The Fire These Times

In light of what's been happening in Ukraine I am publishing a series of episodes that will, hopefully, bring in perspectives that are usually not platformed. The first episode is with British-Syrian writer and activist Leila Al-Shami. She's the co-author of the book "Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War." Important note: this is not a news update. For news updates check the podcasts below: Ukraine Without Hype by Romeo Kokriatski and A. Bartaway Popular Front Ukrainecast - BBC The Ex-Worker Talk Eastern Europe Links on how to help Ukrainians: https://twitter.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/1499492353261727760 + https://twitter.com/Border_Violence/status/1497345941552209924 + https://twitter.com/DocumentingMN/status/1498400897419956230 + https://twitter.com/nii_ugre/status/1496846810761117700 + https://linktr.ee/operation.solidarity + https://wiki.avtonom.org/en/index.php/Donate Relevant reading: War in Ukraine: Ten Lessons from Syria - Crimethinc Syrians recount horror under Russian air attacks - Al Jazeera Why Ukraine Is a Syrian Cause - Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, DAWN ‘Our fates are united’: Syrians rally behind Ukraine after years of Russian torment - The Guardian Safe, - Edge of Syria The Fire These Times links: Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: http://TheFireThisTi.Me Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes

This is a conversation with Cindy Milstein, they (I wrongly used 'she' in the intro) are the editor of the book "There is Nothing so Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World As Jewish Anarchists"  Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: www.thefirethesetimes.com Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes  What we talked about: - Displacement as part of the Jewish experience Being diaspora (Jewish and Arab) - Having communities without states - Politics of language (Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino etc) - Authoritarianism and flattening our differences - Jewish anarchism - Hegemonic narratives in Europe (Examples of Dreyfus affair, Alsace, Berlin, Spain) - Oral histories Tisha B'av, 1492, Tree of Life massacre and needing a language for grief - Wrestling with difficulties - Antisemitism on the right and the left Recommended Books:  - An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon - The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg - Pet by Akwaeke Emezi Link to Yiddish, Ladino and Judeo-Arabic songs: https://twitter.com/FireTheseTimes/status/1486260615828021249

This is a conversation with Anna Malaika Tubbs, author of the book "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation." Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: http://TheFireThisTi.Me Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes What we talked about: The lives of Berdis Baldwin, Louise Little and Alberta King and why their stories matter Anna becoming a mother while writing a book about black motherhood Their famous sons - James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr - eclipsing their own lives Contextualizing their lives an the long history of violence against black women The role of religion in their lives Books Mentioned: Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood by Dani McClain In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker The Mothers by Brit Bennett

Initially published in June 2020, I'm re-sharing this episode with Peter Pomerantsev with y'all because of what's been happening in Ukraine lately. I'm preparing a new episode on Ukraine but it's taking a bit of time because I want to make sure I'm well-read enough to be an engaging host.  Old link: https://thefirethisti.me/2020/06/24/31-disinformation-post-truth-and-what-to-do-about-them/ Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: http://TheFireThisTi.Me Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes

This is a conversation with Marie E. Berry and Milli Lake, co-founders and principal investigators of the Women’s Rights After War Project. We primarily spoke about their article "on inconvenient findings" and their paper for Annual Reviews "women's rights after war: on gender interventions and enduring hierarchies" Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: http://TheFireThisTi.Me Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: The limitations of many 'women's empowerment' programs What happens when research findings challenge the work that policy makers are invested in promoting? Example of degrowth and economics Who gets excluded when certain interests (such as class) are maintained? Examples of Rwanda, Bosnia and Lebanon Narrowly-defined arena for justice The three Dayton agreements (referencing the episode with Aida Hozic) and ongoing situation in Bosnia and Serbia War logics in 'postwar' contexts The USA as a 'postwar' country Should we make inconvenient findings less inconvenient? The idea of nation states The role of futurism and speculative movements Resources Mentioned: 69/ The Entrenched “Manliness” of Ethnic Power-sharing Peace Agreements (with Aida A. Hozić) https://thefirethisti.me/2021/03/28/69-the-entrenched-manliness-of-ethnic-power-sharing-peace-agreements-with-aida-a-hozic/ Recommended Books: Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines by Alexis Pauline Gumbs Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation by adrienne maree brown On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie Nelson Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This is a crossover episode with New Lines Podcast on the topic of 'postwar' Lebanon. A big thank you to New Lines’ Faisal Al Yafai and Lydia Wilson for hosting this conversation.   Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: http://TheFireThisTi.Me Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes

This is a conversation with Nat Muller, an independent curator, writer and academic living between the UK and Amsterdam.  Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: http://TheFireThisTi.Me Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes She is an expert in contemporary art from the Middle East and curated the Danish pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, showing Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour. She has curated shows at major venues, including Eye Film Museum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, The Mosaic Rooms in London and ifa Gallery in Berlin. She is an AHRC Midlands3Cities-funded PhD student at Birmingham City University working on science fiction in contemporary art from the Middle East. We primarily talked about her paper "Lunar Dreams: Space Travel, Nostalgia, and Retrofuturism in A Space Exodus and The Lebanese Rocket Society". Topics Discussed: Space travel and science fiction Space travel and the Arab world A Palestinian space exodus and the Lebanese Rocket Society The prolonged present and stolen futures The role of nostalgia The mnemonic imagination Who is space for? It is easier to reach the moon than Jerusalem The limitations of the nation state in Arabic science fiction Afro-futurism Resources Mentioned: The Future Palestinian Present: https://www.mangalmedia.net/english//the-future-palestinian-present Film: Erased, Ascent of the Invisible by Ghassan Halwani: https://joeyayoub.com/2019/12/01/ghassan-halwani-and-the-reclaiming-of-lebanons-imaginaries/ Film: Those Who Remain by Eliane Raheb Film: Ila Ayn? by Georges Nasser Film: Safar Barlik by Henry Barakat The Legacy of the Great Lebanon Famine (with Lina Mounzer and Timour Azhari): https://thefirethisti.me/2021/07/16/85-the-legacy-of-the-great-lebanon-famine-with-lina-mounzer-and-timour-azhari/ The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition by William C. Anderson (upcoming guest): https://www.akpress.org/nationonnomap.html Article on The Lebanese Rocket Societythat I wrote in 2013 https://hummusforthought.com/2013/03/12/lebanese-rocket-society-a-review/ Recommended Books: The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture by Mark Bould The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by Amitav Ghosh Refugee Heritage by Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti

This is a conversation with Asser Khattab, a Syrian writer who has reported on Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq for various international news outlets. We spoke about his essay for New Lines Magazine, "why I stopped writing about Syria." Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: http://TheFireThisTi.Me Substack: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: How Asser started writing about Syria Pigeonholing as Arab journalists Why Asser stopped writing about Syria Us leaving Lebanon at the same time Picturing safe spaces What is 'normal'? The role of Twitter in journalism The dangers of living in Lebanon as an undocumented Syrian Survivor's guilt and imposter's syndrome Resources Mentioned: A look at the Lebanon uprising through its chants  Syrian melancholy in Lebanon's revolution Newlines Podcast That Cairo Concert, Mental Health and Growing Up Queer in Lebanon (With Hamed Sinno) ‘Revolution everywhere’: A conversation between Hong Kong and Lebanese protesters Hong Kong’s Existential Crisis (with JP) Syrian Prison Literature and the Poetics of Human Rights (with Shareah Taleghani) Syria, Journalism and the Cost of Indifference In the End, It Was All About Love (with Musa Okwonga) Recommended Books: Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James Romm Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe God: An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou

This is a conversation with Dana Moss, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame and the author of the book "The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism against Authoritarian Regimes." Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Substack newsletter: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com/ Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: How Yemeni, Libyan and Syrian diasporas in the US and UK reacted to the Arab Spring Risks of protesting in the diaspora Government responses to diaspora pressures and activism Personal insights from my own experience Why diasporas are still undervalued Impostor's syndrome and survivor's guilt Diasporas are not homogeneous The Interpol problem Legacy of the Arab Spring Recommended Books: Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War by Leila Al-Shami and Robin Yassin-Kassab We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority by Sean R. Roberts Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw

This is a conversation with Shui-yin Sharon Yam (her 2nd time on the podcast) largely around a paper that she wrote called "Complicating Acts of Advocacy: Tactics in the Birthing Room". She is Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, and a faculty affiliate of Gender and Women's Studies and the Center for Equality and Social Justice at the University of Kentucky. She is one of the series editors for the Ohio State University Press's New Directions in Rhetoric and Materiality. Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Substack newsletter: https://thefirethesetimes.substack.com/ Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: Rhetorical Analysis, Reproductive Justice and Doulas: Intro to each and the links between them Three pillars of Reproductive Freedom and global implications Rhetoric of Health and Medicine: intro and explanation Technocratic model of birth: intro and explanation What makes some stories 'untellable'? The pitfalls of the 'self-made moms' rhetoric Rhetoric and the antivaxx movement Resources Mentioned: Romper's Doula Diaries on YouTube "Rhetorical Appeals and Tactics in New York Times Comments About Vaccines: Qualitative Analysis"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33275110/ "Using Rhetorical Situations to Examine and Improve Vaccination Communication" https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.697383/full#h4 Vaccine Rhetorics https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814214336.html Recommended Books: Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth by Dána-Ain Davis We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood by Dani McClain Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender by Stef M. Shuster