So if democracy is under pressure, what role do stories, culture, and imagination play in defending it?

In this episode, we're joined by Alan Jenkins, civil rights lawyer, former Ford foundation program director, Harvard Law School professor, and now comic book author, for a wide ranging conversation about story making and telling as a tool for social change. From Supreme Court litigation to graphic novels, Alan Jenkins traces how law, narrative, and culture intersect when democracy is at stake.

So in our conversation, we explore three big ideas I think matter a lot right now:

1. First, why is story inseparable from power?And how law, policy, and culture work together, whether we acknowledge it or not, to shape public belief and behavior.
2. Next, how popular culture and art have historically been used to confront authoritarianism. From Superman and Captain America to global protest movements that borrow symbol, humor, and myth.
3. And finally, what hybrid 21st century leadership looks like and why flexibility, empathy, and imagination may be as important as specialized expertise in this moment.

NOTABLE MENTIONS

People

Bill Cleveland

Host of ART IS CHANGE and founder of the Center for the Study of Art & Community.

Alan Jenkins

Harvard Law School professor; former civil rights and DOJ lawyer; former Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation; co-author of 1/6: The Graphic Novel.

Anthony S. Fauci

Former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; referenced in discussion of ACT UP and activist pressure shaping public institutions.

Charles Lindbergh

Aviator and political figure cited in discussion of American isolationism and authoritarian sympathies prior to World War II.

Pablo Picasso

Artist whose painting Guernica is referenced as a defining cultural response to fascist violence.

Organizations & Institutions

Harvard Law School

Institution where Alan Jenkins teaches courses on civil rights law, narrative, and Supreme Court jurisprudence.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Civil rights organization where Jenkins worked early in his legal career.

United States Department of Justice

Referenced in connection with Jenkins’s Supreme Court litigation experience.

Ford Foundation

Global philanthropy where Jenkins served as Director of Human Rights.

Pop Culture Collaborative

Organization that supported research on popular culture and resistance to authoritarianism referenced in the episode.

Western States Center

Organization that produced the civic action guide accompanying 1/6: The Graphic Novel.

San Diego State University

Institution that developed an educational guide for teaching with 1/6: The Graphic Novel.

Works, Events & Cultural References

1/6: The Graphic Novel

Graphic novel co-created by Alan Jenkins imagining a future in which the January 6 insurrection succeeded.

Seven Things Artists, Entertainers, and Creatives Can Do to Protect Democracy

Alan Jenkins' article describing seven strategies that creatives in the arts can use to protect democracy from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia to West Africa to Latin America.

January 6, 2021 United States Capitol Attack

Historical event central to the episode’s discussion of democracy, narrative, and authoritarianism.

ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)

Activist movement referenced for its strategic use of protest, narrative framing, and moral urgency.

Superman

Comic book character cited as an early example of popular culture advancing social justice narratives.

Captain America

Referenced for his first appearance punching Adolf Hitler—months before U.S. entry into WWII.

The Hunger Games

Film and book series referenced for its three-finger salute adopted by real-world protest movements.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Graphic memoir referenced for its portrayal of authoritarianism and women’s lives during the Iranian Revolution.

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Iconic painting referenced as a lasting artistic indictment of fascist violence.

*******

Art Is CHANGE is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.

Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.

Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Hey, there.

So if democracy is under pressure, what role do stories, culture, and imagination play in defending it?

From the center for the Study of Art and Community, this is Art is Change chronicle of art and social change, where activist artists and cultural organizers share the skills and strategies they need to thrive as creative community leaders.

So in this episode, we're joined by Alan Jenkins, civil rights lawyer, former Ford foundation program director, Harvard Law School professor, and now comic book author, for a wide ranging conversation about story making and telling as a tool for social change. From Supreme Court litigation to graphic novels, Alan Jenkins traces how law, narrative, and culture intersect when democracy is at stake.

So in our conversation, we explore three big ideas I think matter a lot right now:

First, why is story inseparable from power?And how law, policy, and culture work together, whether we acknowledge it or not, to shape public belief and behavior.

