Queer Lit

Sweet Christmas, darling gays! (It’s a superhero catchphrase. I looked it up.) Prof andré carrington (UCR) brings us truth, justice and a queerer tomorrow in this Queer Lit quest. With great knowledge comes great responsibility and andré is ready to take it: he takes us on a deep dive into queer black comics, fan studies, queer cartoonists, and introduces me to awesome characters from Aqualad to Jughead, from Black Panther to Storm.

andré truly is the best at what he does, which is why you should follow @prof_carrington on Twitter and his trusty sidekick @benjaminbannekerphdog on Instagram. @queerlitpodcast hangs out there as well.

Texts and people mentioned:

andré carrington’s Speculative Blackness
andré carrington’s “Afrofuturism, Public Enemy, and Fear of a Black Planet at 25”
https://soundstudiesblog.com/2015/11/09/afrofuturism-and-fear-of-a-black-planet-at-25/
Queers and Comics (@queersandcomicsconference)
https://queersandcomics.com/
“Anne Lister Fan Research“ with Sarah Wingrove
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49139141
Milestone Media Comics
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas’ The Dark Fantastic (2019)
Ramzi Fawaz’ Queer Forms (2022) and The New Mutants (2016)
Dwayne McDuffie
Reginald Hudlin
D’Arcee Charington Neal
Alison Bechdel
Jennifer Camper
Ivan Velez Jr.
Justin Hall
Howard Cruse
Phil Jimenez
Magdalene Visaggio’s Vagrant Queen
Black Mask Studios
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Roxanne Gay
Afua Richardson (@afuarichardson)
ASAP Association for the Study of the Arts of the Presence (UCLA)
https://www.artsofthepresent.org/conferences/
Isaac Julien
Unarchiving Blackness
Jade Sasser
Jody Benjamin
Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi
Ayana Omilade Flewellen
Center for Ideas and Society (UCR)
https://ideasandsociety.ucr.edu/
Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How can comics help us understand queerness and race in new ways?
2.andré talks about wish fulfilment as one function of comics. What else can comics and their worlds do? How do they negotiate antiqueerness and antiblackness?
3.What is an acafan?
4.Which roles can (queer) fans play in the study of comics?
5.Which of the characters that andré mentions do you find the most interesting in this context and why?

One episode more! In this bonus track, Nemo Martin (Royal Holloway) tells me about their research on race, racism, and racist tropes in Hugo’s classic Les Misérables, but also in the fanfiction based on Hugo. Nemo kindly shares some insights on how these depictions of race are entangled with nonnormative genders and asexuality. What Nemo doesn’t mention in the recording is that they’re also a brilliant writer and podcast creator. Queer Asian pirates is all I’m saying…

Find out more about Nemo on Twitter (@zeus_japonicus and @lesmispodcast) and on their website https://www.nemomartin.com/ and follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter for more books and more gay.

People, texts and concepts mentioned:

#UntoldTales
https://untoldlgbtqtales.wordpress.com/
Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Fanfiction
andré carrington
Romani
Esmeralda
Owarinaki Tabiji (終わりなき旅路)

Footnote from Nemo: “The “Racism is something whites define as bad action by others” quote is from Stephanie M. Wildman and Adrienne D. Davis, Language and Silence: Making Systems of Privilege Visible, 35 Santa Clara L. Rev. 881 (1995), available at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol35/iss3/4. The Rromani person who talked about their opinion of Javert as Rrom: https://stfugadje-blog.tumblr.com/post/41556640377/theres-a-grief-that-cant-be-spoken.”



Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Nemo mentions the quote “Racism is something other white people do.”. What do you think that entails?
2.How might fanfiction almost unwittingly engage in racist depictions?
3.Which example does Nemo give for a racist trope in Hugo’s writing?
4.Nemo also briefly speaks about asexuality. How does sexuality intersect with race and gender here?
5.Can you think of a character from literary history that we could read as asexual?

Imagine a publishing world in which your editor is a Black trans person, your publicist is a queer person with autism, and your graphic designer is a two spirit queero. And guess what: it’s real and it’s called queer publishing. Alex DiFrancesco is a trans author and editor who has worked with several radical and progressive publishing houses over the years and joins me for a chat about their work, their journey, and why they’re living the gay dream.

