. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/5767560

Emergent Stategy 06/29/2021

Emergent Stategy Polarization is at a high point, political violence surrounds us, joblessness, homelessness, the country's need to face the great wrongs of the past, and the specter of climate change hanging over all of this. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/19598105

All We Can Save 06/25/2021

All We Can Save Activists, scientists, most of us ... we know that the truth of the climate crisis is monumental. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/19407188

The Nature of Desert Nature 05/31/2021

The Nature of Desert Nature Ostensibly, editor Gary Paul Nabhan's collection of friends' essays, The Nature of Desert Nature is about the desert. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/19227665

Twilight of Democracy 04/05/2021

Twilight of Democracy Anne Applebaum, considers what drew many staunch anti-communist conservatives, toward authoritarianism? Twilight of Democracy is the story of elites who think they're entitled, who crave power enough to wield conspiracism like a cudgel against the very institutions they once protected. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/18445073

Caste 03/29/2021

Caste In direct contrast to the myth of the "American Dream," we live in a society in which factors outside of our control determine our fates. From skin color to zip code, only the lucky or exceptionally determined are able to break free of the invisible chains binding them to their caste. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/18444068

One of Us 03/05/2021

One of Us What does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be an individual, to have an identity? How does one become normal? Who gets to decide what is normal? /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/18007394

Solutions and Other Problems 02/22/2021

Solutions and Other Problems "The first time I can remember feeling truly powerless, I was three, and I was trapped sideways in a bucket in the garage." /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/18003263

A Promised Land 02/03/2021

A Promised Land Reading A Promised Land by Barack Obama in January 2021 is a bit of a trip. In some places, the reader feels the swell of nostalgia, the remembrance of governance and a time free of COVID-19. Other times, the juxtaposition Obama's words, with a deep reverence for democracy, and the insurrection of January 6th feels painful. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/17793623

Accelerating Fair Chance Hiring 02/01/2021

Accelerating Fair Chance Hiring In our new series on Community Impact we speak with Victoria Ciudad-Real, John Roberson III, Gary Painter, and Jeffery Wallace about findings from their collaborative project Accelerating Fair Chance Hiring among Los Angeles employers. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/17730269

Parable of the Sower 01/27/2021

Parable of the Sower Octavia Butler's 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, was listed as a NYTImes bestseller for the first time in Sept 2020. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/17689028

Economic Roundtable’s Locked Out Report 01/22/2021

Economic Roundtable’s Locked Out Report Daniel Flaming & Anthony Orlando join us with a new report on homelessness in the time of COVID. The Economic Roundtable uses past pandemic & recession data to predict how COVID joblessness will translate into homelessness in the coming years. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/17627246

The Book Truck & Teen Literacy 01/14/2021

The Book Truck & Teen Literacy In today's bonus episode, we speak with Elizabeth Dragga (Founder of The Book Truck) and Julie Sandor about the work they do to support young book nerds throughout LA County. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/17523935

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear 12/21/2020

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear What better way to end a hard year than to visit Grafton, New Hampshire as author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling as he reports on the people who lived there during the Free Town Project? In the new book, A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, Hongoltz-Hetling follows Graftonites and some "colonizers' who saw it as the perfect place to build a utopian community free of government. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/17197556

How Do Renters Cope with Unaffordability? 12/15/2020

How Do Renters Cope with Unaffordability? In another bonus episode ... we're talking folks from the Price Center to discuss a new report on housing affordability in Los Angeles. The report covers findings from a door-to-door survey done in 2019 to uncover the realities of families living with rent burden. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/17100485

Just Us: An American Conversation 11/25/2020

Just Us: An American Conversation In Citizen, Claudia Rankine wrote: “Because white men can’t / police their imagination / black people are dying." /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/16942811

The Auctioneer 10/26/2020

The Auctioneer Joan Samson’s 'The Auctioneer' is a classic. Her characters live in a very different time, the horror they face remains entirely relatable. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/16512293

NDSC Criminal Justice Data Report 10/14/2020

NDSC Criminal Justice Data Report Given recent events, the findings of a recent USC Price report can help us understand why & how the dialogue between communities & law enforcement is so fraught. This project can help us understand both the conflict & where to go from here. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/16389971

The Ghost Map 09/28/2020

The Ghost Map The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson, focuses on an outbreak of cholera in central London in 1854. John Snow, a doctor who theorized that cholera was waterborne, used the opportunity to collect data to prove his theory. Meanwhile the neighborhood vicar, Henry Whitehead, wanted to prove him wrong. Johnson argues that the work of these two men ushered in the modern city. /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/16118792

The Affordable City (Author Interview) 09/14/2020

The Affordable City (Author Interview) An interview with author of The Affordable City by Shane Phillips. (Follow Phillips on Twitter: @ShaneDPhillips) /episode/index/show/bedrosiancenter/id/15843113

Bedrosian Bookclub Podcast

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