Have you ever thought about how your queer life is connected to the land that you live it on? In this episode, Joshua Whitehead (University of Calgary) will take you on a Two-Spirit Indigiqueer journey from Stonewall in New York to the Forks in Winnipeg. Josh talks about how healing communion with the land is, how the stories of our queer bodies need to be read and told in relation to place, and about how genre can be as violent and racist of a category as gender. Would you like your serving of decolonial queer theory and creativity with a dash of Cardi B today? Then this is the episode for you.

If you’re anything like me, you will absolutely need to see photographic evidence of Josh’s shepherd Chief now. Head over to Insta or Twitter and follow @jwhitehead204. The podcast cats are purring over at @queerlitpodcast.


Works by Joshua mentioned:

full-metal indigiqueer (2017)
Jonny Appleseed (2018)
Making Love With the Land (2022)

Other people, texts and terms mentioned:

Thor Ragnarok
Peguis
Cardi B
Oji-Cree
Nehiyaw
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson As We’ve Always Done and “Indigenous Queer Normativity”
Anishinaabe
Ojibwe
Biotext
Biostory
Post-contact nations
Métis
Myra Laramee
Stonewall
Marsha P Johnson
Sylvia Rivera
Wendigo
Fred Wah
Michael Ondaatje
David Palumbo-Liu
Garth Greenwell
Sky Lee
Daniel Health Justice
Wonderworking
Cherokee
“Two-Spirit Literature” with Lisa Tatonetti
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50303918
“Queer Indigenous Literature” with Jas Morgan
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50152848
Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki
Studio Ghibli
Maori: pukapuka
Otâcimow
ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ nēhiyawēwin
Michel Foucault
Frantz Fanon
Sigmund Freud
Judith Butler
Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics
Gregory Scofield’s Thunder Through My Veins
Anne of Green Gables
Little House on the Prairie
Kihtwam


Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How does Josh describe queer relationships and interactions with the land? Which examples does he give?

2.What does Two-Spirit mean? When was the term created?

3.Which community coined the term ‘biotext’ and how does Josh alter it to suit his own writing?

4.Josh talks about the work the reader has to put in to follow the syllabics in “A Geography of Queer Woundings”. How does this relate to ‘glossing’ in post-colonial theory?

5.Reflect on whether or how your own body plays a role when you read or write queer texts, whether that is ‘theory’ or ‘fiction’ or anything in between.