Next, how popular culture and art have historically been used to confront authoritarianism.

From Superman and Captain America to global protest movements that borrow symbol, humor, and myth.

And finally, what hybrid 21st century leadership looks like and why flexibility, empathy, and imagination may be as important as specialized expertise in this moment.

Part one, Hybrid Dancing.

Let's begin with the beginning, which is Alan Jenkins. Where are you hailing from? Where are you at?

So, I am originally from Long Island, New York, and I split my time these days between Cambridge, Mass. Where I'm a professor, and New York City metro area.

Ah, yes, because you have. You play many roles. You have a lot of things going in your life.

This is true.

So if you have a. A street name or a handle that. That personifies your work, what would it be?

I guess I aspire to be a social change superhero. I don't know that I've ever achieved that, but that's the aspiration, actually.

My grandson's. My grandson's birthday is today, and I. On his card, I. I shared with him what I thought were his superpowers. He's 18. I said, treat them with respect.

Yeah. I. I tell my students that empathy is our superpower, that no one ever persuaded anyone else without first understanding them.

So do you have any other superpowers you think that have been gifted to you?

Yeah. No, I think I'm fortunate in a lot of ways. I've had a lot of opportunities that's helped to build my expertise.

But accidents and opportunities are not quite the same as superpowers.

All right, I'm going to say a superpower is being magnetized towards opportunity and luck.

Ah, there you go. Okay.

And most superheroes have a hard time actually reconciling the fact that they have their powers and struggle with that.

True.

So when you're with folks who aren't familiar with your path, how do you describe your work in the world?

I'm really on career five or six or seven, depending on how you count. I think what connects the things that I've done is the intersection of storytelling, law and social justice.

So I've been a law clerk, I've been a civil rights lawyer, I've been a government lawyer. I litigated cases at the Justice Department in front of the Supreme Court in the Clinton administration. I have been a philanthropist.

I was director of human rights at the Ford Foundation. I then ran a social justice communication lab that I helped to found with other talented folks.

And I've been teaching now at Harvard Law School for about six years. And as you noted, I'm most recently a comic book co author. So all very different.

I was thinking this morning that many of the jobs I've had I didn't even know existed when I was in law school, certainly not before I attended law school. But you know, I think if we step back, one can see that there actually is a common thread that winds through all of them.

Yeah, it's your magnet.

So do you think storytelling in a creative lens have been a part of your work, even though your job descriptions might not include the creative process as a key element?

Absolutely.

So just to give you a couple of examples, when I was a civil rights lawyer, when that was my main job with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, my first case was in the South Carolina Sea Islands.

And it was a particular island there that where black folks from the Gullah community who've been there generationally since before the end of slavery were being pushed out by a combination of high taxes, gentrification, and old fashioned racial discrimination. And so working with others, I worked up a case of discrimination. We gathered proof.

I think we had a very strong case, but we also developed a communication strategy. It was my first time on television, I think, among other things. And we reached out to the Atlanta Journal Constitution and CNN and all of those.

We got a lot of impactful coverage and the case settled immediately. The other side called me the next day.

And what that left with me is on the one hand, without the law, without our litigation strategy, there would have been nothing to settle. We wouldn't have had any kind of leverage with sticking power.

But without the communication strategy, it might have dragged on for years or decades, as many civil rights cases do. And so I didn't fully process it at the Time. But it gradually became part of my own narrative that.

That, yeah, at least in this modern era, in order to be successful, you have to be able to combine those skills, policy, advocating for policy change, not necessarily as a lawyer, but seeking as an advocate, lasting, enforceable policy change and telling a story that can both support that change and sustain it. That actually moves hearts and minds as well as policy. And when I was arguing in the Supreme Court, I saw that, too.

You had to be absolutely 100% solid on the law, and you had to be able to tell a story rooted in, often constitutional values that five members of the Court could see themselves in. And that has been true of all my work. And over time, I've had a chance, as I did at the Ford foundation, to see best practices from around the world.

