The Fire These Times

This is a conversation with speculative fiction writer and  sustainability researcher Andrew Dana Hudson. His stories have appeared  in Slate Future Tense, Lightspeed Magazine, Vice Terraform, MIT  Technology Review, Grist, Little Blue Marble, The New Accelerator,  StarShipSofa and more, as well as various books and anthologies. His  fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and longlisted for the  BSFA. In 2016 his story “Sunshine State” won the first Everything  Change Climate Fiction Contest, and in 2017 he was runner up in the  Kaleidoscope Writing The Future Contest. His 2015 essay “On the  Political Dimensions of Solarpunk” has helped define and grow the  “solarpunk” subgenre. He is a member of the cursed 2020 class of the  Clarion Workshop. Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: What is Solarpunk? Introduction to his essay “On the Political Dimensions of Solarpunk“ The urgency of Solarpunk and the response to Cyberpunk Post-normal fiction Solarpunk and global network society: why did it start in the 2010s? The importance of care work Solarpunk and the future of cities Solarpunk and utopias Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction The climate activism momentum How has Solarpunk changed over the years? Also: discussion of COP26 and Green New Deal Books mentioned + Recommended: Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures edited by Priya  Sarukkai Chabria and Taiyo Fujii and Shweta Taneja (which includes a  story by Andrew) Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures by Andrew (Pre-order now) Lo stato solare by Andrew Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older Gnomon by Nick Harkaway Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson Walkaway by Cory Doctorow The art is by artist and illustrator CosmosKitty (I added the text). Check out their work here: cosmoskitty.com

Hey everyone, As I'm taking a bit of a break I'm sharing with you the episode I did on the podcast "It Could Happen Here Daily with Robert Evans" about my article for Lausan.hk entitled "The periphery has no time for binaries".  Make sure to check out It Could Happen Here :) See you all in January!  To support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: thefirethisti.me

As I'm taking a wee break, here's an interview I gave on the Mangal Media podcast about my article of the same name.  You can read it here: https://www.mangalmedia.net/english/solarpunk-climate-change-and-the-new-thinkable Mangal Media is a global collective of writers, artists, journalists and scholars from the so-called “periphery” who are concerned about reclaiming their own narratives. Check out their podcast :) I was on there more recently as well to talk about protest chants since the Arab Spring.  See you in January. Patreon: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: thefirethisti.me 

As I'm taking a bit of a break, I thought I'd share with you a recording published by the Sara Jeva Collective. Listen to those who became victims of illegal pushbacks in Croatia. The reports deal with flight, racism and policeviolence against migrants and refugees. Links: https://twitter.com/JevaSara/status/1446739260112097282 https://reportssarajevo.blackblogs.org/ Related episodes on The Fire These Times: Episode 35: The European Union’s Violence Against Asylum Seekers, with Jack Sapoch, coordinator of No Name Kitchen‘s border violence reporting, itself part of the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN). Episode 49: Moria Camp and the Deadly Cost of Fortress Europe, with Ghias Al Jundi, a Syrian-British human rights activist, about the 2020 fires at the Moria camp in Greece Just look them up wherever you listen to this podcast!

This is a conversation with Shareah Taleghani, Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies and Arabic at Queens College at the City University of New York and the author of the book "Readings in Syrian Prison Literature: The Poetics of Human Rights" published by Syracuse University Press. Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: Background and context, Syrian prison literature Poetics of human rights, and how Syrian prison literature affected her view of human rights On Tadmor military prison On censorship, arbitrariness and tanfis in Syria Arab critics, literature and human rights Effects of truth Universality of prison literature Syrian prison literature and the 2011 revolution Selective solidarity and global prison abolitionism (US, Iran, Syria) Also Mentioned: Faraj Bayrakdar Human Rights, Inc by Joseph Slaughter Supreme Court Justices Make a Surprising Proposal in Torture Case Hasiba Abdelrahman Mustapha Khalifa Rosa Yassin Hassan Malek Daghestani Ali Abu Dahan Heba Al-Dabbagh Tadmor film by Monica Borgmann & Lokman Slim Memory, violence and fear: Why Lokman Slim’s murder must not be depoliticized - my L'Orient Le Jour piece Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria by Lisa Wedeen Miriam Cooke The Politics of Love: Sexuality, Gender, and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama & Mediating the Uprising: Narratives of Gender and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama by Rebecca Joubin Nazih Abu Nidal Ghassan al-Jaba'i Maher Arrar 'Anticipating' the 2011 Arab Uprisings: Revolutionary Literatures and Political Geographies by Rita Sakr Recommended Books: The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa A Dove in Free Flight by Faraj Bayrakdar Forced Passages by Dylan Rodríguez

