Shows
The Deep Duck Dive PodcastSurfing about Comix Art with Andy MasonIn this episode, Glen interviews Andy Mason, comix artist, author of What's So Funny: Under the Skin of South African Cartooning (Double Storey, 2010) and surfer about his latest underground comix, Apocalypse WOW! Revisited (2025). There are several authorial identities that shadow Andy, and you may also know him as N.D. Mazin or Pooh! And Poynton Shute, as you will hear in this episode, is attempting unravel the question: Who is the real Author? While Glen seems to be on a quest to untangle the narrative web spun from Apocalypse WOW! Revisited in revealing utopian impulses. This episode opens up a means to how the South may be represented in the study of comic art. Complicating the aud...
2025-11-221h 32The Deep Duck Dive PodcastEvery Cape Town surfer has feels about MuizenbergLove it, hate it, ambivalent, only when desperate, all-time favourite - every Cape Town surfer has an opinion on Muizenberg!In a bit of a break from our planned episodes, we're starting what will (hopefully) be a mini-series chatting to local surfers about Muizenberg - their history and experiences at the beach, and their thoughts, feels and opinions about it, personally or in the context of surfing more broadly - in South Africa or globally.To kick things off, in this episode, Karen and Glen chat about their own histories and experiences of surfing at...
2025-06-1252 min
Bouncing Back: The Personal Resilience Science Insights PodcastDr. Karen Graaff: Riding Waves of Social Change | Bouncing Back #77Societal evolution is ever-changing and it can be trying to keep up with the times. So, this week on Bouncing Back: The Personal Resilience Science Insights Podcast, host Marie Stella is joined by women and gender studies researcher Dr. Karen Graaff to learn more about how riding the waves of social change can contribute to our personal resilience — and vice versa.
Based at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, Dr. Karen Graaff is a research associate in the Women's and Gender Studies department. Most recently, her research has examined surfing as a tool for so...
2025-04-2556 minBouncing Back: The Personal Resilience Science Insights PodcastDr. Karen Graaff: Riding Waves of Social Change | Bouncing Back #77Societal evolution is ever-changing and it can be trying to keep up with the times. So, this week on Bouncing Back: The Personal Resilience Science Insights Podcast, host Marie Stella is joined by women and gender studies researcher Dr. Karen Graaff to learn more about how riding the waves of social change can contribute to our personal resilience — and vice versa.
Based at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, Dr. Karen Graaff is a research associate in the Women's and Gender Studies department. Most recently, her research has examined surfing as a tool for so...
2025-04-2556 minThe Deep Duck Dive PodcastQueering surf spacesIn this episode, we discuss the development of the current heteronormative culture in mainstream surfing, tracking its historical connection to colonialism, Christianity, and capitalism, and how that's resulted in a space that's often very unwelcoming for anyone who isn't cisgendered and heterosexual. We then look at how queer surf groups have developed their own safe spaces, as well as how most mainstream surf organisations have failed dismally to do this. Case in point: we end with a short note on the WSL's controversial decision to include Abu Dhabi as a stop on the Championship Tour in 2025, and what it...
2024-11-2555 minThe Deep Duck Dive PodcastHistory of Surfing in Africa Part 2: The Modern EraIn this episode we continue our deep duck dive into the history of surfing in Africa as part of wider scholarly work within critical surf studies and the blue humanities. This episode is Part 2 of a two part series on the topic. Part 2 focuses on surfing in Africa during the modern era, from c. early 1900s to the present.If you have not listened to Part 1, which covers surfing in during the colonial period, we recommend to you check out the episode [ADD link] before joining us for Part 2.We cover a lot of coastline...
2024-11-1148 minThe Deep Duck Dive PodcastHistory of Surfing in Africa Part 1: The Colonial ArchiveIn this episode we dive into the history of surfing in Africa as part of wider scholarly work within critical surf studies and the blue humanities. This episode is Part 1 of a two part series on the topic.We focus primarily on the history of surfing in West Africa, which has colonial records of African aquatic activities. This history draws on the historical work of Kevin Dawson which explores, and reclaims, West African aquatic practices. We also speculate on what other historical sources scholars could look to when opening up the archives to find evidence for surfing...
2024-10-2850 minThe Deep Duck Dive PodcastThe Waves Don't DiscriminateIn this episode, we discuss the issue of fairness in sport, and how a term that sounds neutral is in fact heavily politicised. We start with the definition of fairness in sport generally, and how many factors it does not include, particularly in terms of access. We then turn to discussing fairness in surfing in particular, and how loaded the term is, given that surfing is a subjectively judged sport, and that the playing field is anything but controlled (a key feature of fairness in other sports). The episode ends with Karen going on a rant about the ridiculousness...
2024-10-1450 minThe Deep Duck Dive PodcastSurfing history - Why History MattersIn this episode we discuss why history matters, who makes surfing history, in what forms surf history is produced (from the surf media and surf films to surf museums), and the uses of surfing history. We discuss Kevin Dawson's Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and how Dawson adds to the historiography of Atlanic Africans, the West African slave trade and the African diasporia in the Americas, and African agency through aquatic practices such as swiming and surfing. We close off the episode by providing our take on why unsettling surf history i...
2024-09-3045 minThe Deep Duck Dive PodcastPilot: Introduction to The Deep Duck Dive PodcastIn this introductory episode of the The Deep Duck Dive Podcast, we introduce you to the podcast and ourselves as academics living and surfing in the global South (South Africa). The podcast seeks to engage with the oceanic turn in the global South by focusing on issues that matter within surfing as a lifestyle sport. As co-hosts, we have approached podcasting as forms of public pedagogy and public scholarship.To read more about our approach to this podcast as a soundwork that provides an alternative pedagogical practice within a justice-to-come public scholarship that seeks to contribute to...
2024-09-3010 min