Secret Feminist Agenda

What’s that? Another bonus episode??? Kind of! On September 22 (I say October in the episode and I’m too lazy to go back and fix it, but it was September) I launched my new book, A Sentimental Education, at Iron Dog Books. The launch took the form of a conversation between me, Minelle Mahtani (Associate Professor at the Institute for Social Justice at UBC), and Lucia Lorenzi (artist and recovered academic). I loved it and am delighted to be able to share it with you, along with an exclusive sneak peak of the audiobook version of A Sentimental Education (which isn’t quite available yet but will be soon and when it is you’ll be able to find it at that link). Enjoy!

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Follow me @hkpmcgregor, Minelle at @mminelle, and Lucia at @empathywarrior.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor (with the help of Marshall Watson) on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

For no other reason than I felt like it, here’s a bonus episode. This is an audio version of the essay “Burning Out” that I published in 2020, in the Hair issue of Room Magazine. Content warning for discussion of weight loss and disordered eating, suicide and death, and racism and settler colonialism.

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Follow me @hkpmcgregor and tweet about the podcast using #SecretFeministAgenda. The additional music in this episode came from blue dot sessions; you heard the tracks Drone Pine, Thoughtless, Vik Fence Lardha, and Uncertain Ground.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

In this, the final episode of Secret Feminist Agenda, I sat down with Eugenia Zuroski to talk about hope, planifestos, collectivity, mentorship, and where we know from. As far as final conversations go, this one felt absolutely perfect. Here are some links!

• Learn more about Gena’s work on her website, by following her on Twitter, and by checking out her Mixcloud!
• The Grace Lavery comments I referenced were shared on Twitter and her book is called Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan.
• For more on hope and its appropriation by liberal discourses, you might want to revisit the episode on Hopepunk
• We talked about reclaiming your time which prompts me to re-share this piece by Tressie McMillan Cottom on race and the politics of (wasting) time.
• My reference to turning routines into rituals came from Kook Teflon (via Zena Sharman), from episode 62 of the Bespoken Bones Podcast.
• For more on the exhausting embodied labour of diversity work, especially within universities, check out Sara Ahmed’s On Being Included.
• On the topic of collective models of organizing, Gena mentioned The Bigger 6 Collective and the V21 Collective. I was also reminded of the vital work of the Combahee River Collective.
• This piece is a few years old but still pertinent: “The digital native is a myth”
• The Netflix documentary I alluded to is The Social Dilemma.
• The scholars Gena cited in relation to her exercise, ‘Where Do You Know From?’, include Eve Tuck, Minelle Mahtani, and Katherine McKittrick.
• The John Locke theory Gena mentioned is tabula rasa; the application of the “blanket slate” idea into colonialism and theft of land is terra nullius.

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Gena’s theme song was “Head Over Heels” by the The Go-Go’s.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

It’s here! The final minisode of season four (and frankly, probably, all?) of Secret Feminist Agenda! Ending this podcast series, in its current form at least, is a way of saying no to one thing so that other things will be possible. So join me for one last exploration of the feminist power of refusal. Also: links!

• You can find all three season of peer review, including Cheryl Ball’s point about projects needing to end, here.
• If you haven’t already, check out the Amplify Podcast Network.
• While this podcast might be wrapping up, I’m still making Witch, Please and hosting The SpokenWeb Podcast.
• Here’s Tressie McMillan Cottom on race and the politics of (wasting) time.
• This article “found that faculty of color, queer faculty, and faculty from working class backgrounds together spent a disproportionate amount of their time on the ‘invisible’ work of academia, leaving them less time for the work that matters for tenure and promotion.” Oh, and I wrote about why just saying no to that emotional labour isn’t always possible.
• We can never have too many links to Sara Ahmed’s defining work on feminist killjoys.

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Follow me @hkpmcgregor and tweet about the podcast using #SecretFeministAgenda.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Brace yourself for the lively energy of an interviewer who has been pandemic-isolated for too long and an interviewee who really just wants to talk about reality television. I sat down with author and person-I-want-to-trick-into-being-my-IRL-friend andrea bennett to talk about their new book, Like a Boy but Not a Boy, out now with Arsenal Pulp Press. We also talked about mental health in a pandemic, Great British Bake Off, patterns of abuse and harm in CanLit, boomer men’s bad opinions about parenting and libraries, and why we’re pretty comfortable with TikTok youths roasting the heck out of millennials. Here are some links!