How are advocates in India or South Africa or Uruguay or lots of other parts of the world using, integrating storytelling, often art and culture, with policy, law, other strategies. So again and again, that has come back to me as a necessary combination for positive change.

So that's clearly a lesson that you've learned and incorporated in your work. Do you have a sense of how that works when people are pushing from the other direction?

I'm particularly thinking some people consider the current regime to be masterful at taking control of the narrative and twisting it. Is that something you think folks that are doing the kind of work you're doing need to understand and know better?

Absolutely. And I should say that I've seen a lot of progress in that respect over the couple of decades that I've been engaged in this, the political right.

And now, you know, what I would consider to be the extremist right in our current administration? They've been masters of this. They've had decades of head start. It's taken those of us who believe in human rights and social justice.

It's taken us years to try to catch up, and we're not quite there. And of course, none of us have the megaphone that the executive branch of the federal government has. But we have some strengths going for us.

In addition to building our superpowers of empathy and persuasion, we have the popular culture world and the artistic world, which is overwhelmingly, not exclusively, but overwhelmingly sympathetic and often taking a leadership role in terms of social justice and human rights.

We have the power of the people, lots of people taking action, as we've seen with no kings, which is an exercise not only in protest, but in communication and in storytelling, that the hashtag no kings tells a particular story. We have organized labor, which has to play an important role. Again, organizing is a form of communication and storytelling at its best.

So I think there are a lot of tools and advantages we do, but there's no question that we're up against both a powerful and at times very skillful narrative or propaganda machine.

Part 216 Comics so I have to imagine understanding the power of image and.

Story had some role in your decision as a law professor to become a comic author, and which doesn't in itself mean that you're going to succeed at that. I think you've succeeded at it.

And my question is, so if you understand that story making and storytelling are both critical to pushing back effectively in these circumstances, what are the elements of a story that you think matter in that endeavor?

Well, so the comic book so gone, Golan and I Gone is a New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. And I am definitely not a New York Times bestselling graphic novelist, but I'm a comic book geek from way back in middle school.

And it was a beautiful day to rewrite the history, or at least attempt to rewrite the history of what was attempted and what was done.

We had a strong sense that the bigotry and antisemitism and racism and authoritarian values that had created the fuel for that unsuccessful effort were hanging around and not going anywhere, and that it was going to be with us for a long time, time to come. And so I'm a law professor, so I could have written a law review article that would have been read by tens of people who already agreed with me.

But I'm also a comic book geek. I love comic books and I love democracy.

And I thought comic books would be a perfect vehicle for reaching a new audience that maybe hadn't read the 812 page House Select Committee report on the insurrection. Wasn't glued to CNN the way many of us were, or to social media news. And so we set about doing this project, Gan and I, and it really.

I think it captured the imagination. And so now they've been three issues. We're about to release the fourth to coincide with the fifth anniversary of January 6th.

And last thing I'll say there is it had to be a powerful, entertaining story. You know, comic book medium is not for documentary purposes. It had to have fun elements and humor as well as dark elements.

It had to be driven by characters and adventure and by empathy. So our characters are diverse ideologically as well as demographically.

And we tried to see ourselves in all of the characters, even the ones with whom we know we would disagree in real life.

So one of the things that strikes me, and actually, I have only read the first one, so I'm looking forward to reading the others. And it's very clear that the first one was written with the understanding that. There would be others because it stopped. At a dramatic moment in the story.

Cliffhanger. Yes.

I was a comic book geek myself, but as a consumer, I just fell into them and loved them.

Right.

But looking at 16 thinking, what would it take to do this and what do you have to think about? And it came to me that it's a lot like songwriting.

So when I building a song and I have three verses and a bridge and a chorus, you have minimal space and words to make some sense and get a beginning, middle, and some kind of an end. And in 1 6, I saw how important it was to have signposts with. Have characters that personified certain things.

