Critical Literary Consumption
Critical Literary Consumption is a podcast hosted by Anna Nguyen that invites listeners to reflect on their reading and analyzing practices. Through interviews with writers, authors, and academics, it explores questions about citing and activating texts, authorial agency, and the concepts we often take for granted. The show encourages a deeper critical engagement with literature and ideas.
Episodes
Why Race Still Matters (with Dr. Alana Lentin)
Dr. Alana Lentin, the author of Why Race Still Matters and The New Racial Regime: Recalibrations of White Supremacy, discusses how she situates herself and experiences to understand race as a global project that has national and local particularities. She summarizes why she views race as a technology of rules that produces and maintains human differences, which is important for the continuation of
On Writing an Immersive, Propulsive Romance-Beach Read (with Soon Wiley)
Four years after appearing on Critical Literary Consumption to discuss his debut, When We Fell Apart, Soon Wiley returns with CeCe Downing’s Start Over Summer, a complex beach read. Wiley considers, again, the fluidity of genre, books he thought of while writing CeCe’s story and the question of class that emerges when asking what makes a good partner or relationship. We also talk about the idealiz
Queer Friendship & Queer Poetics (with Chen Chen & Sam Herschel Wein)
Best friends Chen Chen and Sam Herschel Wein discuss their collaborative chapbook, Love That For Us, published by & Change Poetry. They share how their friendship and poetics formed, that fateful residency in Portland, Oregon, pop culture as critical history, and silliness and queer joy. As they are long-distance friends, Chen and Sam also reflect on spatial and physical revising for emotional
Poetics, Prose, Place, and Persona (with Saeed Jones)
Saeed Jones traces his poetic roots through his sense of place and placemaking, identity, education, and his experiences writing in multiple genres. Considering how freeing the poetic form can be, Jones talks about the fictional element and the many personas embedded in his poems. Because we grew up in the south, he also reflects on the prominence of the south in his work and how “the south” is it
Testimonies Are a Form of Data (with Dr. Jessica Hernandez)
In discussing her books, Fresh Banana Leaves and Growing Papaya Plants, Indigenous scientist Dr. Jessica Hernandez talks about turning her attention from a non-native but displaced relative (banana trees) to a native plant relative (papaya trees) to discuss climate displacement and migration. She also shares her thoughts on the binary of Western science and Indigenous science, writing scientifical
On Writing the Dual Roles of Mother and Wife (with Thammika Songkaeo)
A character who is dissatisfied in her own marriage will likely struggle to be a mother, says Thammika Songkaeo. Discussing her debut novel, Stamford Hospital, Thammika explores the complexity of womanhood, intimacy and relationships, the limitations of intersectionality as a framework, class analysis, colorism in Asia, and the international novel. We also bonded over our experiences in our respec
"Fetishized": A Reckoning/Reawakening (with Kaila Yu)
Kaila Yu's Fetishized: A Reckoning With Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty is written as memoir-in-essays that serves as media and cultural analysis. We discussed how she situated her personal experiences as part of her research process, analyzing the broader Asian American landscape and history, revisiting her own media, the import scene, and representation.
