Afleveringen
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In a society that ascribes inherent value to productivity, it’s easy to overlook the potentially harmful structures we are actually (re)producing through our labour. In this episode we explore the cult of productivity - life under capitalism - through a neuroqueer lens. We question how the individualistic nature of self-discipline that surrounds productivity interacts with acts of solidarity and mutual aid, and how we might build futures that are more welcoming of queer community building. You can also look forward to some hot takes on mindfulness and slow living, as well as some very un/serious yapping towards the end of the episode…
References:
Choi, M.A. (2021). The power of slowness: Governmentalities of Olle walking in South Korea. Transactions of the IBG. 47 (2). Pp. 562-576.
Cook, E. (2016). (Dis)Connections and silence: experiences of family and part-time work in Japan. Japanese Studies. DOI:10.1080/10371397.2016.1215228
Gregg, M. (2018) Counterproductive: Time management in the knowledge economy. London: Duke University Press.
Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Lorde, A. (1988) A burst of light. New York: Firebrand books.
Manning, E. (2016). The Minor Gesture. London: Duke University Press.
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Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Leaning into our film bro personas, in this episode we use the latest Joker movie to explore how dissociation - the cultivation of numbness, or splitting of subjectivity - might be considered a subtle form of resistance whilst inhabiting hostile environments. Is our refusal to be affected by oppressive structures a revolutionary act of self-preservation? Or does cultivated numbness prevent us from mobilising towards radical change? Ultimately…why is everyone hating on the new Joker film?
References:
Aitken, S. in Anderson et al. (2022) Encountering Berlant part one: Concepts otherwise. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12494
Awkward-Rich, C. (2022). The Terrible We: Thinking with trans maladjustment. Durham: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. (2022). The Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bissell, D. (2021). The Anaesthetic Politics of Being Unaffected: Embodying Insecure Digital Platform Labour. The Anaesthetic Politics of Being Unaffected: Embodying Insecure Digital Platform Labour - Bissell - 2022 - Antipode - Wiley Online Library
Malatino, H. (2022). Side Affects: On being trans and feeling bad. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Turner, C. (2024). The transgender space invader: Out of time and out of affect. European Journal of Cultural Studies.
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In the age of the algorithm, social media platforms and machine learning technologies are now defining, and perpetually updating, aesthetic ideals and beauty standards. In this episode, we discuss how beauty culture is entangled with the digital technologies that have become so pervasive in everyday life. How does ‘algorithmic oppression’ play into the creation and maintenance of beauty standards, and how does it feel to exist as cyborg, changeling bodies within all of this? Inspired by various works of fiction and drawing upon critical theory, we explore how we might hack and resist the affordances of these technologies through embodying and embracing glitches, and in ways that gesture towards queer and non-binary becoming.
Atlanta, E. (2024) Pixel Flesh: How toxic beauty culture harms women. London: Headline Publishing Group.
Awad, M. (2023) Rouge. New York: Scribner Publishing.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press
Russell, L. (2020) Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. London: Verso Books.
Sender, K. & Shaw, A. (2017) Queer Technologies: Affordances, Affect, Ambivalence. London: Routledge
Ta-Wei, C. (1995 [2021]) The Membranes: a novel. Columbia: Columbia University Press.
Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. London: Profile Books Ltd.
Zwick, D. & Knott, J. D. (2009) “Manufacturing Customers: The database as new means of production.” Journal of Consumer Culture, 9(2).
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Happy Halloween, hopeful readers! In this episode, we bring all the spooky vibes with a little monster mash up…From Frankenstein and witches to a jellyfish communist revolution, we explore what the figure of the ‘monster’ tells us about the exclusionary, anthropocentric category of the human, as well as how the affective circulation of fear works to maintain hierarchical boundaries and binaries. Can we be hopeful little monsters in a world that sometimes feels monstrous?
References:
Ahmed, S. (2014) The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Chollet, M. (2022) In defence of witches: Why women are still on trial. London: Picador.
