The Fire These Times

This is a conversation with Andrew Dana Hudson, a speculative fiction writer, sustainability researcher, editor and futurist and the author of "Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures."  It's also his second time on The Fire These Times. Andrew also has a newsletter called solarshades.club which publishes every other Sunday with updates on his work, process, and material reality. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Recommended Books: The Ministry Of The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Maln Phase Change: Imagining Energy Futures edited by Matthew Chrulew Kim Stanley Robinson's review of Our Shared Storm: "Hudson has found a way to strike together the various facets of our climate future, sparking stories that are by turns ingenious, energetic, provicative, and soulful"

This is a conversation with Sally Hayden, an Irish journalist and writer. A foreign correspondent, she has reported from Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda. Her book My Fourth Time, We Drowned, an investigation into the so-called migrant crisis in Europe, was published in 2022. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Recommended Books: A Stricken Field: A Novel by Martha Gellhorn What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather Sally Rooney said this about the book: “The most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read.  Every citizen of the European Union has not only a right, but also a  responsibility, to learn about the realities described in this book. I  hope that Sally Hayden’s work can help to begin a radically new and  overdue discussion about Europe’s approach to migration and borders.” 

This is a conversation with Efe Levent, editor-in-chief at Mangal Media about their recent 'Nostalgia in the Periphery' project. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Recommended Books: Nostalgia in the Periphery by Mangal Media The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara  The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu 

This is a conversation with Wen Liu and Brian Hioe, authors of the piece "From Taiwan to Ukraine" on Spectre. This episode was co-hosted by Romeo Kokriatski, co-host of the podcast "Ukraine Without Hype." You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Recommended Books: Reorienting Hong Kong's Resistance Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism, edited by Wen Liu, JN Chien, Christina Chung, Ellie Tse The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung

Nidal Betare joins Joey Ayoub to talk about growing up in Yarmouk, being Palestinian-Syrian and the links between Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Recommended Books: Samir Kassir's books: ديمقراطية سوريا واستقلال لبنان: البحث عن ربيع دمشق، دار النهار، 2004 and عسكر على مين؟: لبنان الجمهورية المفقودة، دار النهار، 2004 Serhy Yekelchyk: Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know 

Stop #TigrayGenocide. Tigrayan academic Teklehaymanot Weldemichel joins Joey Ayoub to talk about what's been happening in Tigray. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Resources: Omna Tigray Tghat HRW Report: “We Will Erase You from This Land” Art by Tigray Art Collective. Recommended Books: George Orwell - Animal Farm Hannah Arendt - The Origins of Totalitarianism Roméo Dallaire - Shake Hands with the Devil

This is a special episode in which Michael J. DeLuca reads out an essay he wrote for Issue 2 of Reckoning entitled 'On Having a Kid in the Climate Apocalypse'. The episode includes an updated intro by Michael as well. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Photo by Oxana Lyashenko on Unsplash

This is a conversation with Alyssa Hull who splits her time between teaching high school biology and environmental science and writing speculative fiction.  We spoke about what it's like to talk to high school students about climate change, the role of fiction like Solarpunk and how to improve climate communication. The article she wrote that we reference is called 'Hopepunk and Solarpunk: On Climate Narratives That Go Beyond the Apocalypse' for LitHub.  You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Games mentioned: Mutazione   Cloud Gardens  Common'Hood  Recommended Books: Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis - Amitav Gosh Underland: A Deep Time Journey - Robert Macfarlane

This is a conversation with Dana El-Kurd, her second time on the podcast. We spoke about a paper that she wrote entitled "Gateway to dissent: the role of pro-Palestine activism in opposition to authoritarianism." We primarily spoke about the role of pro-Palestine activism in pro-democracy movements in the Arab world (with examples from Qatar, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia) and also about how pro-Palestine discourse is used to whitewash authoritarianism, especially in the West. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com Recommended Books: عزمي بشارة - المجتمع المدني Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times (Anarchist Interventions) by Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique by Sa'ed Atshan Contested Modernity: Sectarianism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Bahrain by Omar Al-Shehabi

This is a conversation with Angela Chen, author of the book 'Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex'. You can support The Fire These Times on Patreon with a monthly or yearly donation. You can also find it on Twitter @firethesetimes, Instagram @firethesetimes and TikTok @thefirethesetimes. Joey Ayoub can be found on Twitter @joeyayoub and Instagram @joeyayoub91. The newsletter is available on Subtack @ thefirethesetimes.substack.com This isn't an Asexuality 101 episode. Feel free to look up the basics if you want. There are loads of asexuals who do explain what it means, Angela Chen's book including. This episode is more about what asexuality says about our societies. And as I'm notoriously crap at explaining why I like the books I like, I am going to read a paragraph written by Sarah Neilson for them.us which summarizes really well why Chen's book matters: "The crux of society’s difficulty with accepting asexuality is, Chen argues, because compulsory sexuality is ingrained in societal narratives about mental and physical health, politics and liberation, and interpersonal relationships. Compulsory sexuality posits that sex is a primal human need, ties sex to maturity, and places sex in relationship hierarchies. Even in the queer community, though we hate to be oversexualized by the straights, we often sexualize ourselves and each other. And while queer sex is indeed liberating for allosexuals (or those that do experience sexual attraction), so is the ability not to have sex. Chen argues, through a fantastic blend of nuanced and clear-eyed reporting, research, and personal reflection, that true liberation requires the dismantling of compulsory sexuality." So yeah, this book is great. Recommended Books: Minimizing Marriage: Morality, Marriage, and the Law by Elizabeth Brake Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown More Than Friends by Rhaina Cohen