The Cat-Centered Novel (with Tanya Guerrero)
Tanya Guerrero shares how her love of animals and her volunteer experiences with Trap/Neuter/Return (TNR) shaped her first adult novel, Cat’s People. We discussed the popular trend of cat-centered novels and the porous genre question for stories that straddle literary fiction, popular fiction, and speculative fiction. The conversation ends with Tanya’s upcoming project, about a real-life dog figur
The Many Biopedagogies of Sugar (with Dr. Karen Throsby)
Dr. Karen Throsby, author of Sugar Rush: Science, politics and the demonisation of fatness, discusses how the public and scientific framings of sugar and health are focused on the nutritional gaze of a single nutrient which obscures the more institutional analyses of race and class. Analyzing 20+ years of datasets about sugar in the media, Throsby uses the sugar to discourse to examine politics in
"Shakespeare Will Not Save Us" (with Dr. Matthieu Chapman)
Dr. Matthieu Chapman previews his forthcoming book, Shakespeare and Antiblack World-making, in which reflects on the fields of Pre-Modern Critical Race Studies and Early Modern Studies. He discusses why he portrays Shakespeare as the ultimate colonizer, his sentiments about the ideal of ‘reading generously” and its connection to universality, and how the field of Early Modern Studies was built on
The Story and Method of Slow Noodles (with Chantha Nguon)
Calling Slow Noodles her one story, Chantha Nguon recounts being hesitant to write about her life until her collaborator, Kim Green, suggested that she write a recipe book. When she began reviving these food-related memories, she didn’t realize they would lead to her telling her life story. Here, she talks about Year Zero, food and hunger, and her work experience in NGOs, the creation of Stung Tre
Ubiquitous Marriages and Sociological Analysis in Rental House (with Weike Wang)
Following Chemistry and Joan Is Okay, Weike Wang again reflects on labor, home, place, and identity in Rental House, a novel that follows an interracial couples’ two vacations. She describes how Keru and Nate’s marriage is one that is ubiquitous in America but is hardly written about in the literary world. We also discuss race and class analysis, DINK (double income, no kids), politics as a source
Form and Feelings (with Brandon Shimoda)
Brandon Shimoda discusses his pursuit of similar questions during his writing and research for his two longer books, The Grave on the Wall and The Afterlife is Letting Go, which are about Japanese American history, incarceration, violence, colonialism, ancestors, and family history. Both works are a blend of poetry and prose, which are woven as interviews, verse, and personal stories, and reflect
Poetry As a Genre, a Form, a Method (with Chen Chen)
Chen Chen talks about genre, creative writing pedagogy, race, and politics as he reflects on his two full-length poetry collections, When I Grow Up I Want To Be A List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions) and Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency (BOA Editions). On the topic of contextual and cultural references, we discussed our displeasure of the general tendency to reference Wo
On Completing the Mythic Triptych and Making Metaphors Literal (with K-Ming Chang)
To celebrate Halloween and the season of extremes, K-Ming Chang returns to discuss Organ Meats, which is the final story in her mythic triptych (or what she calls the “fecal trio”). She extends her thoughts on experimenting with maximalist language first and making metaphors literal. She also reflects on her process writing the tonally different novella Cecilia, which features her usual meditation
Troubling the Human + Material Witness/ing(with Aditi Machado)
Aditi Machado previews her upcoming poetry collection, Material Witness (Nightboat Books), and reflects on the concept and act of "witnessing". Witnessing then makes its poetic way into her questions of human/non-human relationality, plurality of subjects, language and etymology, and how we experience the world.
Legal Fictions & Blood Quantum (with Morgan Talty)
Morgan Talty shares his thoughts on this peculiar thing called genre and his experiences writing short stories (Night of the Living Rez) and a novel (his debut, Fire Exit). We talk about his reasons for writing from the perspective of a white character, and the bigger questions of colonization, the limitations of blood quantum, law, and the legal fictions associated with race and ideology.
The Manicurist’s Daughter: On Nail Salons, On Revenge, On Justice, On Performing (with Susan Lieu)
My diaCritics book review focused and critiqued this ever recurring topic of nostalgia in diasporic memoirs, and Lieu shares her own thoughts on critical nostalgia, its connection to the tragedy of the living, and her desire to excavate her family memories. In capturing life as a Vietnamese American daughter in California during the 1990s, Lieu reflects on writing The Manicurist’s Daughter, which
"To Think About Sex Work Differently, We Need to Think About Sex Differently" (with Dr. Juana María Rodríguez)
To think about sex work differently, Dr. Juana María Rodríguez (University of California, Berkeley) argues that we too will need to think about sex differently. Specifically, her project argues against merely ending the discussion at decriminalization, which essentializes sex work as stigma turned into law. In Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex, she connects state surveillance and the visual a
Art Criticism and the Black Imagination (with Erica N. Cardwell)
Erica N. Cardwell reflects on writing Wrong Is Not My Name: Notes on (Black) Art, a possible anti-memoir that features essays on the importance of art criticism, visuality, grief, and radical Black imagination. Because the visual aspects of Cardwell's stories and analysis are so striking, she also shares stories of the art featured on the book cover and accompanying essays.
