Pretty Heady Stuff
Pretty Heady Stuff
This podcast features interviews with a variety of theorists, artists and activists from across the globe. It's guided by the search for radical solutions to crises that are inherent to colonial capitalism. To this end, I hope to keep facilitating conversations that bring together perspectives on the liberatory and transformative power of care, in particular.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 27, 2020 • 47min
Joe Duggan on using emotion to communicate the empirical truth of climate change
Researcher and communicator Joe Duggan, a doctoral researcher at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, talks to me about why he created the "Is This How You Feel?" project, which asks climate scientists to compose handwritten letters expressing how the climate crisis makes them feel.
Mar 29, 2020 • 59min
Max Haiven on the desire for vengeance and the demons of capital
Author and activist Max Haiven outlines some radical ways of approaching the challenges that we face globally, in a moment that seems characterized by a series of unprecedented and growing crises.
Mar 8, 2020 • 37min
Jodi Cooper on the promise and challenge of crowdfunded filmmaking.
Artist and communicator Jodi Cooper discusses the complicated and exciting process of making a film that speaks to the fans who are financing it and satisfies the artists who made it.
"The Woodsmen"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYB3sl6RJDs
Mar 8, 2020 • 20min
Box Brown on the complex frivolity of comic books
Bestselling graphic non-fiction author Box Brown speaks with me about nostalgia and popular culture, wrestling as an analogue for the theatre of politics, and (especially) the graphic medium of comics as a distinct way to look at history. His book Is This Guy for Real? The Unbelievable Life of Andy Kaufman, just won a much-deserved Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work -- Kaufman played in the lines between reality and fiction and Brown talks about the ways that writing about Kaufman's life meant figuring out relatable ways to represent an artist that defied categorization.
Mar 8, 2020 • 48min
Jeff Diamanti on capturing the climate emergency in a system that resists change
In this episode we discuss the importance of seeing culture, ideas and ideology as central parts of the struggle for climate action and an end to neoliberal extractivism. Jeff identifies a troubling "mood" that dominates conversations about the climate; this mood is part of a larger "haze" that prevents us from fully accepting the extent of the damage or the urgency of the threat.
Mar 8, 2020 • 43min
El Jones on the power of critical intervention as a driver of social justice
Following a federal election that exposed some serious issues with Canadian democracy, author and activist El Jones sat down with me to discuss how the rhetoric of emotion is used to simplify political debates around race and how the insularized ways we communicate get in the way of critical dialogue.
