The Fire These Times

This is a conversation with Boris Michel and Paul Schweizer who helped create the ‘This Is Not an Atlas‘ book for Kollectiv Orangotango, which is available as a free PDF. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: What is ‘This is Not an Atlas’? What traditional cartographies erase The relationship between maps and power When do maps work? Examples of Alarm Phone and Indigenous mapping How to become an occasional cartographer Discussion of: Is This Is Not an Atlas an Atlas? On the Pitfalls of Editing a Global Collection of Counter-Cartographies How can cartography help us understand our relationship to nature? What is hydrocartography? Recommended books: Manual of collective mapping by iconoclasistas Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement & Resistance by Anti-Eviction Mapping Project Weaponizing Maps: Indigenous Peoples and Counterinsurgency in the Americas by Joe Bryan and Denis Wood Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability by Eyal Weizman The Natures of Maps: Cartographic Constructions of the Natural World by Denis Wood and John Fels

This is a conversation with Bram Büscher around the topics discussed in his book ‘The Truth about Nature: Environmentalism, in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism‘ Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: Meaning of ‘post-truth’ and platform capitalism Environmentalism, political action and social media Mediating knowledge and politics through new media platforms “Doom and gloom” versus “being optimistic” Temporality on social media and the urge of the ‘now’ New media platforms are not neutral platforms Alienation, politics and new media Can it be good? The role of new media in the conservation and environmental movements South Africa’s Kruger National Park, new media and racial politics The difference between understanding and knowledge, and how new media plays into that Recommended Books: Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek Darwin’s Hunch by Christa Kuljian 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!

This is a special episode in which I just read the names of those who died due to the Beirut port explosion on August 4th 2020. Resources: http://beirut607.org/ http://thepublicsource.org/ https://armlebanon.org/ #BeirutExplosion 

This is a special episode, initially recorded and released on August 7th 2020 with Lina Mounzer.  I'm re-releasing it as it was.  Twitter thread with reflections on this day https://twitter.com/joeyayoub/status/1422610135172714498  #BeirutExplosion #BeirutBlast

This is a conversation with Lina Mounzer and Timour Azhari, repeat guests on the podcast, about the legacy of the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (1915–1918) and its legacy today. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed + Resources: What was the Great Famine? Causes and Context (Allies blockading from the sea, Ottomans barring grains, role of local elites like Michel Sursock) Hunger and Hallucination: Tales from the Great Famine (Lina's talk) An Abandoned Village Bears Witness to Lebanon’s Famines – Old and New (Timour's article) Parallels to today A Hungry Population Stops Thinking About Resistance: Class, Famine, and Lebanon's World War I Legacy Is there an amnesia problem in Lebanon? Yes and No The sense that history is repeating itself Working as a way of coping Thinking of leaving and of the established migration routes (belonging, identity, legitimacy etc) The role of the diaspora beyond bringing aid Across the Rickety Bridge by Farrah Berrou Akram Khater's Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender and the Making of a Lebanese Middle Class, 1861-1921 The gendered component of the famine The Megaphone short doc  Maybe let's eat the rich Coexistence as being between rioters and peaceful protesters What counts as violence vs non-violence What we've inherited from the Lebanese wars (1975-1990) Recommended Books Timour: On the Road by Jack Kerouack Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami Citizen Hariri by Hannes Bauman Lina: Beirut Nightmares by Ghada Samman A Month in Siena & The Return by Hicham Matar Yes, I am a destroyer by Mira Mattar

This is a conversation with Naji Bakhti, author of the novel Between Beirut and the Moon (2020), published by Influx Press. He is also Project Manager at SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom at the Samir Kassir Foundation. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: Growing up in a ‘postwar’ context, Lebanon Writing in English and the distance afforded to us when doing so Thinking about Arabic and creativity Genesis of Between Beirut and the Moon Writing the local, writing the global The Arab world and the impossibility of Space exploration Billionaires are ruining space in addition to planet Earth Joking about sectarianism in Lebanon (and also Balkans, Iraq etc) West Beirut (1998 film) and its impact, watching it (in Joey’s case) the day Hariri was assassinated in 2005 Writing about Beirut as a character How do we think about fiction when reality is so overwhelming? Inheriting the silences from one’s parents (including postmemory) Friendships versus sectarian politics Recommended Books Guapa by Saleem Haddad De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage Persepolis by Marjie Satrapi Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle Music by Tarabeat.