Afropessimism and Writing Shattered (with Dr. Matthieu Chapman)
Dr. Matthieu Chapman discusses his experiences with genre shift from academic writing to his beautiful hybrid memoir, Shattered: Fragments of a Black Life. He shares his thoughts on craft, genre, “the canon” in Early Modern Studies, the fallacy that Shakespeare is inclusive, and the importance of Afropessimism.
Essaying ‘The Loneliness Files” (with Athena Dixon)
At the beginning of the new year, I talked to Athena Dixon about the release of her latest book, The Loneliness Files: A Memoir in Essays. She shares how the book came to be and how she interrogated the concept of loneliness in all of its manifestations through research, personal life, fandoms, pop culture, technology, the pandemic, and more.
'To Be An Adult Immigrant is to Lead a Life with 4 Senses, Instead of 5' (with Nishanth Injam)
In Nishanth Injam's stunning debut collection, The Best Possible Experience, examines the social ails of life abroad as an adult immigrant. In the episode, Nishanth discusses how fragments and contours of his personal life weave into his fiction as a way to translate, preserve, and document memories of home and family. He also shares his thoughts on technology and labor, craft decisions, and m
Reading Trauma in Colonialism and Being Misread (with Dr. Noreen Masud)
In her debut book, A Flat Place: A Memoir, Dr. Noreen Masud traces the longstanding impacts of colonialism in flat places and landscapes while sharing intimate stories of her formative years in Pakistan, her family, trauma and therapy, and her sojourns to Orford Ness, Morecambe Bay, Newcastle Moor, and Orkney. In the interview, we also address the two different subtitles in their respective U.K. a
Resistance and 'Radical Intimacy' (with Sophie K. Rosa)
What would resistance against capitalism and neoliberalism look like in the intimate sphere is one of the major questions Sophie K. Rosa reflects upon in her debut book, Radical Intimacy. Thinking through many social movements (Black Lives Matter, climate justice, FreeBritney, political scandals in the U.K.), she shares her thoughts on using theoretical language (e.g., Sophie Lewis’s work on aboli
The Making of a 'Modern' Thailand (with Mai Nardone)
Mai Nardone talks about his first book, the story collection Welcome Me to the Kingdom, which spans four decades and traces urbanization of the late 1980s, the financial crisis of 1997, and the current landscape in Thailand. He talks about his studies in economics and how this perspective shaped the focus on labor and the many industries (tourism, sex), racialization, travel, religious communities
Extrapolating Geographies and Intertextuality (with Lamya H.)
Lamya H. speaks about writing an unapologetically queer and Muslim text in her debut work, Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir, which chronicles her formative years in a Middle Eastern country and her continuing education in the United States. She recalls writing “Hajar” as a standalone essay, and how she formed and shaped a narrative arc that shaped the memoir extrapolating foundational texts like the Qu
The Pleasure of the Text In the Kitchen, In Domestic Spaces, In Theories of the Body (with Rebecca May Johnson)
Rebecca May Johnson charts her writing and thinking processes in what became her first book, Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen, a text that embodies and challenges notions of language and form, recipe writing, domestic spaces, performativity, and the body and labor, all of which gestures to the possibilities and pleasures of the text. She shares how writing her dissertation on The Odyssey is an
‘Monetary Authorities’: Racial Capitalism and Unconditional Decolonization (with Dr. Allan E. S. Lumba)
Dr. Allan E.S. Lumba (Concordia University), author of Monetary Authorities: Capitalism and Decolonization in the American Colonial Philippines, discusses critically examining the seemingly quotidian object of money to write about the history of the Philippines by engaging questions of racial capitalism and hierarchies, imperialism, unconditional decolonization, and materialism. In the interview,
Technocapitalism, Nostalgia, and Pop Culture (with Jinwoo Chong)
In anticipation of his debut novel, Jinwoo Chong shares the genealogy of writing Flux, an ambitious novel told through multiple perspectives. Chong talks about being inspired by Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, and weaving them into a complex novel that examines multiple discourses, including technocapitalism, overblown promises of technology, nostalgia, pop culture, representation, and much more.