And there's almost no language, really, in a comic book, but to be able to just craft a coherent story. And I'm just thinking about the comic medium as a really powerful art form. For making sense with some very complicated issues. Could you talk a little bit about the craft?

Absolutely. And it is a perfect medium for storytelling, especially around democracy and human rights. And it has long been used for that purpose. Right.

So Superman is considered either the or one of the first superheroes.

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. Look up in the sky. It's a bird.

It's a plane.

It's Superman. Yes, it's Superman. Strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth.

And so in the first issue of his comic book, he's saving a woman who is wrongly accused and on death row. Right. He's exonerating her. He is exposing a corrupt politician. He is protecting a woman who's a victim of domestic violence.

And so these were all social justice issues, all of them still with us today. And what the creators of Superman chose to include in their character.

I've mentioned to you, that first issue of Captain America, he is socking Adolf Hitler in the jaw.

Order is restored when people stop questioning, when obedience replaces God, when strength decides what is true.

You don't get to decide who counts, and you don't speak for the future. And you certainly don't get to do this unchallenged.

This is nine months before the US entered World War II, and at a time when lots of Americans like Charles Lindbergh were arguing that we shouldn't, or at least that we shouldn't enter on the side of the Allies and that Hitler was not such a bad guy. And yet the creators of this comic book, who were both Jewish Americans, they knew Hitler was a villain and they made him so. Right.

So, and there are lots of other examples. Superman fought the Klan, the Black Panther fought the Klan two decades later.

So there have been some problematic depictions in comic books and some racist and misogynistic depictions in comic books. But also they have long been a vehicle for positive envisioning of democracy and social change. So. But you asked about the process.

So and I will get together initially in person and more recently on Zoom. We do what's called breaking stories. So we'll figure out, well, what are the beats, the important things that need to happen in each of these issues.

We go issue by issue and then we'll produce a script. So it's in some ways like a movie script, but as you noted, Bill, you have to convey a huge amount of information in just one panel or one page.

So something that would be a prolonged dialogue in a film has to be a couple of speech balloons and some really iconic images. That's fun, but it's also really challenging to stay within a page limit.

Also, whereas film and television is continuous with comic books, you have certain units of communication.

And what I mean by that is, if I want to first tease something dramatic and then deliver it, I want to tease it on one page and then time it so that the reader is opening the next page for the payoff.

Right.

That requires so much planning, I can't even tell you. And sometimes you get it wrong. So we've hired top notch Marvel and DC artists to do the interior and the covers.

And so once they have created a page, there's very little room for Changing it. So you kind of got to get it right the first time. So just to briefly close out on this. So we'll produce the script.

We will then share it with the artist that's doing the interiors or the artists. They will do a layout. So it's just like thumbnail sketch of how they envision what we put on the page. And we always learn a huge amount.

We're always blown away by their creativity. They contribute a huge amount. We'll make tweaks and we send it back to them. Then they do the pencils, then they same thing. Then they do the inks.

So those are separate processes. And then lettering and color are also separate and done by different artists. So it's a very iterative process.

And at each point, you as the writers, we can change a little bit, but actually not that much once things go to ink. So it's fun, it's dramatic. I always am just so excited when I get the email saying that the pencils are in.

But it requires a lot of planning on the front end. Unlike film, for example, you can't just edit or shoot a new scene. You kind of have what you have.

It's like theater on a page. Yeah. Where I mean, the script is set. And actually there's no ad libbing and there's no improvisation going on.

That's exactly right.

Oh, actually it sounds thrilling. It also reminds me of haiku. That it is. It's a delicate dance that you're having. Part three, how do artists block, bridge and build?

So one of the things that I didn't know that I recently encountered in a meeting that you and I were a part of just about a week ago, your research on the many ways that human creativity and artfulness have engaged historically in struggles with authoritarian forces. And I've spent three decades doing that same kind of work.

But it was one of the best illustrative compendiums of not just historic stories, but of strategic creative stories. Could you talk a little bit about that and where it came from and what you learned?