Enriquez, M. (2009). The dangers of smoking in bed. London: Granta books.
Greenaway, J. (2024) Capitalism, A Horror Story:Gothic marxism and the dark side of the imagination. London: Repeater Books.
Halberstam, J. (1995) Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monstrosity. London: Duke University Press.
Musharbash, Y. (2023) Monsters and Crises, a seminar.
Nordmarken, S. (2013) Becoming ever more monstrous: feeling transgender in-betweenness. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(1).
Preciado, P. B. (2021) Can the monster speak? London: Fitzcarraldo editions.
Rumfitt, A. (2023) Brainwyrms. Cipher Press.
Shelley, M. (1818) Frankenstein. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth editions.
Stryker, S. (1994 [2024]) My words to Victor Frankenstein above the village of Chamounix: Performing transgender rage. Durham: Duke University Press.
Tsing, A., Bubandt, N., Gan, E. & Swanson, H. (2017) Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Wynter, S. (2001). Towards the sociogenic principle: Fanon, Identity, the Puzzle of Conscious
Experience, and What it is like to be Black. in A. Gomez-Moriana and M. Duran-Cogan
(eds.). National Identities and Sociopolitical Changes in Latin America. New York: Routledge
Wynter, S. (2007). Human Being as Noun? Or Being Human as Praxis? Towards the Autopoetic
Turn/Overturn: A Manifesto.
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Can writing - the fixing and rendering static of our experiences - ever be queer? I mean, sure...but why is (queer) writer’s block still so all consuming?
In this episode we dip our toes into queer theory’s subjectivity debate before discussing how we might expand the ‘I’ in personal narrative in ways that problematise normative modes of writing about our ‘own’ experiences. Inspired by feminist new materialism and Deleuzian assemblage theory, this episode grapples with the possibility (or, perhaps, necessity) of queer writing as resistance.
References:
Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of meaning and matter. Durham: Duke University Press.
Barker, M.J. (2020). ‘On Queer Writing’ Available at: https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/self/on-queer-writing/
Berlant, L. (2022) On the Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.
Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1980) A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fassin, D. (2014) ‘True Life, Real Lives: Revisiting the Boundaries between ethnography and fiction’ American Ethnologist. 41(1)
Febos, M. (2022) Body Work: The radical power of personal narrative. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lorde, A. (2007) Sister Outsider. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. Available online: https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/11881_Chapter_5.pdf
Ruti, M. (2017) The ethics of opting out: Queer theory’s defiant subjects. Columbia: Columbia University Press.
Wilson, E. in Ryan, K. (ed). (2022). So long as you write: women on writing. Dear Damsels.
Winterson, J. (1992) Oranges are not the only fruit. London: Vintage Books.
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The Hopeful Reader returns after a little summer hiatus! In this episode, we reflect on the place of ‘hope’ in the current socio-political epoch; drawing upon John Holloway’s ‘Hope in Hopeless Times’, we explore how relational forms of rage-hope might mobilise queer revolutionary politics…Why do we call ourselves ‘hopeful’ readers in supposedly ‘hopeless times’? If that all sounds like a lot, you can also look forward to some hot takes on worm communes, the latest J Wils novel and a whole host of other antics…
References:
Berlant, L. (2022) On the Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.
Holloway, J. (2022) Hope in Hopeless Times. London: Pluto Press.
Pedwell, C. (2021) Revolutionary Routines: The habits of social transformation. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
Ruti, M. (2017) The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory’s Defiant Subjects. New York: Columbia University Press.
Queering the Map - www.queeringthemap.com
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Episode 6 : Affect and the city
In this episode we explore how space can be queered through fiction; through continuously recreating the affective dimensions of queer space, can fiction problematise the attempted containment, erasure or supposedly ‘temporary’ nature of queerness in public spaces? Inspired by works such as Call Me by Your Name, Young Mungo and Nevada, this episode considers the centrality of memories and past affective resonances to the materiality of space, as well as how existing in an affective bind between the anticipation of an ending and the promise of a (spatial) ‘otherwise’ shapes the rhythms and directions of queer mobility.