‘How Do the Living Come Back to Life?’ (with Morgan Talty)
Morgan Talty’s debut story collection, Night of the Living Rez, poignantly contemplates, examines, subverts idealized understandings of community, intergenerational trauma, and life on a reservation in Maine. In weaving the story collection together, he shares his writing practice, a desire to write sparingly and to gesture to the importance of omitted details without fetishizing pain and trauma.
Symmetry/Asymmetry of Language and Translation (with Su Cho)
Su Cho’s debut poetry collection, The Symmetry of Fish, examines the stories of language through relationships, food, space, and places. She shares how she resisted the urge to be concerned with accuracy when including Korean characters and words; instead, she chose to portray being stuck in language, to capture the symmetry and asymmetry of language and translation.
Untangling 'Trauma, Tresses, & Truth' (with Lyzette Wanzer)
Lyzette Wanzer ruminates on the events leading up to the conception of her edited volume Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives. As she breaks down the four sections of the anthology, she discusses the historical and ongoing racism through the policing of natural hair, racial justice, intergenerational trauma, the creation of Create a Respectful and Open Worl
'Sonic Memories' and Silences (with Cija Jefferson)
Cija Jefferson reflects on her experiences in an MFA program, craft, community, and revision. Her MFA project, Sonic Memories and Other Essays, is her first book, in which nine essays capture different stages of the writer as she frames sounds and silences to capture adulthood, grief, loss, and time.
An American Education Through Illness and Nourishment (with Dure Aziz Amna)
Dure Aziz Amna talks about writing her debut novel, American Fever, using tuberculosis as a motif to explore questions of who is responsible for high school exchange student Hira’s health and nourishment in the alleged land of opportunity and abundance. She shares how she was interested in interrogating how culture -- and food -- are formed and deformed when transported from Pakistan to the United
Black German Studies and Transnational Collectivity (with Dr. Tiffany N. Florvil)
Dr. Tiffany N. Florvil (University of New Mexico) shares how her research on the history of social movements, subculture activist archives, Germany, and Black Studies shaped her monograph, Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement. As she discusses some of the topics explored in her book - collectivity, quotidian intellectuals, and Germany's erasure of
Translation As Literary (Co)Creation (with Nguyễn An Lý)
Nguyễn An Lý talks about her experiences as a translator, especially in reference to Thuận’s atmospheric Chinatown. Using the novel as a focal point, she also elaborates on readership, audience expectations, the idea of cultural tourism, Chinatown as a physical and metaphorical space, and her work with Zzz Review.
