In this episode, podcast co-host Sean Johnson Andrews talks about some of his recent writing and research on the concepts of safe space, cancel culture, and trigger warnings. In this episode, drawing on his current book project, Sean argues that these are not “merely cultural” concerns but are part of a larger, longer struggle over which subjects get to feel safe in our society. Sean Johnson Andrews is Associate Professor Emeritus of Cultural Studies at Columbia College Chicago and the author of numerous books and essays.

Show Notes

The links in the image description below provide some background information about the topics we discuss. We don’t quite get around to talking about this essay by Roxanne Gay, but it is a useful one for thinking about the concept of the trigger warning as well as safe spaces. Near the end of the episode, we talk a bit about the way trans people were villified following recent mass shooting events - there are a few posts on Sean’s Substack about this (here and here). And as we touch on at the end, there are many recent posts talking about the way recent ICE/BP operations in Chicago are presented on keeping (white?) people safe despite the fact that they do nothing of the sort.

Credits
Image: 

The image is a mashup of several of the movements and concepts that intersect in this conversation. The background is taken from a set of “safe space” rules that were generated by an anarchist book fair in New York City c. 2012. The pink triangle in a green circle was used by the LGBTQ movement in the late 1980s to designate safe spaces free from homophobia. The documentary No Safe Spaces was produced by right wing publicist Dennis Praeger and former The Man Show gadfly Adam Corolla, promoting the evergreen reactionary argument that all college campuses are hotbeds of marxist indoctrination and liberal snowflakes. The protest images are from a 2017 demonstration of the #MeToo movement (attended by Tarana Burke) and a 2015 Black Lives Matter demonstration in Minneapolis, Minnesota protesting the police killing of Jamar Clark. 

Hosts: 

Madhurima Chakraborty madhurimachakraborty.net, 

Sean Johnson Andrews breakingculture.substack.com

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes krisstokes.com

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Lisa Brock, a historian, radical intellectual and activist who became known as a leader of the Chicago Anti-apartheid movement while in graduate school. She shared her account of one of the first campaigns she organized once she got here: helping coordinate the Chicago movement to boycott the South African Rugby team, which was supposed to play a game here in the fall of 1981. We were so grateful to have her share her stories and her timeless advice as a historian and activist: Organize, organize, organize!

Show Notes:
In the episode, we discuss many of the publicity techniques used by the Chicago of the coalition Stop the Apartheid Rugby Tour to get their word out, including using press releases, press conferences, and protests. Examples of these documents can be found in the Lisa Brock Collection of the Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement Collection, archived at Columbia College. You can also peruse documents from the New York Coalition of SART, which had a similar campaign earlier in 1981. We didn’t include Lisa’s account of the many protests that took place in the New Zealand leg of the “Apartheid Rugby Tour,” but it was also an important backdrop to the U.S. protests and future developments in New Zealand history.  Lisa also shared with us a copy of the letter to the Chicago Sun-Times threatening her - and partially setting off the series of events on Sept. 6, 1981 she chronicles in the episode. And for those interested in learning more about the Anti-Apartheid Struggle - and the work of her mentor Dennis Brutus - Lisa recommends the documentary, Have You Heard From Johannasberg, which also provides a powerful illustration of the importance of boycotts and divestment as tools for social change, then and now. 

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/09/19/Efforts-to-keep-a-controversial-match-between-a-South/9528369720000/ 

Credits:
Image: : Columbia College Chicago, ""Apartheid Rugby is Not Sport"" (1981). Lisa Brock Anti-Apartheid Collection. 13.

https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/brock/13

Hosts:

Madhurima Chakraborty madhurimachakraborty.net,

Sean Johnson Andrews breakingculture.substack.com

This is a very special episode. Instead of only one boring adult expert, we have five separate interviews with kids. For a few minutes each, they talk to us about a thing that they know more than a little something about. EJ, B, Iris, Atlas, and KCS talk to us about baseball and TikTok, about Pokemon, planets, and soccer formations. It is a fun episode, but these experts take their topics very seriously. Hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we did. 