Don’t be a stranger! Follow @Alex_JKPGender on Twitter and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Works by Alex mentioned:

https://alexdifrancesco.com/
All City (2018)
“Tales from the Institut fuer Sexualwissenschaft”
Transmutation: Stories
Psychopomps

Other texts and people mentioned:

Jessica Kingsley Publishers (@JKPBooks and @JKPGender)
Meg-John Barker (@megjohnbarker)
https://www.spreaker.com/user/14328383/queer-lit-mj
Joy Ellison’s Sylvia and Marsha Start a Revolution!
Sylvia Rivera
Marsha P. Johnson
Heartstopper
Seven Stories Press (@7StoriesPress)
Sundress Publications (@SundressPub)
#OwnVoices
Superstorm Sandy
Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow
Felix D’eon (@felixdeonart)
Aphantasia
Tiresias
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
JVN’s Getting Curious (@curiouswithjvn)
Wild Zero (1999)
Guitar Wolf

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What distinguishes queer or radical publishing houses from mainstream publishers?
2.Do you know a radical or progressive press? Please try to find one in an area that is of interest to you.
3.What is own voice publishing?
4.Why does Alex find queer books for young people and children particularly important? What are your thoughts on this?
5.We speak about trans* characters as messengers in the episode. Can you think of a text that presents such a character?
6.If you could open a radical publishing house, what would make it radical?

Brighton’s first radical queer bookshop finally opened its doors! The Queery is a very special trans and queer cooperative that is a workshop space, a pay-as-you-can vegan café, a community venue, and (this is where it gets really dreamy) a very gay bookshop and library! The selection is on point, with lots of former Queer Lit guests and their reading recommendations in stock, as well as merch by queer and trans creators. When I went for a spontaneous visit on Pride weekend, the lovely Stevie was kind enough to take a few spontaneous minutes out of a busy day to tell me more about The Queery. Come, listen, and go visit this little queer utopia.

For more books, gays, and glamour, follow @thequeerybtn and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter. You can find wonderful Stevie @snowflakesandwonder on Insta.

People, texts, and places mentioned:

https://thequeery.co.uk
[email protected]
Megan Elliott @claywildstudio
Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood and Parable of the Sower

Questions you might want to think about after listening:

1.If you could create any community space, what would it look like?
2.Have you ever been to a queer bookshop? Which ones do you know?
3.Do your sexuality and gender affect your behaviour as a consumer? In what way?

Come for the indigenous activism, stay for the queer joy – the delightful Dr Jas M. Morgan (Toronto Metropolitan University) is here for both. In this deep dive into queer indigeneity in literature, art and academia, Jas talks about their brilliant writing, their creative communities, their kick-ass students, and how their trans nonbinary perspective shapes their work. Jas also explains why talking about art and literature without all the excessive lingo is awesome and why we seem to be in the middle of quite the moment for queer indigenous writing. Tune in to hear about some of the female*, queer, and trans* indigenous artists and activists that are breaking down barriers as we speak.

BTW, all the cool kids are following @notvanishing and @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter. @notvanishing is also on TikTok. Queer Lit is not that cool.

Terms, people and texts mentioned:

Cree-Métis-Saulteaux
Wahkohtowin
Cree
Nîtisânak (Metonymy Press, @metonymypress)
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home
Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts
Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers
Lisa Tatonetti
Lacan
Turtle Island
Orlando
Brené Brown
Joshua Whitehead
Tommy Pico
Chrystos
Aiyanna Maracle
Egerton Ryerson
Yellowhead Institute
Katherena Vermette’s The Strangers
Showgirls
Sapphic
Dana Danger
https://jasmorgan.com/2017/05/10/canadian-art-making-space-in-indigenous-art-for-bull-dykes-and-gender-weirdos/
Brandi Bird’s I am Still Too Much
@brandibird_
Rahila’s Ghost Press
@rahilasghost

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What is the role of kinship in indigenous literature and storytelling? Can you connect this to queer kinship?
2.Why, does Jas explain, were their queer studies approaches viewed negatively within the field of native studies when they started out in academia?
3.Why was Toronto Metropolitan University recently renamed?
4.What does Jas think about the current interest in queer indigenous lifewriting?
5.What are your thoughts on collaboration and activism in academia?