Afro-Brazilian Media and Antiracist Visual Politics (with Dr. Reighan Gillam)
Dr. Reighan Gillam (University of Southern California) discusses how her fieldwork and research on media producers in Brazil shaped her first monograph Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media. She speaks on how her work in anthropology intersects with media and race studies, antiracist visual politics, alternative media in Brazil, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) a
Mapping As Revision of Life Stories (with Belinda Huijuan Tang)
Belinda Huijuan Tang recollects how emotionally resonant family stories inspired her debut novel A Map for The Missing and connects the gaokao (the standardized college entrance exam) with the years 1977, 1982, and 1993 as major historical and cultural moments in China. In the episode, Belinda also discusses the ideal of education as upward mobility, the politicization in education, and how the id
Poetry, Migrancy, and Domestic Life (with Eileen Chong)
Eileen Chong reflects on her eight poetry collections and the multiple worlds that arise out of relationships, language (translating, speaking, food, numbers), and domestication, women’s labor, and her migration from Singapore to Australia. In tracing her writing trajectory (specifically, “translating” degree program requirements between countries), she discusses how her poems capture a moment in
(Dis-)Orientalism in the Academy (with Elaine Hsieh Chou)
In this interview about her electric debut novel Disorientations, Elaine Hsieh Chou discusses her inspiration for writing a fictional account of academia. She traces how the storyline and characters changed as she followed the many publicized controversies in academia (sexual assault, white scholars claiming and faking marginalized identities). She also addresses whiteness and white logic, burnout
Mythologies as Communally Owned Stories (with K-Ming Chang)
In both Bestiary and the upcoming story collection Gods of Want, K-Ming connects Victoria Chang’s practice of “language first, then ideas” with her own playfulness in writing and digression as storytelling. She also elaborates on myths and mythologies as communally owned stories and her own aims of rewriting them to recenter intimate matriarchal and matrimonial diaspora.
“The Body as a Series of Questions” (with Susan Nguyen)
In her debut poetry collection, Dear Diaspora, Susan Nguyen examines how the physical and social body is a site where language, diaspora, and the image of the American Dream are resurrected through questioning. In the conversation, we return to this idea of language in translation, whether language(s) can be shared, the preservation of language, and how sensorial imagery helps supplement what cann
Anti-Colonial Practices as Research Methods (with Dr. Max Liboiron)
Dr. Max Liboiron (Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John’s, NL) discusses their book Pollution is Colonialism, CLEAR, science and technology studies, and how not to reproduce colonialism in the lab and beyond. They make nuanced distinctions between Western science/dominant science, community peer review/academic peer review, and universalism/place-based, distinctions which if recognized can
Unreliable Narrators, Knowing and Unknowing (with Soon Wiley)
Soon Wiley simultaneously deconstructs and critiques the mystery plot in his debut novel When We Fell Apart. In thinking about the two different perspectives as told through the two narrators, Soon reflects upon unreliable characters, their testimonies, lived experiences, and spatial and geopolitical spaces (specifically between Seoul and the United States).
Indigenous Internationalism, Indigenous Futures (with Dr. Nick Estes)
Dr. Nick Estes (University of Minnesota) discusses the writing of his book, Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance and critiques ahistorical narratives told through the Western framework of time. In the interview, he also gives important overviews on Indigenous internationalism and futures, how law is interpreted,
Reclamation Project: A Preview of Enjoy Me Among My Ruins (with Juniper Fitzgerald)
Juniper Fitzgerald talks about her upcoming book, Enjoy Me Among My Ruins published by Feminist Press. Viewing her story as a reclamation project, she talks about playing with structure and writing against the progressive linear timeline by sharing fragments of her experiences as a sex worker, an academic and a mother, the significance of Lolita, journal entries, and letters to Dr. Scully.