This is a conversation with Tareq Baconi, author of the book "Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance" published in 2018. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. List of topics discussed: How Hamas is often talked about Contextualising Hamas in recent and ongoing uprisings Hamas and popular protests The Great Return March Hamas and Israel Western hypocrisy on Palestinian democracy, with a focus on the EU and the US Hamas-Fatah relations The horrific costs of the Israeli blockade of Gaza How the Israeli state views Hamas Hamas breaking out of its 'cage' Does it matter who wins at the Israeli elections? The PA losing legitimacy Hamas' authoritarianism in Gaza Hamas as a democratic movement Difference between party and government in Gaza Moving beyond the framework of partition and into colonial and apartheid frameworks Recommended Books: Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector by Sara Roy Hamas: A Beginner's Guide by Khaled Hroub Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial by Somdeep Sen

This is a conversation with Aurelien Mondon, he’s a senior lecturer in politics, languages and international studies at the University of  Bath and co-author of the 2020 book “Reactionary Democracy: How racism and the populist far right became mainstream” alongside Aaron Winter. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed How has the far right been mainstreamed? Focus on US, UK and France Liberal racism versus illiberal racism The far right and why calling them ‘populism’ is problematic What is ‘populist hype’ and how can the media be complicit? How the ‘working class’ become racialized into the ‘white working class’ The role of elites in ‘reactionary democracy’ How our knowledge of the world is constructed How the right has asphyxiated the media landscape On echo chambers The generational divide The question of race and ‘populism’ ‘Populism’ and elections The case of France Books Recommended Hatred of Democracy by Jacques Rancière Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Feminism, Interrupted by Lola Olufemi Music by Tarabeat.

This is a conversation with Phoebe Wagner, co-editor of the 2017 book Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation alongside Bronte Christopher Wieland. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: What is Solarpunk? What is wrong with modern storytelling about the future? Playing with words (example of Permablitzing) Patriarchal tropes (‘men with guns’) and moving beyond them Is knowledge power? Working on the language we use Is there a crisis of the imagination? Going from fiction to non-fiction and action Community-building What’s punk about solarpunk Works mentioned: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler Parable of the Talent by Octavia Butler Moon of the Crusted Snow: A Novel by Waubgeshig Rice Robin Wall Kimmerer on the Language of Animacy Recommended Books: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Cover Art by Likhain for the Sunvault book Music by Tarabeat.

This is a conversation with professor Marwa Daoudy, associate professor at Georgetown University and the author of the recently published book The Origins of the Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security. Get early access + more perks at Patreon.com/firethesetimes Blog: https://thefirethisti.me You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too. Topics Discussed: Climate change did not cause the Syrian revolution, despite this  narrative continuing to dominate in many circles, and why this  deterministic narrative strips away the agency of Syrian revolutionaries The  ‘securitization’ of language, how refugees and migrants going to global  north countries are treated through militarized language, and how  calling them ‘climate migrants’ can be problematic How did the pre-2011 drought affect the uprising, if at all? Bashar Al-Assad urban/rural divide and conquer strategy Assad’s neoliberal reforms and their impacts on water and food politics The role of ideology (baathism, neoliberalism etc) in Syria The  issue of ‘state security’ rhetoric and how a  Human-Environmental-Climate Security (HECS) framework can help  understand reality better The relationship between the World Bank and the Syrian regime Neo-Malthusian politics and its presence in international politics Europe’s extractivist economies and the complicity in scapegoating ‘climate migrants’ The idea of ‘climate security’ and why it’s problematic Book Recommendations: Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse Martin Eden by Jack London The Crossing by Samar Yazbeck The Impossible Revolution by Yassin Haj-Saleh The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa + Samira’s Letters on Al Jumhuriya Music by Tarabeat.