By Zora's Daughters
4.9
147147 ratings
The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.
This is our fiftieth and final episode! Thank you everyone for your support over the past three years, we could not have done this without you. In this episode, you will hear our incredible conversation with Professors Ryan Jobson and Jennifer Freeman Marshall, PhD Candidate Delande Justinvil, and poet and ritual worker Destiny Hemphill from Wednesday, May 3rd.
We spent an hour and a half thinking together on tending to the past and honoring our ancestors as we imagine new futures. As you listen, consider: What will you leave behind for your descendants? What gifts will you choose to share with the world with the knowledge that they are yours for that reason? What will you give, particularly at this moment where we must fight for our liberation by any means necessary? And how can you call on your ancestors to meet you there and “order your steps”?
Thank you for listening to Season 3 of the podcast! We will be hosting our Discussion Section on May 22nd from 6-7PM ET on Zoom. Register here.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram -- you never know when we might pop up with a hot take! Love and light, y'all.
In this short bonus episode, Alyssa and Brendane share their hot takes of the week: Angel Reese and Black feminists, the problems with appropriation of AAVE, and the rise of the vanilla girl aesthetic.
S1, Episode 2: Respectability
S1, Episode 10: Black Girlhood
S1, Episode 20: Cultural Appropriation
S2, Episode 1: Politics and Aesthetics
Syllabus for ZD 301 is available here!
Let us know what you thought of the episode @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter!
Welcome to our ICONversations, a series where you will hear iconic Black feminist anthropologists answer five questions about their intellectual projects and growth, what their work has meant to them, and the imprints they want to leave on the world.
Listen to our candid ICONversation with Dr. Yolanda T. Moses, the professor and mentor who is truly about that Black feminist life. We had an inspiring conversation with Dr. Moses, learning about how she models change and lives her principles. In her words: "Praxis is where I experience the change I want to see." Dr. Moses was the first woman President of CUNY City College in New York, served as Associate Vice Chancellor, Diversity and Inclusion at UC Riverside, and continues to strategically collaborate to tackle structures of inequity in higher education.
Other Places to Find Dr. Moses:
How Real Is Race?: A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology, Second Edition
We're taking a break, so we'll see you next month!
Welcome to our ICONversations, a series where you will hear iconic Black feminist anthropologists answer five questions about their intellectual projects and growth, what their work has meant to them, and the imprints they want to leave on the world.
We're doing something a little different today: We had the opportunity to speak with Tracy Heather Strain, award-winning writer, director, and producer whose most recent work covers the life and times of Zora Neale Hurston. Her work aims to reveal the ways that our positionality shape lives and reflect and challenge society's narratives. As she says: "I feel a great responsibility to try to bring complexity and nuance to Black women's lives on screen."
Be sure to check out Tracy's work American Experience presents Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space on PBS!
Other Places to Find Tracy
The Film Posse
If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know by sharing it on social media! Tag us @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter. Find Tracy on Twitter.
Welcome to our ICONversations, a series where you will hear iconic Black feminist anthropologists answer five questions about their intellectual projects and growth, what their work has meant to them, and the imprints they want to leave on the world.
In this episode, Brendane and Alyssa speak (and cry!) with Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, a Black feminist anthropologist who has practiced within and beyond the academy. We loved how she saw the vision of our questions and how she stands firmly and powerfully in her lanes while putting joy and passion first. In her words: "Joy is a human right." Dr. Cole was the first Black woman president of Spelman College, served as director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, and continues to follow her passion through activism and scholarship.
If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know by sharing it on social media! Tag us @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter. Find Dr. Cole on Instagram at @johnnettabcole and Johnnetta B. Cole on Facebook.
Transcript is available here.
Welcome to our ICONversations, a series where you will hear iconic Black feminist anthropologists answer five questions about their intellectual projects and growth, what their work has meant to them, and the imprints they want to leave on the world.
In this first episode, Alyssa and Brendane sit down with Dr. Irma McClaurin, an anthropologist who defies definition. In her words: "I don't do academic windows." Dr. McClaurin is a bio-cultural anthropologist, author, leader, and entrepreneur. She has, and continues to walk in alignment with her life's purpose: creating space for Black women to thrive, to be celebrated and remembered.
Be sure to check out Dr. McClaurin in the PBS Documentary Claiming a Space about the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston.
Other Places to Catch Dr. McClaurin
‘Why We Still Love Zora’: Irma McClaurin on PBS Documentary ‘Claiming a Space’ and Zora Neale Hurston’s Legacy (Janell Hobson, 2023)
If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know by sharing it on social media! Tag us @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter. Find Dr. McClaurin on Twitter and Instagram. Speak to you next week with Part II!
Transcript available on our website here.