Countering the Borderlands for New Origin Stories (with Ariana Brown)
Ariana Brown discusses the genealogy of her debut full-length poetry collection, We Are Owed. Reflecting on her research on Texas history, what was taught in the classroom, studying the archives of slavery, anti-blackness, and how to avoid the tendency to be nostalgic for a heritage country, Ariana considers a different origin story that moves beyond the concept of Borderlands, nations, and nation
Absences and Things Left Unsaid (with Jennifer Huang)
Jennifer Huang discusses their debut poetry collection, Return Flight, and how it is a sort of travelogue on diaspora as they reflect on the idea of home, their departures and returns, and research on Taiwanese martial law. In the interview, Jennifer connects additional themes of languages, what cannot be said or translated, erasure as form, Taiwan and the United States, food, and ancestral altar
The Concept of a Person and Care Work in Undocumented Motherhood (with Dr. Elizabeth Farfán-Santos)
Dr. Elizabeth Farfán-Santos previews her upcoming book, Undocumented Motherhood: Conversation on Love, Trauma, and Border Crossing, a creative text based on her research on the health impacts of political, racial, and medical exclusion of undocumented immigrant communities in the United States. In the interview, she shares the genealogy of the project, the limits of theoretical language that obscu
Craft and Life Writing: On Work, the Model Minority Myth, and Covid (with Weike Wang)
Centering Weike Wang’s essay, “Notes on Work” published in The New Yorker, we discuss how her views on work in Chemistry and Joan Is Okay intersects with the model minority myth, craft writing/workshopping, and her experiences as both a doctoral student in an epidemiology program and an MFA student. Wang also shares why she revised Joan Is Okay to include Covid and whether her future writing proje
Disaporic Languages of Migration, Food, Nature, and Colonial Histories (with Nina Mingya Powles)
Poet and author Nina Mingya Powles (Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai and Small Bodies of Water) shares how language learning and playing with texts are a core focus of her written work, which examines critical placemaking and geographies, food, the natural world and climate change, migration, and colonialism. In this illuminating conversation, Nina reflects on her ongoing research process
Thinking Across Texts, Thinking Across (Inter)disciplines (with Dr. Katherine McKittrick)
Dr. Katherine McKittrick (Queen’s University) talks about interdisciplinarity, citations and footnotes, geographies, curiosity, and radical storytelling through creative texts. In the conversation, we discuss her two monographs, Dear Science and Other Stories and Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, as they connect to broader conversations about Black Studies, critical r
Poetic Lab Notebooks and the Artistic Lives of Scientists (with Jenny Qi)
Jenny Qi reflects on the process of grief and how her scientific and artistic lives merged in her debut poetry collection Focal Point. Jenny, who wrote much of the book during her Ph.D. program in cancer biology, thinks about life in the lab, the language and communication of science, different disciplinary writing genres/methods, the emotional immediacy in poems, and trying to make sense of
Fever Dreams: Subconscious, Poetic Experimentation (with Kelli Stevens Kane)
Poet, playwright, and oral historian Kelli Stevens Kane is the author of Hallelujah Science. Kane shares her process of writing and structuring her debut poetry collection as a time capsule, and how the themes and visions of science are imagined in experimental and numerical language, in the body, in fever dreams, and in nature. We also discussed the complementary aspirations of science and oral h
Writing Intergenerational Trauma Through Food Memoir (with Grace M. Cho)
Grace M. Cho (College of Staten Island, CUNY) discusses her hybrid text Tastes Like War: A Memoir (a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction) and how her framing of memories and the geopolitical context of her mother’s life are sociological investigations. Topics discussed include the biological gaze on schizophrenia, writing to uncover unspeakable and unknowable traumas, hearing voice
Writing About Food: Somewhere Between “Theorizing and Imagining” (with Sun Yung Shin, V.V. Ganeshananthan, and Roy G. Guzmán)
I discuss the anthology What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family and its motivations with editor Sun Yung Shin and two contributors, V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan and Roy G. Guzmán. Sun Yung was inspired by an article written by Viet Thanh Nguyen, who wrote about “narrative plentitude” in response to a world of “narrative scarcity”, and how they conceived of the project
Empiricism, Collaborative Research, and Accountability (with Dr. Jelani Ince)
Dr. Jelani Ince (University of Washington) shares thoughts on research and how he sees it as both a form of collaboration and a way to be held accountable, avoiding the reproduction of harm and exploitation. In the conversation, he reflects on his past research on communities and social movements, his role as a professor during this critical moment for educators in the university, what is good dat
Reflections on Racialized Organizations in Society (with Dr. Victor Ray)
Dr. Victor Ray (University of Iowa) discusses his academic work and theory of racialized organizations, the connection between empirical sociology and social theory, the racial politics of citations, and the current debates on critical race theory. He ends with a nod to scholars who also write for the public, for the possibility of provoking society to reflect on itself.