Other sources

Your local library or the internet you are connected to on this device can give you further information about some of what these kids talked about. But it can't replicate their enthusiasm or insights. So here we would just recommend you ask a kid near you more about their interests

Credits

Image

We were initially stumped for an image that might sum up the diverse topics these kids covered. But ultimately opted to ask Gemini (kids don't try this at home!) to generate an image that showed Pokemon playing baseball and soccer on TikTok in space. It took a few tries but seems like a solid result.  But we know this AI engine was trained on the work of thousands if not millions of unnamed artists throughout history. So thanks to them.

Hosts: Madhurima Chakraborty madhurimachakraborty.net, Sean Johnson Andrews breakingculture.substack.com

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes krisstokes.com

In this episode, we speak with Debra Riley Parr about her research in scent studies and especially the cultural significance of fragrance and odors as both indexes of hierarchy and means of resistance against them. Debra is Associate Professor Emerita of Art and Design History and Theory at Columbia College Chicago.

Sources / Show Notes

In the episode, Debra refers to many scholars and artists working in olfactory studies. Perfumer and cultural historian Nuri McBride offered the workshop that Debra mentions at the top of the show. She also mentions The feminist art and activist collective Hilma’s Ghost, which has conducted several exhibitions and workshops on spell jars, including those that are meant to ward off the evil spirits now haunting the streets of many cities under the banner of protecting the homeland. If you are interested in checking out more academic analyses of this intersection of smells, spells, and resistance, check out Olfactory Art and the Political in an Age of Resistance, which she co-edited with Gwenn-Aël Lynn. It is currently on sale. 

Credits

Cover art: The image for this episode comes from an illustrated version of Malleus Maleficarum, which is also known as The Hammer of Witches, a fifteenth century treatise about witchcraft to which Debra refers in our conversation.

Hosts: Madhurima Chakraborty madhurimachakraborty.net, Sean Johnson Andrews breakingculture.substack.com

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes krisstokes.com

In this episode, we speak with Wailin Wong about the importance of accurate data - and the threat of its politicization in the current era. In particular, she talks about what is commonly referred to as the “jobs report,” produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wailin is the host of The Indicator podcast from Planet Money on National Public Radio.

Show Notes:
In the episode, we talk quite a bit about this episode of The Indicator, where Wailin and her Co-Host discuss the very laborious process behind the collection of these jobs numbers. A more recent episode covers what it means when we get revisions to these numbers. And if you are interested in exploring the Project Pan Subreddit, check it out here.

Credits

Cover art: The graphic for this episode is a screenshot taken from the December “jobs report” which illustrates the gap we discuss in this program.  

Hosts: Madhurima Chakraborty madhurimachakraborty.net, Sean Johnson Andrews breakingculture.substack.com

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes krisstokes.com

In this episode, we speak with Chris Shaw, who is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Columbia College Chicago. He wanted to talk about the concept of the golden ratio, which is often used as an index of perfect proportion and symmetry in art, architecture, beauty, and nature. But, given that it applies to few of the things that supposedly exhibit this ideal proportion, Chris argues we probably shouldn’t care about the golden ratio, even as he helps us to understand it.

Show Notes
If you are interested in looking at some external resources, the first thing you should check out is some info/images of the Vitruvian Man, which we discuss at several points, but, of course, can’t show you on the podcast. We also discuss George Markowsky’s 1992 article, “Misconceptions about the Golden Ratio,” which appeared in The College Mathematics Journal. Near the end of the episode, Madhurima also talks a bit about the recent book by Mario Livio, who calls the Golden Ratio “The World’s Most Astonishing Number,” which is an easy claim to make if you aren’t too picky about actual measurements and proportions. But if you are charmed (or at least marginally curious) about the ultimate claim our math expert makes in this episode - that there are a lot of cool numbers related to art and nature - then you should check out the open educational resource that Chris Shaw has just published. Philosophical Geometry: Finding Math in Art and Nature is available for free. Listeners will find chapter four of special importance: and if you want to see the full version of the golden rectangle above, scroll to page 69. 

