The Earth Sea Love Podcast

Hello You!

Welcome back to the Earth Sea Love Podcast. 

Dr. Cheer Cheng is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work has moved across media,

* Being part of community

Hello and welcome back to The Earth Sea Love Podcast.

Thank you for being here for our next episode in our new series, Practicing Creative Fugitivity.

I’m your host Dr. Sheree Mack and I had the great pleasure of talking with Beverley Thomas in this episode.

*The Re-Education of Beverley Thomas, is the title taken in part from Beverley’s PhD from Sheffield University. A creative PhD around Black Expresssion, in this conversation, we talk about:

* Professor Jason Arday and the public lynching

* Rage, fear and intimidation

* Being in support of Arday in private and public

* Referring to the other podcasts in this series, episode 083 with Pauline Mayers and episode 084 with Rite Gayle 

* Not accepting the term non-human other

* We are both human and divine

* White Feminism ‘v’ Black Feminism

* ‘Ungendered’ not recognised as female/ woman

*Fugitive Feminism in community 

* Understanding ‘fugitivity'

* Experiencing every day racism 

* Divesting from society and refusal of the social positions assigned to us

* Childhood and education, denying our intelligence

* Claude AI and his understanding of 'decentring the human'

* The characteristics of white supremacy culture

* The Re-Education of Beverley Thomas, the creative PhD experience

* Being less stressed and more creative

* Beverley’s takeaways from the book Fugitive Feminism by Akwugo Emejulu;

1. “For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we

call america, we have had to learn this first and most

vital lesson - that we were never meant to survive. Not 

as human beings … And that visibility [as Black women] 

which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is

the source of our greatest strength … We can learn

to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way

we have learned to work and speak when we are tired."

Audre Lorde, qtd. in Emejulu, p.79

2. 'The Dream Keeper' (1932) - Langston Hughes

    Bring me all of you dreams, 

    You dreamers,

    Bring me all of your

    Heart melodies

    That I may wrap them

    In a blue cloud-cloth

    Away from the too-rough fingers

    Of the world.

 Langston Hughes, qtd. in Emejulu, p. 85

3. “that we are each other's

     harvest:

     we are each other’s 

     business:

     we are each other's

     magnitude and bond."

Gwendolyn Brooks, qtd, in Emejulu, p. 87

Bio:

Beverley (Bev) Thomas is a writer who completed her creative writing doctorate in the School of English at the University of Sheffield and is currently awaiting the outcome of her examination. Her research explores identity — particularly Black British, Caribbean, and African diasporic identity — through the prism of trauma, double consciousness, homosexuality, family secrets, slavery, the supernatural, the mystical, and Afrofuturism.

She has been published in several magazines, including Bad Form and Dream Catcher. Her poetry was exhibited in the 'Being Human' national festival in November 2021 (His House to Our Home, a 3D virtual exhibition). She has guest lectured on Octavia Butler, spoken to an international audience for the Daring to Dare developmental programme, appeared on Ella Mesma's podcast Power Up (2022), and was a speaker at the University of Sheffield English Colloquium 2022.

She is now turning her attention to script writing, building on the storytelling grounded in her doctoral research.

- His House to Our Home (3D virtual exhibition)

The music used throughout this series is free music from Ketsa.uk 

This track is SOUL CHOIR BY KETSA

This series is funded by Arts Council England

Welcome back to the Earth Sea Love Podcast, with me your host Dr Sheree Mack.

In this episode, the second in the Practicing Creative Fugitivity series, sponsored with funding from Arts Council England, I’m talking with Dr. Rita Gayle, a cultural geographer whose research practice works at the intersection of race, gender, class and the city with a focus on Black cultural production in Britain during the 21st century. 

In this episode we talk about:

*The Practicing Creative Fugitivity project

* Growing up as a child in Sheffield and feeling safe

* Giving space to dreaming and the imagination

* What is fugitivity?

