The Fire These Times

In which I sat down with friend of the pod Lebanese writer Ayman Makarem for the first ever premium episode. This was first recorded for Patreons in February 2023 and I'm now releasing it to the wider public. What made Seinfeld so special to Ayman as a queer kid from Lebanon? And what is it like to watch shows that don't have you in mind as their target audience? You can support The Fire These Times on ⁠patreon.com/firethesetimes⁠ with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive audio and video episodes, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. For feedback, questions, comments and whatnot: contact@thefirethesetimes.com Mentions and Book Recommendations: Ayman's: Out of Place: A Memoir by Edward Said (book) First season of Rami (series) Wajib by Annemarie Jacir (film) Guapa by Saleem Haddad (previous guest of the pod) Beer in the Snooker Club by Waguih Ghali Scheherazade Goes West by Fatema Mernissi Joey's: Let's talk about myths, baby! (podcast) Witch, Please (podcast) Comedy Against Work: Utopian Longing in Dystopian Times by Srsly Wrong (podcast) Circe by Madeline Miller Check out Ayman's project ⁠Bizri#5⁠ and his comic series with Hisham Rifai for Unicorn Riot: ⁠Revolution in Every Country Comic Series: Episode 1 – Syria: Erasing an Inconvenient Revolution⁠ ⁠Revolution in Every Country Comic Series: Episode 2 – Sudan: Building Power from Below⁠ Credits: Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: ⁠Rap and Revenge⁠ Main theme design: ⁠Wenyi Geng⁠ Sound editor: Joey Ayoub Episode design: Joey Ayoub Pluggables: The best way to keep up to date is through the website thefirethesetimes.com or through patreon. I occasionally post on Mastodon and friends of the pod occasionally post on Twitter and Instagram. The newsletter will be available on thefirethesetimes.com and www.thefirethesetimes.substack.com as well.

In which I sat down with my buds Leila Al-Shami and Shon Meckfessel to talk about how and why a bunch of fascists became fans of everyone's favorite genocidal mass murdering dictator, Bashar (يلعن روحك يا) Assad, who was recently voted most likely to end up like Mussolini by I-just-made-it-up magazine. Leila, a recurring guest, is the co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War and, together with Shon, she co-wrote the chapter of No Pasarán: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis (edited by Shane Burley, also a previous guest of the pod) on this topic. You can also check out Mariam Elba's excellent 2017 piece on this issue for The Intercept. Shon is also the author of "Suffled How It Gush: A North American Anarchist in the Balkans" and "Nonviolence Ain't What It Used To Be: Unarmed Insurrection and the Rhetoric of Resistance." Aaaand check out Bizri#6! Kind reminder that the best way to support this podcast is by Mussolini-ying Bashar. The second best way? you can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Credits: Host: Joey AyoubProducer: Joey AyoubMusic: Rap and RevengeMain theme design: Wenyi GengSound editor: Artin SalimiEpisode design: Joey Ayoub Pluggables: The best way to keep up to date is through the website thefirethesetimes.com or through patreon. I occasionally post on Mastodon and friends of the pod occasionally post on Twitter and Instagram. The newsletter will be available on www.thefirethesetimes.com and www.thefirethesetimes.substack.com as well.

This is a conversation with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the author of 'The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing and Abolution'. She is a Dalit American commentator on religion, race, caste, gender, technology and justice. She is also the Executive Director of Equality Labs. We were joined by my friends Rhythima Shinde (who is also Dalit) and Vivek Ramachandran. They both read the book and helped me greatly in the research for this episode, so during one of our chats I asked if they can come on and they gracefully agreed. The result was amazing, as I think you'll agree. Blog post: https://thefirethesetimes.com/2023/03/31/podcast-overcoming-the-trauma-of-caste-w-thenmozhi-soundararajan-rhythima-shinde-and-vivek-ramachandran/ You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Mentions and Book Recommendations: Debhrahmanising History: Dominance & Resistance in Indian Society by Braj Ranjan Mani Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem The Conspirituality podcast Credits: Host: Joey AyoubProducer: Joey AyoubMusic: Rap and RevengeMain theme design: Wenyi GengSound editor: Ibrahim YoussefEpisode design: Joey Ayoub Pluggables: The best way to keep up to date is through the website thefirethesetimes.com or through patreon. I occasionally post on Mastodon and friends of the pod occasionally post on Twitter and Instagram. The newsletter will be available on www.thefirethesetimes.com as well.