Yeah, I mean, I was very fortunate to be asked by the Pop Culture Collaborative, which is a funder of, as the name suggests, strategies that use popular culture to advance human right and human dignity.

I was asked by them to do some research on what democratic movements were anti authoritarian movements around the world, how they've used art and culture to advance their goals of defending democracy, pushing back against authoritarianism and tyranny. And so I did a bunch of library work, I interviewed a bunch of folks, we did a series of briefings.

And it was very inspiring in part because you could just see from this is over a period of maybe 70, 60 or 70 years, but mostly in the last 25 years, all outside of the United States.

So whereas there are a lot of examples, especially from the civil rights movement and the LGBTQ movement, labor movement, of combating authoritarian tendencies with art and culture.

But, you know, we really kind of decided at the beginning that my research would focus on examples from outside of the United States that have had much more extreme, or at least all encompassing types of authoritarianism. And yeah, it was inspiring there. I came up with 15 different types of interventions, but it could have been 30 for sure.

And it ranged from do not obey in advance, which is always good advice for all of us.

Don't try to anticipate what the authoritarian regime is going to want and hand it to them because you're just teaching them what they can get away with.

To the uses of humor, to how fandom people who are fans of, for example, the Hunger Games series have, especially in Asia and Southeast Asia, have taken the three finger salute from the Hunger Games and made it a part of their movements. Some really exciting examples and I think importantly replicable. Right.

So those of us who are deeply concerned about where our democracy is heading or whether we still have one can use a lot of those strategies, all strategically, none violent, and all very proactive and in many ways provocative ways of challenging and also advancing a positive vision.

So now we've, on one page we've wet people's whistle with this idea that there's this research you did, if someone's interested on page two to get access to some of these stories, which I will say from personal experience, are both illustrative and as you say, really inspiring.

There's a lot of hopefulness in all that because of the possibilities of the power, the creative process that I think some people don't automatically come to. How would people get access to either your presentation or the research itself?

Yeah, so at least two ways. So one is I've written about a subset of. Of. I think I picked seven of the lessons and types of strategies.

And so people can find that on my substack, Alan Jenkins on I think I published the piece also on LinkedIn and on Medium.

So if you kind of Google seven lessons, artists and Authoritarianism, Alan Jenkins or some combination of that, you can find the piece that I wrote, which is a much more succinct description. I am sharing the broader research and presentation with groups that are in a position to take it and run with it.

So for example, a number of museums have expressed a lot of interest. I'm speaking with a number of other groups, including the convening that you and I went to. So I'm easy to find.

People can certainly reach out and request either a zoom or in person. Presentation time is short, so I'm only doing a few of those each quarter.

But where there are groups who really can show they have both the interest and the capacity to implement some of it. I'm happy to share that.

Yeah, and we'll put a link to this article that you've written so that people will be able to go to it.

So the path of your work is what in my practice is what I call 21st century hybrid work that takes as gospel that the hybrid, the multiple skills and perspectives aren't just added layers, but are essential to making sense and making change in a complicated world. If that makes sense to you. Could you describe how and why you think that's the case?

Well, just to dissect a bit what you said, I do agree with it. You said 21st century hybrids.

So in my dad's generation, my parents, my mom and dad were teachers, you know, at the same school district for 35 years. And my dad was older when I was born, so he experienced some other things. He was one of the first black US Marines, for example.

But they really came from an era where you figure out your calling and that's what you do for as long as your health and employer will let you do it. That that has. And that was extremely impactful. Right.

I still meet former students of my parents, most of whom are in their 70s now, 60s and 70s, who tell me how impactful my parents contribution was as educators. But you know, that's much less the path these days. I would have been an outlier in the past who have had at least four distinct careers.

But you know, today I think it's much more common and just to make it a little bit more personal, I have always looked for impact.

So where can I use whatever my talents are and what I have learned along the way to try to make people's lives better, to try to improve our nation and the world in ways that can be both immediate and lasting. And so I also get bored very easily.