Reclaiming Language, Reclaiming the Body (with Khalisa Rae)
Poet and journalist Khalisa Rae discusses her beautiful debut poetry collection, Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat, which examines race and racism, temporality, geography, ancestry, spirits and ghosts, language, body, trauma, and the genre and craft of poetry. She shares that specific poems reference particular people and topics as a way for her to contend with the current social moment and to foster
Traveling Across Concepts, Countries, and Kitchens (with Ming-Cheau Lin)
Ming-Cheau Lin is the author of the cookbook Just Add Rice: Stories and Recipes By a Taiwanese South African and memoir Yellow and Confused: Born in Taiwan, Raised in South Africa and Trying To Make Sense of It All. We discuss her two texts, with particular emphasis on displacement, relocation, and unlearning, how language and references travel, the difficulty of translating to both white communit
Beyond Carceral Imaginaries and Logics (with Dr. Tamara K. Nopper)
Dr. Tamara K. Nopper, a sociologist, writer, editor, and data artist, discusses her scholarly work, public essays, and editing of Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice. In this conversation, we reflect on social media and (alternative) data in a scored society, the language of abolition and racial justice, and the possibility of imagining
Disordered Science (Studies) In Society (with Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein)
Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (University of New Hampshire) discusses her experience writing her book, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred and offers wonderful insights on being a theoretical physicist and Black feminist scholar. We situate her book and arguments in academia and in a broader society that reveres science despite its limitations.
Nuance as Antithetical to Binaries (with Deesha Philyaw)
Deesha Philyaw, author of the story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, discusses the simplicity of binaries and proposes nuance as an alternative. The concept of nuance is a running theme throughout, as Deesha and I examine the growing interest of reading Black authors in the current climate, the lack of moralizing judgments in her nine stories, the interaction between the church a
Narratives of Empire and Inheritance (with Asako Serizawa)
Asako Serizawa, author of The Inheritors, and I talk about her approach in writing and ordering her story collection which spans multiple centuries. In the process, we situate themes of colonization and recolonization in the context of nationalism, American empire, postcolonialism, and science and technology as critical narrative building.
The Social World of the Book Review (with Dr. Phillipa Chong)
In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times, author and sociologist Dr. Phillipa Chong (McMaster University) asks us to consider the labor of book reviewers, when the review has changed alongside “traditional” institutions of the newspaper and print media. The question of inclusion and representation (in literature and in the actual book reviews) remains despite the new “insti
The Matter We Call Food (with Dr. Kyla Wazana Tompkins)
Dr. Kyla Wazana Tompkins (Pomona College) and I discuss her monograph, Racial Indigestion: Eating Bodies in the 19th Century, and explore the ongoing binaries of exploring food as a topic of academic investigation: subject/object, personal/disciplinary; humanities/sciences, and materialism/humanism. She expresses the possibilities of new materialism in her second book, which continues to look at “
Book Reviews as Dialogue (with Dr. Rosemary Deller)
Dr. Rosemary Deller, book review editor for London School of Economics Review of Books, and I talk about the analytical book review, its purposes, the editorial process, and the possibilities of better academic peer review.
Affect and Other Turns (with Dr. Ashley Barnwell)
Dr. Ashley Barnwell (University of Melbourne) discusses her new book, Critical Affect: The Politics of Method, which I reviewed for the London School of Economics Review of Books. Extending her reflections on the academic turn to affect, we also discuss the pedagogical practice and ethics of critical reading.
Abundance and Revision (with Kiese Laymon)
I talk methods, community, and the blurring of authorial and personal selves with Kiese Laymon, author (Heavy, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America) and Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi. We address Laymon's concepts of abundance and revision, and citations as capital in academic and narrative writing.
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