This is a conversation with carla joy bergman, the editor of the excellent book "Trust Kids!: Stories on Youth Autonomy and Confronting Adult Supremacy" and co-author of the equally excellent book "Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times", both published by AK Press. She's also the co-host of the Grounded Futures podcast alongside her son Uilliam Joy. Make sure to check them out! As the title suggests, we focused on youth autonomy. What does it mean? How is it integral to structures of power and oppression, and how can we challenge it? Why are children so routinely undervalued while also always spoken for? You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Mentions and Book Recommendations: Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki The Mushishi series by Yuki Urushibara ----- Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: Rap and Revenge Main theme design: Wenyi Geng Sound editor: Artin Salimi Episode design: Joey Ayoub ---- You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website The newsletter is available on Substack

This is a conversation with Yafa El Masri, a Palestinian refugee researcher who grew up in Burj El Barajneh in Beirut, Lebanon. She's currently finishing her PhD at the University of Padova in Italy. We primarily spoke about her paper "72 Years of Homemaking in Waiting Zones: Lebanon's “Permanently Temporary” Palestinian Refugee Camps" which she presented at the 2022 Pluriverse of Eco-social Justice summer school in Coimbra, Portugal, where we met. ---- We spoke about: what it's like to find and build a home in a space that is 'supposed' to be temporary but is not Lebanon's most vulnerable people coming together during the Covid pandemic and finding access to care in Palestinian refugee camps anti-Palestinian discrimination in Lebanon about the impact of Lebanon's broader anti-refugee politics through a (James) Baldwinian understanding of 'the Other' about the ongoing crisis in Lebanon and more ---- You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. ---- Mentions and Book Recommendations: A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Sornit Eleven Lives: Stories from Palestinian Exiles edited by Muhammad Ali Khalidi The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri Placeless People: Writings, Rights, and Refugees by Lyndsey Stonebridge Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Sornit ----- Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: Rap and Revenge Main theme design: Wenyi Geng Sound editor: Ibrahim Youssef Episode design: Joey Ayoub ---- You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website The newsletter is available on Substack

This is a conversation with Karena Avedissian and Anna, and a collaboration with their podcast Obscuristan. The main thread of our conversation was about Armenian-ness and how complicated of an identity it is due to the old and transnational history of Armenians. Some have ancestry in the Ottoman empire and therefore feel closer to the Levant, especially after the genocide which also exiled so many to my part of the world. Others lived under the Russian empire and then the USSR. There are of course those who moved to Europe and North America and elsewhere as well. Karena is of Armenian-Iranian origins and grew up in the US, but lives in Armenia. Anna is from Artsakh and Armenia and is currently in the US. So we inevitably had to also talk about Armenian proximity to Whiteness in the US and why it's important to understand it. We brought up Ukraine a lot as well as Russia's full-scale invasion last year prompted them to launch their podcast which partly seeks to decolonize Russian history and imperialism. We also brought up Azerbaijan's ongoing violence against Armenians in Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh. Also: Lebanon as Beirut has a special place in Armenian history, something I didn't really know until I myself visited Armenia. Also: Gilmore Girls, coz why not. ---- Mentions and Book Recommendations: Karena: The Politics of Exile by Elizabeth Dauphinee Anna: The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition by Thenmozhi Soundararajan (who will be a guest soon as well!) Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis ---- You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: Rap and Revenge Main theme design: Wenyi Geng Sound editor: Ibrahim Youssef Episode design: Joey Ayoub ---- You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website The newsletter is available on Substack

This is a conversation with Morgan Govin and Molly Hagan. This is how Morgan introduces herself on her website: "I spent five years addicted to heroin and four years incarcerated as a direct result of my addiction. I lost my mom and four close friends to  overdose. I found a system of injustice within the US justice system. Now, I work to change the systems that harmed us. I strive for safer, healthier communities." Morgan is also JSTOR Daily’s engagement editor for the American Prison Newspapers collection. Molly is a writer, journalist and photographer whose piece "The Meaning of Time in The Hour Glass" kickstarted this conversation.  We also talked about Morgan's experience, about the US' brutal carceral system, and the meaning of time in prison. We also talked about logics of scarcity and what we lose, wherever we live, when incarcerated people are rendered invisible. ---- Mentions and Book Recommendations: Episode with Shareah Taleghani on Syrian Prison Literature and the Poetics of Human Rights Episode with Kate Zen on Basebuilding, Sex Workers' Rights and Mutual Aid Molly: A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit The Dead Are Arising: the Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne Solitary: A Biography by Albert Woodfox Morgan: Corrections in Ink: A Memoir by Keri Blakinger Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair by Danielle Sered You're Wrong About podcast ---- You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: Rap and Revenge Main theme design: Wenyi Geng Sound editor: Ibrahim Youssef Episode design: Joey Ayoub