In this special bonus episode, Sarah Wingrove (University of Surrey) is back to tell us more about Anne Lister and Gentleman Jack and about all the impressive efforts the fan community is putting into reviving the HBO/BBC TV series Gentleman Jack after a surprising cancellation. F-Annes around the world are demanding to see more of the 19th century gender nonconforming lesbian, whose detailed diaries form the basis for the series and for Sarah’s exciting research. I’m tipping my imaginary hat to the fan community and to this brilliant Anne Lister expert!

Do you need more top hats in your feed? Follow @saz_wingrove on Twitter. For cats, books, and podcasts, follow @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

People, Texts and Entities mentioned:

Gentleman Jack
Anne Lister
“Anne Lister Fan Research” with Sarah Wingrove (Queer Lit)
Sally Wainwright (@spiceyw)
Happy Valley
Lookout Point
Anne Walker
Shibden Hall
The L Word
@Goretober13
#representationmatters
Wynonna Earp
The 100
Skala Eressos Women’s Festival (@eressos_womens_festival)
Janet Lea’s The Gentleman Jack effect
Bury Your Gays trope
Tara and Willow
Buffy
Pat Esgate (@PatEsgate)
“What's Next for GJ with Sally Wainwright” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvxehbgfm8Q
#ALBW Anne Lister Birthday week
Suranne Jones
Helen Hawkins
Save Gentleman Jack - Flash Mob Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqgPK0LMnw
O’Hooley & Tidow
Write A Well-Worded Letter
Casie Bloys (HBO Chief Content Officer)
Kit Heyam’s Before We Were Trans
“Queer Kings and Trans Histories” with Kit Heyam (Queer Lit)
Alexis Duggins. “‘Gentleman Jack has genuinely saved lives’: readers respond to the show’s cancellation” The Guardian, 15 July 2022.
Caroline Gonda
Dyke*March Cologne (@dykemarchcologne)
Dyking Out podcast (@dykingout)
Anne Lister Society
Footnote from Sarah: Anne says she does not identify with “sapphic” when talking to Maria Barlow in Paris, as described in Helena Whitbread’s No Priest But Love and Chris Roulston’s “Sexuality in Translation: Anne Lister and the Ancients”.

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Who is Anne Lister?
2.Why is it important to consider ambiguities and possibilities when we look at queer people and characters in history?
3.What is presentism?
4.Sarah talks about the increasing agency of fan communities. Do you have another example for this?
5.In how far are fans becoming co-creators and authors?

Ever wondered what the 2S inLGBTQIA2S+* stands for? Then this is the episode for you. Two-Spirit is an umbrella term that some native people in Canada and the US use to describe something that may look like non-binary gender on the outside but, like a rainbow cake of gender expansiveness, is filled with entirely different contexts and rich histories. In this first part of a double feature on queer Indigenous literatures, we hear from Lisa Tatonetti, a settler scholar who has been working on Two-Spirit writing and activism for many years and shares some of her favourite Two-Spirit reads and writers.

One highlight of the episode: Lisa’s foster cat Pippin! For more cats and books, follow @lisatatonetti on Twitter and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Texts, people, and terms mentioned:

Kaw Nation
Santa Fe Trail
Lisa Tatonetti’s Written by the Body: Gender Expansiveness and Indigenous Non-Cis Masculinities
Carole laFavor’s Along the Journey River and Evil Dead Center
Anishinaabe
Ojibwe
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Mekadebinesikwe Kai Minosh Pyle
https://mekadebinesikwe.com/
Phillip J. Deloria
Herero Genocide
Joshua Whitehead’s Johnny Appleseed
Jas Morgan
Ocean Vuong
Beth Brant’s Writing as Witness
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (ed. Joshua Whitehead) (Tatonetti references an earlier collection, Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time, also excellent, when intending to refer to the Whitehead collection.)
Audre Lorde’s theory of the Erotic
Link to Lorde’s foundational piece: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e7cf4825b02c00b6a142f0c/t/5f4bee98ceb27e4afe99bd7c/1598811800640/audre_lorde_cool-beans.pdf
Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem
Kumeyaay Nation
Jonathan Van Ness
HIV taskforce—the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS created by U.S. president Bill Clinton
Craig Womack’s Drowning in Fire (2001) and Red on Red (2009)
Mvskokee (Creek)
Muscogee (Creek) Nation

