Shows
The Hopeful ReaderIt's a feral critter summer: queer entanglements and response-able mindfulness In today’s episode the hopeful readers are on tour - well, at our local park - such that the two of us have become multiple in connection with nature (there’s some birdsong in the background lol). Whilst neoliberal capitalism has co-opted mindfulness in lieu of systemic change, we explore how the work of queer theorists and ecofeminists might enable us to re-orientate our approach to mindfulness, enabling us to realise our response-ability to the (natural, wild and feral) world that constitutes our very becoming.Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our...2025-05-2749 minThe Hopeful ReaderFangirling so hard rn: queering obsession & “parasocial relationships”Is fandom culture a way to politically and ethically refuse normative attachments - a way to opt out of the mainstream? In this episode we neuroqueer the idea of ‘obsession’ and discuss what ‘parasocial’ relationships even are at a time in which algorithms are always already dis/organising social life. Inspired by the Japanese novel Idol, Burning by Rin Usami and a recent Black Mirror episode, this one (predictably) gets a bit existential…Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader Hosted on Acast. See acast.c...2025-05-1335 minThe Hopeful ReaderWe are so back: szn 2, let's go!We are so back: szn 2, let's go! If you've been wondering what we've been up to, and what we've got planned for this season - this episode reveals all! We also talk about how the philosophical tradition of speculative pragmatism guides our hopeful thinking and reading. :)Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.2025-05-0620 minThe Hopeful ReaderCosy counterproductivity: a silly little episodeIn a society that ascribes inherent value to productivity, it’s easy to overlook the potentially harmful structures we are actually (re)producing through our labour. In this episode we explore the cult of productivity - life under capitalism - through a neuroqueer lens. We question how the individualistic nature of self-discipline that surrounds productivity interacts with acts of solidarity and mutual aid, and how we might build futures that are more welcoming of queer community building. You can also look forward to some hot takes on mindfulness and slow living, as well as some very un/serious yapping to...2024-12-2344 minThe Hopeful ReaderPoetry is cool!Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.2024-12-0928 minThe Hopeful ReaderHear me out: Joker 2...Leaning into our film bro personas, in this episode we use the latest Joker movie to explore how dissociation - the cultivation of numbness, or splitting of subjectivity - might be considered a subtle form of resistance whilst inhabiting hostile environments. Is our refusal to be affected by oppressive structures a revolutionary act of self-preservation? Or does cultivated numbness prevent us from mobilising towards radical change? Ultimately…why is everyone hating on the new Joker film? References: Aitken, S. in Anderson et al. (2022) Encountering Berlant part one: Concepts otherwise. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12494...2024-11-2528 minThe Hopeful ReaderBecoming beautiful, onlineIn the age of the algorithm, social media platforms and machine learning technologies are now defining, and perpetually updating, aesthetic ideals and beauty standards. In this episode, we discuss how beauty culture is entangled with the digital technologies that have become so pervasive in everyday life. How does ‘algorithmic oppression’ play into the creation and maintenance of beauty standards, and how does it feel to exist as cyborg, changeling bodies within all of this? Inspired by various works of fiction and drawing upon critical theory, we explore how we might hack and resist the affordances of these technologies through embod...2024-11-1139 minThe Hopeful ReaderHappy Hopeween, little monsters (a monster mash up)Happy Halloween, hopeful readers! In this episode, we bring all the spooky vibes with a little monster mash up…From Frankenstein and witches to a jellyfish communist revolution, we explore what the figure of the ‘monster’ tells us about the exclusionary, anthropocentric category of the human, as well as how the affective circulation of fear works to maintain hierarchical boundaries and binaries. Can we be hopeful little monsters in a world that sometimes feels monstrous? References: Ahmed, S. (2014) The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Chollet...2024-10-3129 minThe Hopeful ReaderHelp! I don’t want to write: expanding the ‘I’ in personal narrativeCan writing - the fixing and rendering static of our experiences - ever be queer? I mean, sure...but why is (queer) writer’s block still so all consuming? In this episode we dip our toes into queer theory’s subjectivity debate before discussing how we might expand the ‘I’ in personal narrative in ways that problematise normative modes of