This conversation with two Iranian activists, both of whom will remain anonymous for obvious reasons. 'Vicky' joined us from Tehran, and Kiana from Manchester. We talked about the recent Iranian uprising following the murder of Jina 'Mahsa' Amini and why 'reforming' the regime cannot work. We spoke about the strikes, the clear gendered aspect of the protests, and what might come next. We also spoke about the now-familiar campism that we see in much of the world whereby a shallow 'anti-imperialism' is often enough for folks to erase the agency of activists and protesters in other countries. Check out 'Women for Iran': https://linktr.ee/WomenForIran ---- Mentions and Book Recommendations: - In Defense of Sentimentality by Robert C. Solomon - The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran by Masih Alinejad ---- You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Want to help our with transcribing episodes? Check out this link. ---- You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website The newsletter is available on Substack ---- Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: Rap and Revenge Main theme design: Wenyi Geng Sound editor: Joey Ayoub Episode design: Joey Ayoub

I'm excited to share with you my convo with Kavita Krishnan, Promise Li and Romeo Kokriatski on why the idea of multipolarity needs to be understood & critiqued, and why the left cannot abandon anti-authoritarianism and internationalism. Kavita Krishnan is an Indian Marxist and Feminist who used to be a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation who made news a few months ago when she resigned over Ukraine. Promise Li is a US-based Hong Konger organizer and part of the Left diaspora collective Lausan. Romeo Kokriatski is a Ukrainian-American journalist, managing editor of the New Voice of Ukraine and co-host of the Ukraine Without Hype podcast. Promise is also a returning guest of the pod, and Romeo's been on a few times as well. Due to Russia's ongoing bombardments of Ukraine, Romeo's power went out towards the end of the episode so we had to continue without him.  Slava Ukraini. ---- Mentions and Book Recommendations: - My piece for Lausan Collective: The periphery has no time for binaries - Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India by Angana P. Chatterji, Thomas Blom Hansen and Christophe Jaffrelot  (Kavita) - Money Power and Financial Capital in Emerging Markets: Facing the Liquidity Tsunami by Ilias Alami (Promise) Regular updates on India can be found on The India Cable ---- You can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Want to help our with transcribing episodes? Check out this link. ---- You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website The newsletter is available on Substack ---- Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: Rap and Revenge Main theme design: Wenyi Geng Sound editor: Ibrahim Youssef Episode design: Joey Ayoub

In which I talk about Seinfeld with fellow Arab millennial and writer (and previous guest of the podcast) Ayman Makarem. It's that simple!  What made that sitcom so special to Ayman as a queer kid from Lebanon? And what is it like to watch shows that don't have you in mind as their target audience?   This is a sample episode. To listen to the full episode please head out to http://www.patreon.com/firethesetimes and get access to exclusives, monthly hangouts, book clubs and more for $5 a month. Check out Ayman's project Bizri#6 and his comic series with Hisham Rifai for Unicorn Riot: Revolution in Every Country Comic Series: Episode 1 – Syria: Erasing an Inconvenient Revolution Revolution in Every Country Comic Series: Episode 2 – Sudan: Building Power from Below ---- Book. series and movie recommendations: Ayman's: Out of Place: A Memoir by Edward Said (book) First season of Rami (series) Wajib by Annemarie Jacir (film) Guapa by Saleem Haddad (previous guest of the pod) Beer in the Snooker Club by Waguih Ghali  Scheherazade Goes West by Fatema Mernissi Joey's: Let's talk about myths, baby! (podcast)  Witch, Please (podcast) Comedy Against Work: Utopian Longing in Dystopian Times by  Srsly Wrong (podcast) Circe by Madeline Miller ---- Want to help our with transcribing episodes? Check out this link. ---- You can also follow updates on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Website & Mailing List Joey Ayoub can be found on Mastodon | Twitter | Instagram | Website The newsletter is available on Substack ---- Host: Joey Ayoub Producer: Joey Ayoub Music: Rap and Revenge Main theme design: Wenyi Geng Sound editor: Joey Ayoub Episode theme design: Joey Ayoub