This episode takes us deep, deep into the queer ocean. Alexis Pauline Gumbs submerges us in Black feminist thought, takes us on a deep dive into queer creativity, and, most importantly, allows us to rethink our breathing through gills, lungs, mouths, and bills. Listen now to learn about how Audre Lorde, June Jordan and M. Jacqui Alexander have influenced Alexis Pauline’s work and why marine mammals play such a central part in her writing.

Follow @alexispauline and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and a mystical manatee will visit you in a dream.

References to Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ work:

Undrowned
M Archive
Dub
Spill
Revolutionary Mothering
Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde (2024)

Other references:

Auburn Avenue Research Library
Black Panther Party
Elaine Brown’s A Taste of Power
Audre Lorde
June Jordan
Helen Oyeyemi’s The Opposite House
Ada Gay Griffin
Michelle Parkerson
A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde
Briona Simone Jones
Dub
Sylvia Wynter
Combahee River Collective
Barbara Smith
Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic
M. Jacqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of Crossing
I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities
Audre Lorde’s The Black Unicorn

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What fascinates Alexis Pauline Gumbs about archival research and what does she find in archives that you cannot find in books?
2. Why is Audre Lorde an important figure in queer writing and Black feminism?
3. Why is breathing central to Alexis’ thinking?
4. How does Alexis describe the meaning and potential of ‘queerness’?
5. Which mammals do you feel most connected to and how might this connection shift the way you think about your non-human environment?