Credits

Cover art: The image for this episode is actually a photo of a wood sculpture created by one of Chris’s students, Mercedes Soria, to represent a golden rectangle. This is hard to tell because we have had to crop it to the size of a square for the purposes of fitting into these podcast platforms. But were you to see the whole creation, it would be one of the select art works that actually adheres to the golden ratio.

Hosts: Madhurima Chakraborty madhurimachakraborty.net, Sean Johnson Andrews breakingculture.substack.com

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes krisstokes.com

In this episode we talk with Kathalene Razzano about the history and implications of the argument that “children need fathers,” how this has been repeatedly (and especially recently) reappropriated by politicians, and how it can be seen in popular television talk show tropes where DNA tests solve paternity disputes. Katy is a media and cultural studies scholar who teaches at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 

Sources / Show Notes

In the episode, Katy’s 2014 article that fleshes out this topic more. It is available here. There is  lot written on the Moynihan Report, which we discuss quite a bit. But the best place to start might be the Wikipedia article on it (and the bibliography at the bottom.) Though we don’t talk about it, one of the most important articles critiquing this report and its ahistorical, apolitical understanding of gender and the Black family is Hortense Spillers “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe.” A lot has been written on the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” but one place to start is just to look at the number of times the word “father” appears in the document. Finally, if you so choose, you can find the 2020 podcast with J.D. Vance that we discuss at the end here - or here if you’d just rather read the transcript.

The screenshot is from an episode of the May 7, 2023 episode of the The Steve Wilkos Show, titled “That Baby Looks NOTHING Like Me!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOp2yUwTVoA.

Which Katy has written about elsewhere. FYI - The baby is his!

Credits:

Hosts: Sean Johnson Andrews, breakingculture.substack.com

Madhurima Chakraborty

madhurimachakraborty.net

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes

In this episode, Sean and Madhurima speak with the biographer and science fiction writer Alec Nevala-Lee about a short story he says has a deeper significance than even he understood for his first thirty years as a fan of it. Jorge Luis-Borges’ “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” was first published in 1940, but Nevala-Lee argues it is even more important today. 

Sources / Show Notes

Alec mentions the piece he wrote for The Daily Beast back in 2012, considering the way that the story relates to the propaganda and other efforts of Karl Rove and the George W. Bush administration. The piece is behind a paywall on The Daily Beast site, but an archived version is available in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which the characters in the short story would have found to be a really convenient service for finding old books. 

If you want to take Alec up on his recommendation, you can read the entire short story here. Or you can check out his intellectual history of science fiction, which he mentions at the end - Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Credits:

Hosts: Sean Johnson Andrews, breakingculture.substack.com

Madhurima Chakraborty

madhurimachakraborty.net

Episode Cover Art: "Plate 2 from the Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius Exhibition" by Mark Peatfield - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67124981

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes

Sean Johnson Andrews and Madhurima Chakraborty are starting a podcast where they talk to experts about one thing in their field that they will try to convince us is important. For Episode Zero, they talk about Exotica musician from the mid twentieth century, Korla Pandit, who wasn't exactly what he seemed.

Sources / Show Notes

In the episode, we discuss R. J. Smith’s 2001 Los Angeles magazine article on Korla Pandit - titled “The Many Faces of Korla Pandit.” An archived version of it can be found here. 

Sean also brings up this article by Kimberlé Crenshaw: “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 6 (Jul., 1991), pp. 1241-1299. 

https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/critique1313/files/2020/02/1229039.pdf 

If you are interested in exploring Pandit’s life and legacy further, you can track down a copy of Korla, a documentary produced by two filmmakers who worked at San Francisco’s KGO-TV, where Korla Pandit’s TV program aired for decades. Or, since you are already here, you can listen to what Spotify has made available of his discography. 

Credits:

Hosts: Sean Johnson Andrews, breakingculture.substack.com

Madhurima Chakraborty,

madhurimachakraborty.net

Episode Art: "Korla Pandit" by Clint Chilcott https://www.flickr.com/photos/_elemenoh_/18025092

Production Assistance: Kannon Steinmeyer

Show music: composed by Kris Stokes