So it's meant that once I feel like I have kind of made my mark or contribution in an area in a way that I hope will be lasting, I'm ready to move on and try a different approach. As times change, the moment calls for different kinds of things.

And when the demands of the new reality seem to fit with my interests and skill set, I, you know, have been very typically excited, right, to jump in to a new area. So I feel very fortunate that I've been able to do so many different exciting things.

And I hope that each time I'm bringing with me the things that I've done before. At, in my classes at Harvard Law School, I teach a class on civil rights law. I teach a class on strategic communication for social justice advocates.

I teach a class on narrative and Supreme Court jurisprudence. So we look at Supreme Court decisions as storytelling with heroes and villains and a beginning, middle and end.

Those are all things that I brought from my prior careers and prior life. So, yeah, I am a hybrid for sure. And, and hopefully that the synergy across the things that I've done can produce some new insights.

So actually you echo something that I've experienced a lot. I've.

My teaching basically has been artists and their community based partners from other sectors always together as hybrid, really asking the question, how can art and culture help build caring, capable and equitable communities? Broad challenge, Often at the beginning.

Many people define themselves by the thing that they have been gifted with by an educational system or their personal experience. And they're kind of locked into it.

And one of the things that I think you personify is that you said impact, okay, and what's your intention versus what is it that you do? Right?

And if there's a connection, if there's a linkage, if there's an alignment between the many things that you're capable of bringing to the table and an intention that asks the question, what will be different if you succeed, Then sort of the, the door is open to all kinds of things that you may or may not think of as your core expertise, right? Because you have relationships, you have weird experiences in your life that aren't necessarily connected to your career.

And more than anything, you have your imagination. And if you're lucky enough, you may actually have access to the creative process to put all those things together.

And it dramatically makes a difference. When people in essence work the narrative towards what will be different, how will this story be different?

If what you do has a positive impact, which is very different from I know how to make a play, I'm not exactly sure how it would connect. So you teach, and I'm assuming that some of your students and others that you meet go, gee, Alan, I'd like to have a story that's like yours.

What advice would you give me to get on that path or at least be able to explore it. What do you say to them?

Yeah, it's a great question, Bill. I think a few things.

One is my strategy has always been to hold steadfast to my values, but to be flexible about how I advance them and to put them first, along with my family, which is also part of my values. To put them first in the choices that I've made.

And that has resulted in having a life of purpose and also in being kind of open and ready to try other things. I also have tried to always nurture my interests, even if they didn't seem super relevant. Right.

So who knew that my interest in comic books would turn out to have any relevance to a future insurrection and a future America trending towards authoritarianism. But I've been going to Comic Con and nurturing that part of my interest. And when the time came, I saw the connections.

I should say that I think there is great value to both paths.

And by that I mean we wouldn't have a cure for COVID 19 if there hadn't been people who had rigorously devoted their lives to studying viruses and how to eradicate them, so that when their moment came, it wasn't the first time their moment came. They were able to apply that deep, deep knowledge and expertise in a way that eventually became life saving.

So I don't think in order to have great impact, one has to move in lots of. Towards lots of different approaches and interventions. It has worked for me, but I think that flexibility still becomes important.

So I recently, I was listening to, I think it was an old interview with Dr. Fauci, and he talked about how during the AIDS crisis, he was moved by ACT UP and the AIDS movement and realized that in his words, they were right. You don't fit our profiles.

When you guys would be theatrical and stuff, the scientists would run away.

Anthony Fauci, I piss on you.

I mean, what the hell are these people doing?

They're not producing drugs.

And I was saying, let me put aside the insults, the disruptions. I got the point of, wait a minute, just listen to what they're saying.

That he was. He and his colleagues were not doing enough.

Not putting people with HIV and AIDS at the center of conversations, were not recognizing that people were dying and couldn't wait for the ordinary, slow and tedious approach of testing and the like. And it changed his thinking as he describes it. But he also had to be open to hearing the criticism and the protest as advice, right?

