J P LINSTROTH EPOCHAL RECKONINGS PODCAST

These AI Podcasts are a survey of the scholar and poet, J. P. Linstroth's academic and creative works published since 2002 but still relevant today with his most recent non-fiction book, Politics and Racism Beyond Nations: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Crises, published in 2022 (Palgrave Macmillan) and current publications of poetry in various online sources. His last book, mixed-genre, short stories and poetry, was a volume titled: Swimming in Blue Shadows: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems (2022, Winner of Supplementary Book Publication Prize, Proverse Hong Kong). He is also, author of the Award-Winning, poetry book, Epochal Reckonings (2019 International Proverse Prize, 2020 Proverse HK. His first non-fiction book is: Marching Against Gender Practive: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland (2015, Bloomsbury Books). The podcasts are based upon his Award-Winning poetry book, Epochal Reckonings, because the themes within it touch upon multiple subjects relevant to the 21st Century and also link to the themes relevant throughout Linstroth's published work. The poetry book, Epochal Reckonings, describes and responds to some of the crises of the first years of the 21st century. Linstroth aims as he puts it, to cause concern, discussion, and surprise as well as to evoke the emotions of anger, empathy, and sadness. The events covered in Epochal Reckonings include the huge migrations of people seeking to cross borders, whether in the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, or Europe, hoping for safety and a better life. Linstroth also comments on human and natural acts of astonishing violence: the 9/11 destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York; the Hurricane named Katrina of 2005; the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Linstroth often portrays man's inhumanity to man, whether callous, careless, mistaken, or deliberate the police-killings of African-American youths; the genocide of Brazilian indigenous peoples; the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison; mass school-shootings in the USA; and the Yemeni civil war. Linstroth describes his poetry as emergent and inchoate, outlining the struggles and sufferings of various groups during major crises in the 21st century, embodied by racism, extremism, violence, and tragedies too many to be told. Thus, the poems in the Award-Winning, Epochal Reckonings book capture various calamities of our times, defining their symbolic significance for many of those who have experienced these disasters of the present across the globe. Moreover, this podcast series will go beyond this one particular book and cover the wide range of Dr. Linstroth's work throughout his academic career and his creative works.

***BIOGRAPHY***:

J. P. Linstroth has a PhD (D.Phil.) in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford, UK with several awards for his research concentrating on the Spanish-Basques, Brazilian urban Amerindians, and Cuban, Haitian, and Guatemalan-Mayan immigrants in South Florida. He is an Adjunct Professor at Palm Beach State College (PBSC) and the author of several books: Marching Against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland (2015, Bloomsbury Books); The Forgotten Shore (Poetic Matrix Press, 2017); Epochal Reckonings (Proverse Publishers HK, 2020, Winner of Proverse Prize 2019); Politics and Racism Beyond Nations: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Crises (2022, Palgrave Macmillan); and Swimming in Blue Shadows: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems (2022, Proverse HK, Proverse Supplementary Prize). He was awarded a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholar Grant (2008-2009) to study urban Amerindians in Manaus,