Something Rather Than Nothing Podcast Episode 300!!! We talk ABOLITION.

Calvin John Smiley, Ph.D. is an associate professor of sociology at Hunter College-CUNY. His research and scholarship broadly focus on issues related to justice, inequality, and race. Smiley is the co-editor of Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century: Critical Perspectives of Coming Home (Routledge, 2020). He is the author of the award-winning Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition (University of California Press, 2023), which explores how system-impacted individuals navigate and negotiate the reentry experience with diminished legal rights and amplified social stigmas. Further, he is the author of Defund: Conversations Towards Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024), which considers how #defund can bridge the divide between reform and abolition, becoming a catalyst to help organizers realize abolitionist visions. Finally, Smiley has published in an array of peer-reviewed journals and public outlets.

Beyond his academic work, Smiley is committed to public sociology and praxis. He has been a regular contributor to several news and talk show outlets. Additionally, he is the founder and director of Till Everything Better LLC, which works with system-impacted youth through restorative justice practices within New York City youth detention facilities. Finally, Smiley is the Project Director for the CUNY New Paths and Administration of Children’s Services (ACS) program to offer system-impacted youth college-credit courses.

Katie Marie is a Cherokee/Choctaw educator, Indigenous Wisdomkeeper, and decolonial guide who works at the intersection of healing, community, and education.

Enjoy this ranging conversation into matriarchy, wellness of being, Indigenous futures, our planet, Art & Philosophy!

Something Rather than Nothing

Annabel McConnachie (she/her) is an actress, writer, singer, dancer and content creator. She is originally from Sydney, Australia but is currently based in New York City. She is best known for her work in the critically acclaimed miniseries 'IKEA Heights - The Next Generation'.

Her much anticipated new play 'Archive of My Own' made its stage debut in a moved reading at the Tank.

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