Rather than as a personal attack that he was going to close himself down to. And so then decades later, when COVID 19 crisis struck, he was able to bring some of that empathy and understanding and urgency to a new crisis.

So he had been doing the same thing for decades and decades.

But he learned along the way, and in my view, he learned some crucially important values from a social movement that was under siege, in the middle of a plague and demanding a new approach.

So whether we're stay in our same lane or we try to try out some other approaches and maybe try to find intersections within them, I think we always have to be open and empathetic and ready to learn and change.

Yeah.

And the thing that you started out with speaking about one of those superpowers, which is empathy, it's a two way street. ACT UP understood completely that one of their jobs was to get in people's faces.

Another one was to make sense and elicit an empathic response from people, particularly those in a position to do something, one of whom was Anthony Fauci, and they were both.

And having that discernment, just like I would imagine arguing in front of the Supreme Court, as little different from having an argument at the Thanksgiving table.

You'd be surprised.

Yeah.

So I'd like to end with if there are any books or other works of art that have sparked you recently that you'd like to share with folks that are listening.

Yeah, that's a great question. As you would imagine, I've been reading a lot of comic books.

So for your listeners who are interested in that vein, there's a really important and well written and entertaining body of comic books and graphic novels. Persepolis, for example, about, among other things, the Iranian revolution and its impact on women. There's good old days of future past.

The newest Superman movie is, I think, a fascinating cultural vehicle that is at one level about oppression and responsibility and power, how to use power. But I. More on the fine art side, I. I've been looking at Picasso's Guernica, for example, his. His work of art coming out of the.

The attack on that region of. Of Spain by an authoritarian tyrant, Franco, aided by Mussolini and Hitler, if I have my history right.

But it is an enduring statement, visual statement, not only about the fact that war is hell, but that oppression is hell. So I think all we have to do is be open to it. And these examples are really everywhere.

Yeah, they are. And actually it's interesting.

One of the episodes of this podcast that will be airing sometime in the next three or four weeks is a serial broadcast podcast musical created specifically about authoritarianism and Climate change. It's episode 160. It's called a Climate Revolution with songs.

And it's I think what I bring that up because I think that artists are breaking out of the boxes that they're often put in and really thinking about ways in which to manifest really high level work in service to learning, education, making a point, making meaning and blowing people's minds. Because that's always, at least that's a precursor to learning as far as I'm concerned.

If you can arrange brain cells a little bit to make space for new things, it's a gift.

Agreed. Oh, and Bill, that reminds me of something that I meant to mention that with our comic book series, all of them have QR codes.

And so there's free access to an action guide that Western State center created that gives everyday people things that they can do to protect democracy locally as well as nationally.

And San Diego State University has created a teacher guide for the series so that if anywhere from high school up to grad school want to use the series to engage questions of the Constitution and equal rights and other themes, they can do that.

Fantastic. So lots of new readers, hopefully around the world will rise up as a result of this. And I just want to thank you.

I really appreciate your work as a model and as an, as a really effective contribution to I think a very important moment in American history. World history, actually.

So agree. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for having me on.

All right, thank you. So before we close, here are a few things I think are worth carrying.

Forward from this conversation. First of all, stories are never neutral. Whether through law, art or popular culture.

Stories shape how people understand power, justice and belonging. Then you know, resistance works best when it blends rigorous with imagination. Law without narrative can stall.

Narrative without structure can just fade away. The strongest movements integrate both. Finally, hybrid paths are not a liability. They're a strength in a complex, fast changing world.

Empathy, flexibility and cross disciplinary thinking are not extras. They're essential tools for effective work. And as always, so is gratitude. So thanks to y' all for tuning in.

Artist Change is a production of the center for the Study of Art and Community. Our theme and soundscape spring forth from the head, heart and hand of the maestro. Judy Munson.

Our text editing is by Andre Nebbe Our effects come from freesound.org and our Instagram inspiration comes from the ever present. Spirit of UK 235. So until next time, stay well, do. Good and spread the good word.