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What can Two-Spirit mean and how did the term originate?
2.What is a land acknowledgement? What is potentially problematic about them?
3.What role does masculinity play in the context of Two-Spirit and Indigenous history more broadly? How was masculinity instrumentalised by settler colonialists?
4.What does Lisa mean when she talks about the Erotic? Please look up Audre Lorde’s source text and read at least a few pages.
5.Do you know which people have lived on the land you live on? Why do you (not) know?

THE Prof Lee Edelman (Tufts) joins me to talk about one of my favourite topics: nothing. Lee’s extremely clever (and incredibly influential) work in queer studies has most recently led him to write an entire book about all the things that nothing can mean and what this has to do with queer life, film, and literature. Lee also talks about his previous work on reproductive futurism and No Future, about awesome queer films, about how knowledge as well as poetry come out of ‘nothing’, and about why queer people aren’t always queer people. Confused yet? Awesome! Let’s go on this queer journey together.

If you too like chatting about queer stuff, nothing, and everything, follow @queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter.

Works by Lee mentioned:

Transmemberment of Song: Hart Crane's Anatomies of Rhetoric and Desire (Stanford, 1987)
Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory (Routledge, 1994)
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Duke, 2004)
with Lauren Berlant. Sex, or the Unbearable (Duke, 2014)
Edelman, Lee. "Learning nothing: bad education." differences 28.1 (2017): 124-173.
Bad Education: Why Queer Theory Teaches Us Nothing (Duke, Forthcoming December 2022)

Texts, people and concepts mentioned:

Badiou
Augé
Lena Mattheis “Silence, Absence, Non-Lieux.” Translocality in Contemporary City Novels (Palgrave, 2021)
Susan Stryker
Hannah Gadbsy’s Nanette
Catherine Malabou
Luce Irigaray
Julia Kristeva
Afropessimism
Ontology
W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” (1939)
Lacan
Ab-sense
Almodóvar’s La Mala Educación (Bad Education, 2004)
Haneke’s Funny Games (1997)
Kasi Lemmons’ Eve’s Bayou (1997)
Slavoj Žižek
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Judith Butler
Miscegenation
Non-lieu
Plato’s atopia
Socrates
Reproductive futurism

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.Make a list of all the things “nothing” can mean. How would you explain what Lee means when he talks about “nothing”?
2.What is Lee’s definition of queerness and/or queer literature?
3.Please look up Lee’s No Future and write a brief definition of “reproductive futurism”, a term he also uses in this episode.
4.In the episode, we speak about the Auden quotation “Poetry makes nothing happen”. What does this mean for you? Please also look up and read the whole poem (“In Memory of W.B. Yeats”) for context.
5.How can film, art, and literature help us understand all of this? Please give an example from the podcast or from your own experience.

“When the earth spoke to me, I was moved to compose a collection of love letters between Black women.” -- This is how Dr Briona Simone Jones (University of Connecticut) describes their work in the introduction to their mind-expanding anthology Mouths of Rain. In this episode, Briona tells me how and why they took on the feat of publishing this book while also finishing a PhD on Black lesbian aesthetics in the middle of a pandemic, and how both their mum and Audre Lorde helped them do it. Briona also addresses the impact the constant violence against queer Black women has on their work and on that of others, while, at the same time, highlighting the importance of the Erotic, of love, and of pleasure.

I fell in love with Mouths of Rain immediately and I think you will too. Listen to the episode, get the book, and follow @brionasimone and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Texts, people and concepts mentioned:

Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (ed. Briona Simone Jones, 2021)
Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (A Biomythography), Sister Outsider, Collected Poems, “A Litany for Survival”, “Recreation”, “Love Poem”
Bikram Yoga
https://blacklivesmatter.com/
Words of Fire (ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall)
Alice Walker
Norton Anthology of African American Literature
James Baldwin
Kristie Dotson
Yomaira Figueroa
Afrekete (eds. Joyce Delaney and Catherine McKinley)
Does Your Mama Know? (ed. Lisa C Moore)
Black Woman (ed. Toni Cade Bambara)
Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual African American Fiction
Joseph Beam
Brother to Brother (dir. Rodney Evans)
In the Life
Cheryl Clarke’s After Mecca
But Some of Us Are Brave (eds. Barbara Smith, Patricia Bell Scott and Akasha Gloria T Hull)
“The Black Lesbian Body.” (forthcoming, Cambridge UP)
Pat Parker
Combahee River Collective (1974)
https://americanstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Keyword%20Coalition_Readings.pdf
Barbara Smith
Beverly Smith
Demita Frazier
Margo Okazawa-Rey
Ann Allen Shockley’s Loving Her
Kitchen Table: Women of Colour Press
This Bridge Called my Back (ed. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa)
Anita Cornwell’s Black Lesbian in White America (1983)
Black Arts Movement (1965-1975)
Alexis De Veaux
Frederick Douglass
The Erotic
Kaladaa Crowell
Brandi Mells
Shanta Myers
Kerrice Lewis
Crystal Jackson
Britney Cosby
Sheila Adhiambo Lumumba
#SayHerName

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.What is the Combahee River Collective?
2.Why does Briona describe ‘Black lesbian’ as a very capacious term? What can ‘Black lesbian’ mean? You may want to refer to Briona’s introduction to Mouths of Rain in your response.
3.What role does naming play in Black lesbian thought?
4.Why does Briona emphasise the importance of the long history of Black lesbian writing?
5.Please pick one of the theorists or writers Briona mentions and learn more about them.
6.How can literature help us fight systemic racism and anti-Black and anti-queer violence?

“Sometimes a kiss can make you feel free.” This beautiful line by Prof GerShun Avilez (University of Maryland) was one of the many, many reasons I wanted to learn more about his book Black Queer Freedom. In addition to the freeing potential of queer kisses, GerShun talks about how literature can help us better understand the ways in which Black queer bodies are harmed every day. He also explains what memoirs of gender-nonconforming and trans people of colour can teach us about how history is written and how movement through institutions like hospitals or prisons is affected by race and sexuality. Along with brilliant reflections on spaces of injury and spaces of pleasure, GerShun shares examples of artworks and books from his past and present research and generally dazzles me with all his clever insights on Black queer spaces and history. A must listen!

https://www.facebook.com/gershun.avilez

https://english.umd.edu/directory/gershun-avilez

@queerlitpodcast on Instagram and Twitter

Texts, concepts and people mentioned:

GerShun Avilez’ Black Queer Freedom (UP Illinois, 2020)
GerShun Avilez’ Radical Aesthetics & Modern Black Nationalism (UP Illinois, 2016)
Pat Parker
Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Adrian Piper’s Vanilla Nightmares
Afropressimism
Social death
Orlando Patterson
“Africana/Black Studies Colloquium: Book Launch: GerShun Avilez, BLACK QUEER FREEDOM”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZU4ABWpE0Q
“Left of Black with GerShun Avilez”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24XOQWLR264
Queer Geographies Postgraduate Reading Group (Twitter: @QueerGeogPGRG)
Makeda Silvera’s “Baby”
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Jackie Kay
Janet Mock
Saeed Jones’ How We Fight for Our Lives
LaVelle Ridley “Black Trans Narratives”
https://www.spreaker.com/user/14328383/queer-lit-lavelle
Robert Jones Jr’s The Prophets
Homo Sapiens Podcast
Black Lives Matter
https://blacklivesmatter.com/

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How can literature help us understand more about racism and antiqueer violence?
2.GerShun mentions Adrian Piper working with a newspaper as the basis for her artwork. Can you think of other examples of everyday objects that show how “our cultural imaginary […] is rooted in ideas about race and sexuality in ways that are so ordinary that we don’t even fully see them anymore”?
3.What are spaces of injury and why are they an important category in GerShun’s research?
4.We speak about the “fleeting nature of privacy” in the lives of racial minorities, queer and gender-nonconforming people. Can you think of a book, series or film that reflects on that?
5.In which ways, does GerShun suggest, can studying Black queer memoirs and life writing help us understand the true nature of history – and its omissions?
6.What is the role of pleasure in GerShun’s work, or in your own experience of queer space?