This is a conversation with Brazilian researchers Camila Nobrega and Joana Varon about their paper for Global Information Society Watch, "Big tech goes green(washing): Feminist lenses to unveil new tools in the master’s houses." Extended bio below. The research by Nobrega and Varon is part of a report launched by the Association for Progressive Communications. You can find the full report here. Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed: Power structures, Big Tech and what kind future we want technosolutionism through feminist lenses Who has the ability to consent? Gatopardismo (Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui): proposing 'changes' while reinforcing existing power structures Monocultures of minds (Vandana Shiva) What are we sustaining and what are we developing when we talk of 'sustainable development'? What is 'green data'? The 'good life' through euro-centrism Discussion about Brazil  Extractivism and data colonialism Resources mentioned: Please visit thefirethisti.me Recommended Books/Other A extinção das abelhas by Natalia Borges Polesso (Joana) Un Mundo Ch'ixi es posible by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (Camila) Amanda Piña (choreographer) Camila Nobrega is a Brazilian journalist working on social-environmental conflicts for more than ten years, fostering Latin American feminist lenses and social-environmental justice. She has worked for media vehicles in Brazil and has contributed to international media, like The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Mongabay. Currently based in Berlin, she is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science department at the Free University of Berlin. To connect journalism, academic research, and artistic languages, she develops the project Beyond the Green (https://thenewnew.space/projects/beyond-the-green/), focusing on megaprojects that affect our lives, bodies, and territories. It aims to strengthen narratives that connect the right to communication and land rights. Member of Intervozes collective that struggles for media democratization in Brazil. medium@nobregacamila Joana Varon is Brazilian, with Colombian ancestry and a nomad heart. She is a feminist researcher and activist focused on bringing decolonial Latin American perspectives in the search of feminist techno-political frameworks for shaping the development, deployment and usages of technologies. As it is a collective search, she is the Founder Directress and Creative Chaos Catalyst at Coding Rights, a women-run organization working to expose and redress the power imbalances built into technology and its application, particularly those that reinforce gender and North/South inequalities. Former Mozilla Media Fellow, Joana is currently a Technology and Human Rights Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. She is also affiliated to the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

This is a conversation with Jefim Vogel of the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, and Julia Steinberger of the Institute of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Lausanne, about a paper they worked on entitled "socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: An international analysis of social provisioning." Julia is also an author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report, contributing to the report's discussion of climate change mitigation pathways. Support: Patreon.com/firethesetimes Website: TheFireThisTi.Me Twitter + Instagram @ firethesetimes Topics Discussed How the major environmental and social crises of our time are interlinked, especially energy use Meeting basic needs at low energy use Leapfrogging fairly Disparities between global North and global South (Some of) the limits of economic growth Citizens' assemblies and other examples of ways forward Living well within limits Recommended Books: Jefim's: Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power by Noam Chomsky Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown Julia's: Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet--And How We Fight Back by Kate Aronoff The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming by Eric Holthaus We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism by Laurence Cox & Alf Gunvald Nilsen

This is a conversation with Paz Peña, a Chile-based independent consultant and activist, who recently published a paper entitled “Bigger, more, better, faster: The ecological paradox of digital economies” for Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch). The research by Paz Peña is part of a report launched by the Association for Progressive Communications. You can find the full report here.  Topics Discussed: Digital economies and environmental sustainability The ecological paradox of dematerialisation ‘Smart cities’ and the Internet of Things (IoT) The problem with techno-solutionism Tech in the framework of degrowth and postgrowth Artificial Intelligence is a feminist issue Tech isn’t neutral Recommended Books: Posthuman Knowledge by Rosi Braidotti Cómo pensar juntos by Isabelle Strengers After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration by Holly Jean Buck I mentioned my article for Shado Mag on the Emotional Case for Postgrowth If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 1$ a month on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer. Patreon is for monthly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options. You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts! Music by Tarabeat.

This is a conversation with Mia Wong, a writer and researcher with Cool Zone Media whose essay "When communists crushed the international workers’ movement" for Lausan was the subject of this conversation. Get early access + more perks on Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: The Tiananmen massacre in its historical context The meaning of Tiananmen How we remember Tiananmen and what we erase The before and the after The cost of denialism Tiananmen/Syria comparisons Occupying the squares vs occupying the factories On class identities How could it have been different? Aesthetics and politics Burying the past On tankies Recommended Books: Rhythms of the Pachakuti: Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia by Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy by David Graeber Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil by Timothy Mitchell Hatta Shūzō and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan by John Crump + I recommended Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan by Sho Konishi

This is a conversation with Susan A. Crane, author of the book “Nothing Happened: A History“ Get early access + more perks on Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: How do people think of the past? What does Nothing even mean? Four expressions of historical consciousness: 1- Nothing Happened 2- Nothing is the Way it Was 3- Nothing has Changed 4- Nothing is Left How far away does the past have to be before being considered the past? What the past says about the present The examples of Germany, Chile, the USA, Spain and Lebanon When histories become ruin On biographies and ‘great men’ On ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ in history Resources mentioned: Why Man Creates by Saul Bass The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Memory and the Event. Form and Meaning in Oral History by Alessandro Portelli Nostalgia for the light by Patricio Guzmán History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige by Rea Tajiri The mnemonic imagination by Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering Why Did Ozu Cut To A Vase? by Nerdwriter Recommended Books In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale The Resonance of Unseen Things: Poetics, Power, Captivity, and UFOs in the American Uncanny by Susan Lepselter Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman A History of Silence: From the Renaissance to the Present Day by Alain Corbin