Bloomsbury Academic Podcast

Timothy Morton is Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University, USA. They are the author of 16 books, including Being Ecological (2018) and Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People (2017), and 200 essays on philosophy, ecology, literature, music, art, architecture, design and food.

We begin this philosophical conversation with an overview of Object-Oriented Ontology, the school of thought in which both Spacecraft and The Stuff of Life are rooted. Tim discusses how they came to describe life through ‘stuff’, touching on bananas, concealer, electric peanuts, and the Battersea Power Station. Stay tuned for lively tête à tête on Star Wars versus Star Trek. Spoiler: both franchises are good and beloved by both parties, but their philosophical outlooks differ in important ways. We learn of Tim’s connection to Sir Patrick Stewart as well as their favorite spacecraft, then veer into the relationship between spacecraft and human treatment of ecology, the environment, and the individual. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of Spacecraft or The Stuff of Life, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

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Alisa Perren is Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film and Co-Director of the Center for Entertainment and Media Industries at The University of Texas at Austin and editorial collective member of the journal Media Industries.

Gregory Steirer is Associate Professor of English and Film Studies at Dickinson College and a former National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and researcher for the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Media Industries Project.

In part two of our episode on The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood, we'll be discussing why/how has the comic book industry retained its own practices and structure despite the conglomeratisation of media industries, how the comic industry has dealt with digital formats, the different business models in comics publishers and their dependence on Hollywood licensing IP, and the future of the relationship between the American comics industry and Hollywood. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

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Alisa Perren is Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film and Co-Director of the Center for Entertainment and Media Industries at The University of Texas at Austin and editorial collective member of the journal Media Industries.

Gregory Steirer is Associate Professor of English and Film Studies at Dickinson College and a former National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and researcher for the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Media Industries Project.

Together, they are the authors of The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood, which traces the evolving relationship between the two industries from the launch of X-Men, Spider-Man, and Smallville in the early 2000s through the ascent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Arrowverse, and the Walking Dead Universe in the 2010s. In this episode, we’ll be delving into why have "superhero films" become the culturally dominant type of film in the 21st century, the lack of understanding film and TV people have about what artists do in comics, why comics has largely been a precarious industry to work in as a creator, and much much more. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

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Tara T. Green is CLASS Distinguished Professor and Chair of African American Studies at the University of Houston, USA. She is the author of several books including See Me Naked: Black Women Defining Pleasure during the Interwar Era (2022) and editor of two books, including From the Plantation to the Prison: African American Confinement Literature (2008).

In the second half of this conversation on activist, educator, writer, and bisexual icon Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Tara T. Green discusses Alice’s queerness and her life as a queer person in the 19th century United States. Dunbar-Nelson defied many assumptions a contemporary reader may have of the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction era United States, including that she was exceptionally well-traveled. We learn about Alice’s love of California, her time in New York and contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, and her queer affairs. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

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Tara T. Green is CLASS Distinguished Professor and Chair of African American Studies at the University of Houston, USA. She is the author of several books including See Me Naked: Black Women Defining Pleasure during the Interwar Era (2022) and editor of two books, including From the Plantation to the Prison: African American Confinement Literature (2008).

Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist. Pulitzer-prize winning poet Jericho Brown praised the book as “a brilliant analysis.” So who was Alice Dunbar Nelson? Born in New Orleans in 1875, she would become an activist and writer and contributor to the Harlem Renaissance. She navigated a hostile and ever-changing country as a Black bisexual woman, subject to systemic racism and sexism and impositions of “respectability.” More intimately, she navigated an abusive marriage to the well-known writer Paul Laurence Dunbar. Bloomsbury Academic podcast and Tara T. Green discuss how Alice Dunbar-Nelson found ways to not only survive but thrive in a world and a marriage that were fundamentally against her. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

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Leighann Chaffee is Associate Teaching Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and Stephanie P. da Silva is a psychology professor at Columbus State University, USA. Together, they are the co-authors of The Guide to the Psychology of Eating. In part two of our episode, we delve into the relationship between public policy and societal thinking about food as well as how our perception of food habits or diets is tied up in race, class, gender, age. Then we chat with the authors about fatphobia, how can we decrease the prevalence of disordered eating, and what the future of social perceptions of food might look like. Take a listen. 

If you would like to buy your own copy of A Guide to the Psychology of Eating, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

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Leighann Chaffee is Associate Teaching Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, USA, and Stephanie P. da Silva is a psychology professor at Columbus State University, USA. Together, they are the co-authors of The Guide to the Psychology of Eating. In this episode, we will be talking about all things eating, including how our brains make sense of the chemicals in food to allow us to taste. Then, we’ll be answering why hunger makes us “hangry, why comfort food is so comforting, how food reflects our cultural knowledge and values, and much much more. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of A Guide to the Psychology of Eating, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

Americas customers (excluding Canada): POD35US

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Emma Lee is a trawlwulwuy woman of tebrakunna country, north-east Tasmania, Australia. Her research fields over the last 25 years have focused on Indigenous affairs, land and sea management, natural and cultural resources, regional development, policy and governance of Australian regulatory environments.

Jen Evans is a dharug woman with dual connections to dharug and palawa country. She is a Research Fellow with the Rural Clinical School at the University of Tasmania whose research is focused on the valuing of natural environments, land use conflict, participatory GIS mapping and Indigenous methodologies.

Together, they are the anthology editors of Indigenous Women's Voices: 20 Years on from Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies. In part two of our episode, we ask the editors hard-hitting questions, including whether men can weave baskets as well as what feminism and queerness look like in an indigenous framework. We then delve into the types of resistance work that the editors are currently working on, the international Indigenous rights movements are going on right now, and what forms atonement can take. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of Indigenous Women’s Voices, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

Americas customers (excluding Canada): POD35US

UK and rest of world customers: POD35UK

Canada customers: POD35CA

Australia and New Zealand customers: POD35AU

Emma Lee is a trawlwulwuy woman of tebrakunna country, north-east Tasmania, Australia. Her research fields over the last 25 years have focused on Indigenous affairs, land and sea management, natural and cultural resources, regional development, policy and governance of Australian regulatory environments.

Jen Evans is a dharug woman with dual connections to dharug and palawa country. She is a Research Fellow with the Rural Clinical School at the University of Tasmania whose research is focused on the valuing of natural environments, land use conflict, participatory GIS mapping and Indigenous methodologies.

Together, they are the anthology editors of Indigenous Women's Voices: 20 Years on from Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies. In part one of our episode, we’ll be discussing the reasons the editors wanted to reflect on Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies 20 years after its publication, examples of colonization in academia, and the importance of incorporating indigenous voices into our institutions. We will delve into the process of making this an Open Access title and much much more. Take a listen.

If you would like to buy your own copy of Indigenous Women’s Voices, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code POD35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

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If you would like to buy your own copy of Britney Spears’s Blackout, go to the Bloomsbury website and use code pod35 followed your respective country code, US, UK, CA, AU, depending on where you are located.

Natasha Lasky is a writer and filmmaker living in Chicago and author of our 33 1/3 book Britney Spears’s Blackout. In part two of this episode, we discuss Spears’ conservatorship, and the public discussion around it as well as disability rights in general. Then, we look at stan culture and the influence of (social) media on celebrity and vice versa and how social media has changed since this album was released, looking at its impact on stars like Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, plus what Britney Spears’ Instagram looks like today. Take a listen.