writing about our ‘own’ experiences. Inspired by feminist new materialism and Deleuzian assemblage theory, this episode grapples with the possibility (or, perhaps, necessity) of queer writing as resistance. References: Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the uni...2024-10-1433 minThe Hopeful ReaderWe're back, hope you missed us!The Hopeful Reader returns after a little summer hiatus! In this episode, we reflect on the place of ‘hope’ in the current socio-political epoch; drawing upon John Holloway’s ‘Hope in Hopeless Times’, we explore how relational forms of rage-hope might mobilise queer revolutionary politics…Why do we call ourselves ‘hopeful’ readers in supposedly ‘hopeless times’? If that all sounds like a lot, you can also look forward to some hot takes on worm communes, the latest J Wils novel and a whole host of other antics…References: Berlant, L. (2022) On the Inconvenience of Other People. Durham...2024-09-3029 minThe Hopeful ReaderEpisode 6: Affect and the CityEpisode 6 : Affect and the city In this episode we explore how space can be queered through fiction; through continuously recreating the affective dimensions of queer space, can fiction problematise the attempted containment, erasure or supposedly ‘temporary’ nature of queerness in public spaces? Inspired by works such as Call Me by Your Name, Young Mungo and Nevada, this episode considers the centrality of memories and past affective resonances to the materiality of space, as well as how existing in an affective bind between the anticipation of an ending and the promise of a (spatial) ‘otherwise’ shapes the rhythms a...2024-07-2536 minThe Hopeful ReaderEpisode 5: Cyborg PromisesCyborg promises The possible pathways of the present digitally mediated moment are now shaped by the algorithms that govern our everyday lives - algorithms that are often imbued with oppressive technocapitalist values. If we are to broaden the potentiality of the present in radically transformative ways, do we need to relinquish digital tech entirely? Maybe…and yet, this is seemingly impossible in our cyborgian existence. In this episode we explore the promises that keep us attached to digital devices. Inspired by Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Ghost in the Machine’, we discuss how ‘hyper-relevant’ personalised online worlds enabled by intense su...2024-07-0838 minThe Hopeful ReaderEpisode 4: "I'm training for a feeling that I don’t have yet”This episode is inspired by the novel, Almond by Won-Pyung Sohn (2020) - the protagonist’s experience of alexithymia enables us to see the world at a slant, disrupting normative affective genres in ways that open up the possibility of new forms of relationality…but at what cost? Using this book as a guide, we delve into Lauren Berlant’s idea of ‘cruel optimism’ to explore how hoping for an otherwise might keep us held in situations that are both life-threatening and life sustaining.References:Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham: Duke University Press....2024-06-2444 minThe Hopeful ReaderEpisode 3: Past lives, perfect days?Past lives, perfect days? We heard you like film bros...Sometimes, we might feel unbearably caught between the regret of a seemingly lost past and the future we (think we should) strive for - in this episode we reframe this space as 'the elliptical present', a place of possibility, somewhere to playfully experiment with alternative ways of life. "Now is now, next time is next time" - inspired by the movies 'Past Lives' and 'Perfect Days', we reflect upon how we might keep on living in this elliptical 'now' amidst the oppressive structures that organise our...2024-06-1029 minThe Hopeful ReaderEpisode 2: Queer ghosts, hopeful presencesWaluigi boards, Virginia's Wolf and fields of corn...The erasure of queer lives in dominant written history works to streamline the potentiality of the present moment, in turn, straightening the possible futures we might imagine. And so, in queering linear temporality, we explore how works of fiction can enable queer ghosts - those erased histories - to broaden the imaginative possibilities of the present-futurity. In this episode we head back to Virginia Woolf's London in the 1920s and perambulate Mark Hyatt's soho in the 60s in search of queer ghosts, reading as a way to commune with those who...2024-05-2729 min
The Hopeful ReaderIntro ep: being here (& queer) nowWelcome to The Hopeful Reader Podcast! In this introductory episode Eve and Finola discuss how works of fiction can act as a source of creative moral and political vision - a portal to another world. The Hopeful Reader views fiction as a way to create and inhabit alternative world imaginaries from within the confines of normativity. This episode delves into the importance of imagination as well as thinking about fiction as a method of ‘slow refusal’. References: Anderson, B. (2006) ‘Becoming and being hopeful: towards a theory of affect’ Society and Space. 24(5)Berlant, L...2024-05-1329 min