* The interventions in 2018 at ICA the foundations of Fugitive Feminism 

* Black women coming together to experiment with ideas and joy

* Creating community in an anti-black, anti-community, anti-care society

* The passing of Professional Jason Arday

* The percentage of Black Professors in comparison to the percentage of undergraduates

* The academy as a bad corporation 

* Being a Black scholar in the British academy is dangerous

* Transformation from inside and outside the academy

* Supplementary school systems

*Uses of the collaborations

* Our zinester sanctuary, other ways of knowing

*Being intentional with Black Feminist thought and practice

* Nathan Cofnas as a fraud and a real motherfucker!

*Whiteness and humanity - human and non-human other

* What would do you want to be in as it is a choice?

* Remember that Professor Jason Arday is human, and humans are flawed

* Decentring the human

* Ambivalence in the UK and USA contexts

* The liminality of life

Bio:

Dr Rita Gayle is a cultural geographer whose research practice works at the intersection of race, gender, class and the city with a focus on Black cultural production in Britain during the 21st century. Dr Gayle’s PhD thesis was concerned with the emergence of the Millennial Generation of Black women in Britain who had formed creative collectives between 2013-2020. Most recently, Rita was the Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the Conjunctures NOW strand of the Stuart Hall Archive at the University of Birmingham. She is a co-presenter of The New Nationwide Project Podcast on Substack. Prior to working in higher education Rita had worked in many industries, most extensively in Media. Rita is on X @rita_gayle, Instagram @ritagayle2000 and substack @thenewnationwideproject. 

The music used throughout this series is free music from Ketsa.uk 

This track is SUM OF THE ALL BY KETSA

This series is funded by Arts Council England 

Welcome to the first conversation* in the new series, Practicing Creative Fugitivity, funded by Arts Council England.

It is with immense joy that I share this conversation I had, your host Dr.Sheree Mack, with the amazing Pauline Mayers. As mentioned before, Pauline was on the podcast in July 25 with episode 081,  Ruptures, healing and reclamation with Pauline Mayers, the final episode of last season. And now she’s back.

Pauline is part of the SistaCircle who are reading Fugitive Feminism by Akwugo Emejulu, and we base our conversation around this text and so much more.

In this episode we are talking about:

* . What brought Pauline to the Practicing Creative Fugitivity project?

* Our experiences of coming together with black and brown women to study and heal

* Racial capitalism and the system

* The Unearthing(s)  exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery by Hannah Catherine Jones 

* Homeplace - rest, reset, regroup, regenerate, remember

* Sci-Fi and Storm, and stereotypes surrounding black women

* Being in the academy and not, other knowledges  

* Professor Jason Arday and the racial smear campaign

* Black women and humanity and non-human other

* Whiteness, white supremacy culture and race

* History, slavery and exploitation

* The beginning of scientific racism

* Fugitivity and refusal

* Fugitivity in the every day

And so much more ...

Get comfortable and settle in to listen with your ears and hearts. This is an intimate, honest, unapologetically black conversation, which is a testament to our wholeness, our aliveness for each other. 

*Trigger warning: may contain swearing. No ‘may', it most definitely does. 

The music used throughout this series is free music from Ketsa.uk 

This track is Follow My Soul

This series is funded by Arts Council England 

We don’t usually do this.  We usually just dive into the next episode. But this next episode, the first one in the series called Practicing Creative Fugitivity is a scorcher. 

The first episode in the series is with Pauline Mayers and you will hear a bit from her in this soundbite. The conversation* we had definitely gives ‘fuck you’ vibes. It amazing. And I can’t wait to share it with you.

Pauline was our guest for episode 081,  Ruptures, healing and reclamation with Pauline Mayers, the final episode of last season. And now she’s back.

The full episode of this conversation is out Friday 21st August. Make sure you set a reminder as you don’t want to miss this brilliant, honest, intimate, wide ranging conversation taking inspiration from our reading of Fugitive Feminism by Akwugo Emejulu and then taking flight. 