References:
Aciman, A. (2017) Call me by your name. Bloomsbury: Atlantic Books.
Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham: Duke University Press.
Anderson, B. (2022) “Forms and Scenes of Attachment: A Cultural Geography of Promises”, Dialogues in Human Geography (online early).
Azzouz, A. and Catterall, P. (2021) Queering Public Space, Arup. [online] Available at: https://www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/research/section/queering-public-space
Binnie, I. (2022) Nevada. London: Picador.
Edelman, L. (2004) No future: Queer theory and the death drive. Durham: Duke University Press.
Kelaita, P. (2022) Tracks to gay elsewheres: cultural attachment and spatial imaginaries. cultural geographies 29(4), 531-545
Middleton, J. (2022) The walkable city: Dimensions of walking and overlapping walks of life. London: Routledge.
Results Day 2024 by @sammoirsmith available at: Samuel Moir-Smith (@sammoirsmith) • Instagram photos and videos
Stuart, D. (2023) Young Mungo. London: Picador.
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Cyborg promises
The possible pathways of the present digitally mediated moment are now shaped by the algorithms that govern our everyday lives - algorithms that are often imbued with oppressive technocapitalist values. If we are to broaden the potentiality of the present in radically transformative ways, do we need to relinquish digital tech entirely? Maybe…and yet, this is seemingly impossible in our cyborgian existence. In this episode we explore the promises that keep us attached to digital devices. Inspired by Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Ghost in the Machine’, we discuss how ‘hyper-relevant’ personalised online worlds enabled by intense surveillance keep us tied to the digital technologies that are both making everyday life into a crisis, and making it more bearable…
References:
Amoore, L. (2020). Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others. Durham: Duke University Press.
Anderson, B. (2022). Forms and Scenes of Attachment: A Cultural Geography of Promises. Dialogues in Human Geography, 13 (3), pp. 392-409.
Anderson, B. (2023). Media Promises: On Attachment and Detachment with Berlant. Media Theory, 7 (2), pp. 209–224. Available at: https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/580
Bucher, T. (2018). If…Then: Algorithmic Power and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darmody, A. & Zwick, D. (2020). Manipulate to Empower: Hyper-Relevance and the Contradictions of Marketing in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Big Data and Society. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720904112
Drage, E. & McInerney, K. (2024). The Good Robot: Why Technology Needs Feminism. London: Bloomsbury.
Haraway, D. (1985) A cyborg manifesto.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press
Pedwell, C. (2022). Speculative Machines and Us: More-than-Human Intuition and the Algorithmic Condition. Cultural Studies, 38 (2), pp.188– 218.
Pedwell, C. (2023a). Intuition as a ‘Trained Thing’: Sensing, Thinking, and Speculating in Computational Cultures. Subjectivity, 30, pp. 348-372.
Winterson, J. (2024). The Night Side of the River. London: Jonathan Cape.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books Ltd.
Zwick, D. & Knott, J. D. (2009). Manufacturing Customers: The Database as New Means of Production. Journal of Consumer Culture, 9 (2).
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This episode is inspired by the novel, Almond by Won-Pyung Sohn (2020) - the protagonist’s experience of alexithymia enables us to see the world at a slant, disrupting normative affective genres in ways that open up the possibility of new forms of relationality…but at what cost? Using this book as a guide, we delve into Lauren Berlant’s idea of ‘cruel optimism’ to explore how hoping for an otherwise might keep us held in situations that are both life-threatening and life sustaining.
References:
Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham: Duke University Press.
Anderson, B. (2022) “Forms and Scenes of Attachment: A Cultural Geography of Promises”, Dialogues in Human Geography (online early).
Anderson, B. (2023) “Media Promises: On Attachment and Detachment with Berlant.” Media Theory, 7(2), 209–224. Retrieved from https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/580
Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. (2023) 'Poisonality' in The Affect Theory Reader 2 (eds Pedwell, C., Seigworth, G.J.), Durham: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. (2022) The Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.
