Kate and Eric speak with writer and historian Davarian L. Baldwin, the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and founding director of the Smart Cities Lab at Trinity College. His newest book is In The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities, an exploration of the often uneasy relationship between universities and the cities they inhabit. The book draws on numerous examples, such as Yale, Columbia, NYU, University of Chicago and even Trinity College, to show the impact schools have on their surrounding neighborhoods. As often as not, these universities are drivers of inequality, displacement, and gentrification. In an era of post-industrialization, universities have replaced factories to regularly become the largest employers of their cities, with tax-exempt status to boot, giving them an undue amount of power, while their focus remains on self-enrichment. 

Also, we are joined by Susan Bernofsky, author of Clairvoyant of the Small, a book length study of the the life and works of Robert Walser. Susan recommends Kate  Zambreno's To Write as if Already Dead, which is itself a study of the work of author and artist Herve Guibert, who died in his early thirties from AIDS.