I’m so proud of it.

For now, here’s a little taster, enjoy :)

*Trigger warning: may contain swearing. No ‘may', it most definitely does. 

The music used throughout this series is free music from Ketsa.uk 

This track is Follow My Soul

This series is funded by Arts Council England 

Hello and welcome back to the Earth Sea Love Podcast.

We are greatly excited to be sharing our new series of conversations with you.

We are also deeply saddened and enraged about the recent lynching of Professor Jason Arday.

In this introduction, with me your host Dr. Sheree Mack recorded before Jason’s passing, I talk about the racial smear campaign of the last month or so. I have subsequently gone back in and added a word or two before this episode in honour of Jason. 

Below I will include the links I mentioned to positive, good media that champions Professor Jason Arday. In short, he never should have been unalived. They hounded him to death. And he coudn’t take any more. How much can one person take?

This introduction is a solo episode where I talk about the Practicing Creative Fugitivity project which is Arts Council England funded. This project involves forming a study circle around the reading Fugitive Feminism by Akwugo Emejulu. The conversations that follow within this series is me talking with members of the SistaCircle around their understandings and takeaways from reading in community this book. How can we move from the theory into practicing fugitivity in our every day.

I thought it only fitting to start this series with my own understanding of fugitivity and how I’ve been practicing it within my life. I hope to return with another solo episode at the end of the series to reflect of how I’ve moved my understandings and practices on in response to these conversations and the practicing creative fugitivity as a whole .

We share these amazing conversations as a means of telling our own stories. As a means of witnessing our wholeness, fullness and aliveness for ourselves. As it has become mighty clear and evident,  white supremacy culture, a by-product of racial capitalism is alive and well, working just as it was constructed to work; whiteness = humanness. Anything/ anyone else is exploited, extracted and disposed of.

Fugitivity is about refusal. Refusing the anti-black narrative, refusing to be defined, controlled and used and abused by the system. We chose to run, flee, take flight towards freedom. And in the midst of flight we linger to live and love, experience joy and grief, pain and pleasure on our own terms.

Welcome back to the Earth Sea Love Podcast. Thank you for your ears and hearts. Enjoy this series.

Links:

1. A replay of the vigil that was held for Prof. Arday at Trafalgar Square on 17th August 2026

https://www.youtube.com/live/lPHGREJFG40?si=Tvziri5N-GJDPmie

2. Two episodes from Kehinde Andrew’s podcast, Make it Plain where he talks about Professor Jason Arday

https://youtu.be/f0Led8VMAm8?si=uFjEqf6wtT17QRO0

https://youtu.be/uPmtCS3MPT0?si=cuJWdYetaCcpbgr6 ( at the end of this episode there is the inclusion of a lecture Professor Arday gave last year)

3. Elliott Connie relating to Jason Arday’s situation through mental health

https://youtu.be/_n2wE3w3Q40?si=AQJ8xVPbGXzc4_pl

4. Daniella Maison writing in The Independent before and after Jason’s passing

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/cambridge-plagiarism-jason-arday-black-academic-b3025197.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jason-arday-hounding-death-cambridge-professor-academic-b3033787.html

5. Owen Jones talking to Kehinde Andrews about the lynching of Professor Jason Arday

https://youtu.be/dv8MXCHcBVU?si=WSG7FBwsbUepr7js

6. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza writing about the murder of Jason Arday

https://paulddf.substack.com/p/who-killed-jason-arday?r=1qc34b&triedRedirect=true

7. LBC episode where people who knew Professor Arday call in to share how he touched their lives. Right near the end there’s a caller called Dean from Newcastle who shares a speech he prepared about being validated by Professor Jason Arday ( from 51 minutes in they start talking about Jason Arday). 