Lacey, C. (2021) Pew. London: Granta.
Sendra, P. & Sennett, R. (2022) Designing Disorder: experiments and disruptions in the city. London: Verso.
Tartt, D. (1993) The Secret History
Winterson, J. (1992) Written on the Body. London: Vintage International.
Won-Pyung, S. (2020) Almond. Glasgow: Harper Collins.
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Past lives, perfect days? We heard you like film bros...
Sometimes, we might feel unbearably caught between the regret of a seemingly lost past and the future we (think we should) strive for - in this episode we reframe this space as 'the elliptical present', a place of possibility, somewhere to playfully experiment with alternative ways of life. "Now is now, next time is next time" - inspired by the movies 'Past Lives' and 'Perfect Days', we reflect upon how we might keep on living in this elliptical 'now' amidst the oppressive structures that organise our everyday lives and imagined futures. In a world that propels us towards the future, how might looking back - a glance to the past - keep open the possibility of going astray...
References:
Past Lives (2023) - Directed by Celine Song
Perfect Days (2023) - Directed by Wim Wenders
Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham: Duke University Press.
Anderson, B. et al. (2023) “Encountering Berlant part one: Concepts otherwise”, The Geographical Journal, 189: 117–142.
Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. (2022) The Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.
Cope, W. (2023) 'The Orange' in The Orange and other poems. London: Faber & Faber.
Oliver, M. (2016) Upstream: Selected Essays. London: Penguin Press.
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Waluigi boards, Virginia's Wolf and fields of corn...The erasure of queer lives in dominant written history works to streamline the potentiality of the present moment, in turn, straightening the possible futures we might imagine. And so, in queering linear temporality, we explore how works of fiction can enable queer ghosts - those erased histories - to broaden the imaginative possibilities of the present-futurity. In this episode we head back to Virginia Woolf's London in the 1920s and perambulate Mark Hyatt's soho in the 60s in search of queer ghosts, reading as a way to commune with those who have lived, loved and walked ;) outside of normativity.
References:
Ahmed S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Duke University Press.
Anderson B. (2009). Affective atmospheres. Emotion, Space and Society, 2(2), 77–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2009.08.005
Gordon, A. (1997) Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the sociological imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Houlbrook, M. (2006) Queer London: Perils and pleasures in the sexual metropolis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hyatt, M. (2023) Love, Leda. London: Peninsula Press.
Ingold, T. (2007, 2016) Lines. Abingdon: Routledge Classics
Ingold, T. (2015) The Life of Lines. Abingdon: Routledge
Jones, A. (2013) A Critical Inquiry into Queer Utopias. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Munt, S (1995) 'The Lesbian Flaneur' in Mapping Desire. London: Routledge
Muñoz, J. E. (2009) Cruising Utopia: the then and there of queer futurity. New York: NYU Press.
Parlett, J. (2022) The poetics of cruising: queer visual culture from Whitman to Grindr. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Turner, M. (2003) Backward Glances: Cruising the queer streets of New York and London. London: Reaktion Books.
Woolf, V. (1925) Mrs Dalloway. London: Bloomsbury.
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Welcome to The Hopeful Reader Podcast! In this introductory episode Eve and Finola discuss how works of fiction can act as a source of creative moral and political vision - a portal to another world. The Hopeful Reader views fiction as a way to create and inhabit alternative world imaginaries from within the confines of normativity. This episode delves into the importance of imagination as well as thinking about fiction as a method of ‘slow refusal’.
References:
Anderson, B. (2006) ‘Becoming and being hopeful: towards a theory of affect’ Society and Space. 24(5)
Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. North Carolina: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. (2021) On the Inconvenience of Other People. North Carolina: Duke University Press.
Benjamin, R. (2024) Imagination: A manifesto. New York: WW Norton & Co.
Bown, A. (2022) Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships. London: Pluto Press.
Timperley, C. (2024) ‘Be Here Now: Feminist futures as present’ Feminist Review. 136(1).
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