We have a major announcement up top so be sure to tune in!
Today on the episode we center... YOU! We asked for your listener questions and wow, you delivered. In this episode, we answer questions about pursuing a PhD and career advance, dealing with imposter syndrome, taking unprescribed "academic performance enhancing medications," love bombing and giving cis het men the cheat codes to your heart, dating bisexual men, moving in together before marriage, getting help without involving the police, not making abolition about your feelings, learning from our elders, and making it less acceptable to record people in public.
Join us on Patreon to hear answers to some of the questions we weren't able to get to!
Abolitionist & Advocacy Resources
Transform Harm
Discussed In This Episode
Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space (Tracy Heather Strain, 2023)
Let us know what you thought of the episode @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter!
Transcript will be available on our website here.
We're doing this 'fro the culture! In our last episode of the semester Brendane and Alyssa talk featurism, texturism, the politics of Black hair, and are joined by biological anthropologist Tina Lasisi.
We'll be back in 2023 with new episodes. In the meantime, don't forget to submit your listener letters and voice notes to [email protected] and we might read or play it and respond in our next episode. Happy Holidays!
What's the Word? Featurism and Texturism. These are colorism's insidious cousins: prejudicial or preferential treatment based on the proximity of their features and hair texture to Eurocentric standards of beauty.
What We're Reading. ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’: Problematizing Representations of Black Women in Canada by Shaunasea Brown. We share our hair journeys, chat about using the term dreadlocks vs locs, examine Canadian contributions to the Natural Hair Movement and infamous cases of workplace hair discrimination in Canada, and demonstrate that we use our hair—or lack thereof—to claim space and exercise our right to be.
What In The World?! We chat with Dr. Tina Lasisi, a biological anthropologist who specializes in the science of hair, skin, and human biological variation. We answer your burning scalp questions in a rapid fire, discuss scientific racism, the dangers of DNA phenotyping pseudoscience, and whether we really need to buy "Black" hair products.
Follow Dr. Lasisi on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, and check out her PBS series Why Am I Like this?
Discussed In This Episode
‘Don’t Touch My Hair’: Problematizing Representations of Black Women in Canada (Shaunasea Brown, 2018)
Other Episodes
S1, E9: Color Struck!
Syllabus for ZD 301 is available here!
Let us know what you thought of the episode @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter!
Transcript will be available on our website here.
It's all about Zora: Writer, Anthropologist, Filmmaker, Genius of the South, Capricorn Queen!
What's The Word? Anthropology. Difficult to define, but we throw our ideas into the ring! We cover its history, genealogy, what we think makes something anthropological, and what Indiana Jones has to do with Alyssa's research.
What We're Reading. You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston. We chose two of Hurston's essays that resonated the most with us and our scholarly pursuits: We read 'The Ten Commandments of Charm' and 'Crazy For This Democracy' to explore the politics of relationships and the hypocrisy of our "ass-and-all" democracy.
What In The World?! In this segment, we discuss the timelessness of Zora's work, how we're still facing the same obstacles as she did a century ago, letting Anthropology burn, why two Black women graduate students shouldn't be the only ones motivating students to stay in anthropology, the purposeful misreading of Zora's 'conservative' opinions, and why you should talk about the race war in front of white people.
We were riding the struggle bus recording and editing this episode, but thank you all for this year, we're so encouraged by your support!
Discussed In This Episode
You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays (Zora Neale Hurston, 2022)
Syllabus for ZD 301 is available here!
Let us know what you thought of the episode @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter!
Transcript will be available on our website here.
Get in loser, we're doing neuroexpansive shit!
What's the Word? Neuroexpansive. Coined by Ngozi Alston (@ngwagwa), neuroexpansive is an invitation to think about our differences and disabilities as an expansion, rather than a divergence, of human experience.
What We're Reading. Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk. Schalk contextualizes how Black people have enacted Black disability politics across time in our liberation movements and lays out the four common qualities of Black disability politics that all Black people must engage in.
What In the World?! In this segment, Alyssa and Brendane talk about the liberal security theater of this "post"-pandemic AAA Annual Meeting, the not-so-casual ableism in Black families, the eugenicist and ableist conversation in Love Is Blind, neurodivergence in the trenches, and losing community and access in the downfall of Twitter.
Sorry again about Alyssa's audio, she'll be back in New York for episode 8 without the cicadas in the background!
Other Episodes
S2, E8 40 Acres Ain't Praxis
Discussed In This Episode
Neuroexpansive* Thoughts (Ngwagwa, 2022)
Syllabus for ZD 301 is available here!
Let us know what you thought of the episode @zorasdaughters on Instagram and @zoras_daughters on Twitter!
Transcript will be available on our website here.
The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.