https://youtu.be/0AQZOyOrQpk?si=WRs1E583yNpuya_T

8. The Go Fund Me Campaign set up for Jason’s family 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-dr-jason-atta-kwei-arday

9. The Good Law Project call for a public enquiry into the media

https://goodlawproject.org/warnings-about-jason-ardays-mental-health-were-ignored-by-the-press/

10. Jason Arday was a talented football.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jason-arday-cambridge-university-tributes-37555625

11. A community grief circle has been scheduled by Black Psychology Team for Black and Global Majority communities to come together to grieve for the evening of Thursday 27 August. Sign up here - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bp-community-grief-circle-tickets-1998360526128?aff=oddtdtcreator 

12. Let’s and on a good note . Everything Good about Jason Arday, created by his students. Everything Good About Jason Arday:’https://leilacancode.github.io/everythinggood-about-jasonarday/

The music used throughout this series is free music from Ketsa.uk 

This track is MOLE SOUL BY KETSA

This series is funded by Arts Council England 

 * In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Hey you, good to see you again. 

On this day, our fifth birthday, we are so happy to bring you our final episode of the three we are releasing on 13th July 2025. The final episode before we go off on Summer Hiatus also. Rest is needed. We've been celebrating far too hard!

In this episode, Sheree is in conversation with Pauline Mayers, a multidisciplinary artist based in Leeds.

In this episode, they talk about:

• How Pauline and Sheree first connected 

Bio:

Beginning as a Rambert trained dancer, Pauline who has appeared in stage and television since the age of 15, began her career as a dancer in repertory dance companies across the UK in a career spanning years, including Janet Smith and Dancers, Diversions Dance (Wales), The Ensemble Group (Scotland), Phoenix Dance Theatre (England) as well as being acting artistic director for Teeside Dance Initiative, leaving dance for theatre in 2010. 

Since then, Pauline has amassed a rich background as director, writer, movement director, performer, and facilitator and has collaborated with theatre and live art companies across the UK. Pauline's work as movement director and performer has seen collaborations with Selina Thompson LTD’s Twine (2024), live performance artist Paula Varjack’s Nine Sixteenths (2024), Improbable Theatre on An Improbable Musical (2022), Tell Tale Hearts Children's Theatre on Yummm! (2013), Burmantofts Stories (2013) which featured in the programme for Transform Festival that same year, working with the community of Burmantofts area in Leeds, and Red Ladder’s Promised Land (2012).

In her own work, Pauline explores themes of identity, participation, intimacy, and care. Pauline’s previous work, the critically acclaimed What If I Told You written and performed by Pauline premiered at the Leeds Playhouse (formerly the West Yorkshire Playhouse) in 2016 and toured across the UK. The show was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2017), where she was a shortlisted nominee for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. What If I Told You returned for a second successful run at Leeds Playhouse in 2018 and was part of the inaugural programme at Brixton House, London in 2022. Pauline is the artistic director of the Mayers Ensemble, a company formed in 2022 as a vehicle for her work which has been described as ‘shaking up traditional theatre and power structures to put the audience in the picture’ (Lyn Gardner, The Guardian). In 2021, Pauline was a published contributor to the anthology, Weighted Words (Peepal Tree Press) edited by Jacob Ross.

Pauline is also a trustee at Improbable Theatre and is an Open Space facilitator.

Now in a new season of her life as well as continuing to write, Pauline enjoys walking, photography, zine-making.

Links: www.paulinemayers.com

Welcome back to our birthday celebrations with our second episode of the three. In this episode your host, Dr. Sheree Mack gets to speak with Maxine Greaves MBE.

