In this episode, Sophie Lewis, Danya Glabau, and Paige Sweet hold a conversation in honor of Sophie's new book, Femmephilia: Love Letters to Trans Mermaids, Queer Mothers, and Marilyn Monroe. Since at least the 1970s, a dominant strand of Western feminism has regarded femininity with suspicion, if not outright hostility. Given this "feminist machismo," which is an obstacle to liberation, what would it mean to interpret the world through a femmmephilic lens? This discussion takes up questions of power, pleasure, and care labor, as well as feminism's relationships to race, gender, and sexual identity. It asks how to formulate a femme-inism capable of countering contempt for "girly things" in a moment of anti-feminist backlash and argues for a reorientation of collective work towards an effective critique of capital and coercion.

In this episode of Faculty Spotlight, Lauren K. Wolfe, Paige Sweet, and Miranda Trimmier sit down to discuss BISR Practicum—the exciting new program they're spearheading this September (Lauren will be leading a Practicum on Literary Translation, Paige and Miranda on Creative-Critical Writing)—and what it means to combine theory and creative practice. The three talk about why literary work is not a solitary pursuit, and where, in the creative process, "theory" comes in. Also discussed: the task of the translator, and when, in the history of translation, its complexity began to be theorized; the reactionary ideal of the perfectly preservable past; the emergence and uses of autotheory; and how writers like Saidiya Hartman, Raquel Gutiérrez, Renee Gladman, and Nuar Alsadir (among others), model, in their works, the integration of theory and lived experience.

In this episode of the Podcast for Social Research Anna Kornbluh and Kate Wagner consider the aesthetics of contemporary American fascism in a conversation moderated by BISR's Audrey Nicolaides. The fascism of the moment merges violent delight in destruction with nouveau riche vulgarity, middle class mediocrity, and internet meme culture. Despite incessant callbacks to the 1930s and continued deployment of classic fascist themes, contemporary fascism distinguishes itself from its historical predecessors by its speed, virulence, sites of production, and mode of distribution: the big, beautiful slop machine, hyper-capitalized, decentralized, and algorithmically determined. How does the aesthetic regime of contemporary fascism function? How is it rewiring the libidinal economy of the present, and stacking the deck for capital? What's specific to fascism in the age of polycrisis? What does it mean now to resist by "politicizing aesthetics," as Walter Benjamin once enjoined us to?

You can download the episode by right-clicking here and selecting "save as." Or, look us up on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Gil Morejon from live audio recorded at Chicago's Twelve Ten Gallery.

If you like what you've heard, consider supporting the podcast by becoming a BISR member or subscribing to Brooklyn Institute's Patreon page, where you can enjoy access to all past and future episodes of the Podcast for Social Research.