• You can, and should, buy andrea’s book here. If you’d like to read excerpts in The Walrus, Xtra, and Chatelaine, and you can hear me read an excerpt from my favourite essay on this podcast.
• To prove that I do like puppies, here’s a video of some puppies.
• andrea recommended Sarah Liss’s article, “Pandemic parenting in a two-mom family means twice the maternal guilt”
• Here’s a little context on the Great British Bake Off babka drama
• If you are unfamiliar with the larger context of Joseph Boyden’s identity, here’s a long read on the topic.
• Learn a little more about Duncan Campbell Scott and “The Onondaga Madonna”
• I’ve talked about this before, but here’s a little more context on the Galloway suit.
• It looks like the blog post andrea referenced has been removed, but you can still read Ken Whyte’s bad takes on non-fiction and libraries. (They might be pay-walled, but honestly you’re not missing much.)
• Watch some examples of Gen Z roasting the heck out of Millennials.
• Finally, the documentary andrea mentioned about trans representation in media is called Disclosure.

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. andrea’s theme song was “La Demeure” by Stereolab.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

This week we’re revisiting one of my all-time favourite conversations: asking for help! I’m asking some of the Big Questions(TM) that have been keeping me awake lately, such as: why do I find it so much harder to ask a colleague for help than a friend? What is the relationship between asking for help and being a mentor? How does our willingness to rely on one another make us stronger, rather than weaker?

I don’t have any links this week, just a verse from one of my favourite poems, “Questions to Ask Yourself Before Giving Up“:

Know that your friends want to send help.

They want to send daffodils and their extra hands

to braid your hair. They all want to be deciduous trees

and long semi-coloned sentences for you.

They want to.

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Follow me @hkpmcgregor and tweet about the podcast using #SecretFeministAgenda. Want to email me about your killjoy survival kit? Send it to secretfeministagenda(at)gmail(dot)com.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

In this episode I sat down (virtually, of course) with Lily Cho to talk about feminist mentorship, the importance of boundaries, and trying to make change from within institutions. What if mentorship wasn’t based on intimacy but on clear boundaries and structures? What if the best way to transform the university is to really understand how it works? What if you clicked on these links?

• You can read Lily’s Hook&Eye posts here. I particularly recommend “Inside a State of Emergency, the University Edition.”
• Lily recommended Intimacies by Leo Bersani and Adam Phillips.
• I recommended Xine Yao on “Rethinking Masks.”
• If you didn’t get my Tom Stoppard reference, you can read up on the state of open letters, good and bad, here.

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Lily’s theme song was “Just One of the Guys” by Jenny Lewis.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Are you ready to talk about mentorship? Because that’s what we’re doing for (checks watch) about 18 minutes. While we’re at it, here are a few articles on feminist mentoring:

• “Feminist Co-Mentoring: A Model for Academic Professional Development” by Gail M. McGuire and Jo Reger
• “‘Will you be my mentor?’ Feminist mentoring at mid-career for institutional change” by Winifred Curran and Trina Hamilton
• “Feminist Mentors” by Awino Okech
• “Collectors, Nightlights, and Allies, Oh My! White Mentors in the Academy” by Marisela Martinez-Cola

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Follow me @hkpmcgregor and tweet about the podcast using #SecretFeministAgenda. Want to email me about your killjoy survival kit? Send it to secretfeministagenda(at)gmail(dot)com.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

I’m back from a much-needed hiatus and ready to jump into the final half-dozen episodes of season four, starting with a doozy. I talked to Vivek Shraya and Cicely Belle Blain about Vivek’s imprint VS Books, Cicely’s new book Burning Sugar, and the importance of mentorship. Also, dinosaurs. Also, links:

• You can read Audre Lorde’s “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” here;
• Jessica Johns’ chapbook is called How Not to Spill;
• Here’s a quick read on Langston Hughes reporting on the Spanish Civil War;
• And here’s Vivek’s article on the selling of marginalized people’s trauma.

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Cicely’s theme song was “Spirit” by Beyoncé.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

This week I’m announcing a wee hiatus as I regather my resources to finish up season four. I’m also talking about what it might look like for us to collectively reject civility and instead become a hoard of demon bitches for justice. Also here are some links:

• For the millionth time I’m recommending the Sandy and Nora Talk Politics podcast, but also recommending that you keep on eye out for Alicia’s Elliott‘s new podcast Why Tho?
• The title of this episode comes from a line in Lindy West’s book The Witches Are Coming
• Here’s some context on Jagmeet Singh being kicked out of the House of Commons for calling another MP racist
• And just a few more links, to what I’m reading right now:
  • “Radical Care: Survival Strategies for Uncertain Times” by Hi‘ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart and Tamara Kneese
  • “Racism is Everyday, Every Day” by Jarrett Hill
  • “Racism Is Terrible. Blackness Is Not.” by Imani Perry

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Follow me @hkpmcgregor and tweet about the podcast using #SecretFeministAgenda. Want to email me about your killjoy survival kit? Send it to secretfeministagenda(at)gmail(dot)com.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.