Their conversation covers:

• Location in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, living across from a park

• LUSH – word of the year

• Work towards it, not harder, work towards your dreams with purpose 

• Interconnected teaching with equality leading it and how is the environment impact it also

• Sheffield Envinrmantal Movement reengage people from global majority back to nature 

"The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” - Toni Morrison 

Bio:

Maxine Greaves Likes Loves

Reasoning & Research #ActsOfSelfLove, #Freedom, #StyleAndFashion, #EthicalAmbition #HoldingSpace #Climate Mary J Blige, Good Morning Gorgeous, My Life, Betty Wright, Keep Love New, NAO Lifetime, Cleo Sol Mother, There Will Be No Crying Ledisi Love You Too Aretha Franklin Day Dreaming Luther Vandross Here And Now Maxwell Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder) Jamaican Breakfast Drinking Iced Ginger Beer, Turkish Grill Sipping Hot Chocolate Ramen thick noodles Fudge Brownie Watching Grand Designs, Chilling On The Sofa, Over The Yardarm Apple Juice And Fridge Fresh H2O, Utopia Theatre Anna Hibiscus’ Song, DATKH Theaster Gates Black Madonna, Afro-Mingei Matt Small Natasha, Kelly, Angela, Justina Claudette Johnson  Standing Figure (2015), Figure In Blue (2018) Blues Dance (2023)  Ta-Nehisi Coates The Message  Ngugi Wa Thiong’O The Language Of Languages Azeezat Johnson Beth Kamunge And Remi Joseph-Salisbury The Fire Now Malcolm Gladwell Blink, Outliers Jesmyn Ward The Let Us Descend Converse Cool Sneakers, Fenty Smell Good Look Good, Lip Gloss London, Camden Town, Brixton, Kingston Upon Thames Durban Waking Along The Golden Mile, Countryside Man Tor, Ben Nevis, And Scarfell Pike, Yvonne Battle-Felton Remembered  DJ Paulette Welcome To The Club Cebo Cambell Sky Full Of Elephants In Conversation Jeffrey Boakye (Blacklisted), Kehinde Andrews (Nobody Can Give You Freedom) MB Games Frustration; Fitbit Pilates, Peace Walk  Cycling Along The Tissington Trail, Roller Blades, Skates; Cat Ramsey My Words Purpose, Focus Lazy Day Greys Anatomy, Rewind And Come Again, all things Marvel Ramping

Welcome back to The Earth Sea Love website.

We are so happy to share the first of three episodes we are dropping today to mark out fifth birthday celebrations. 

This episode is a conversation with Yvonne Witter.

Chair of Trustees for Peak District Mosaic, Yvonne and Sheree talk about:

• Situating the self – the walk home from work

Bio: 

Pioneering Peak District Community Champion, Yvonne Witter, has been well recognised for her efforts to uplift diverse communities through the Peak District national park and surrounding areas.

Her passion and duty to protect the countryside and provide accessibility for everyone are endless as she works tirelessly to introduce new training programmes, group activities and trips for diverse communities to access and explore the countryside.

Yvonne has committed her time as Chair for Peak District Mosaic and is keen to see the organisation grow and continue to meet the needs of communities in enhancing the health and wellbeing in the outdoors.

https://peakdistrictmosaic.org

Hey Welcome.

Welcome back to The Earth Sea Love Podcast. We're so happy that you could join us, and why not join us in celebration of our birthday.

The Earth Sea Love Podcast is five years old. 13 July 2020, we pressed the button to release three shiny new conversations into cyberspace as a means of keeping the nature connection going with ourselves and nature, and with each other far and wide. During those troubling times, your host Dr, Sheree Mack, had the honour and privilege to talk with so many wonderful people across the globe. And then share them with you, dear listener. 

We are very happy to see this birthday come around after years of precarious survival. And things are not all plain sailing now, but we recognise our achievement.  And why not come celebrate with us?

We are super excited to share three new episodes to mark our fifth anniversary. And they do not disappoint.

Episode 079 - A daughter of the soil, Yvonne Witter

Episode 080 - Creating a wealthy future through banking our knowledge, with Maxine Greaves MBE

Episode 081 - Ruptures, healing and reclamation with Pauline Mayers