Sylly

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst . In episode 14, we’re coming to you with our annual summer reading special. Before we get to the books, we take stock of summer as a season and a feeling: the joy, the pressure, the ennui, and why August is, as Tembe puts it, “the Sunday of the year.” We also get into the song of...

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst . In episode 13, we’re making the case for contemporary fiction and engaging with the present. Our culture is obsessed with nostalgia, and it often feels like we’re stuck in a loop of reboots and sequels. In the literary world, that nostalgia manifests in a reflexive distrust of co...

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst . In episode 12, we’re taking stock of 2026 so far, and it’s been a disrespectful ass year, to say the least. Jerome Powell revised jobs numbers and told us what we already knew: there are no jobs . White ladies are playing majhong (again) and celebrating the Lunar New Year . Watch...

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst . In today's episode, we're reflecting on 2025 and giving winter reading recommendations. Thank you for listening. Stay tuned for more in 2026! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst . In episode 11, we’re discussing the transactional nature of modern dating. We’ve noticed a trend of women online who post content about finding rich men to date and marry, alongside conversations about how couples split their finances, and we wanted to explore the macro trends th...

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst . In episode ten, we’re diving deep into our favorite contemporary fiction read of 2025 so far: Dominion. In this spoiler-filled episode, we delve into the book’s intricate characterizations, thematic complexity, and how it offers a rich commentary on patriarchy and gender roles wi...

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst . In episode nine, we’re throwing it back to the very first podcast we ever recorded together. I (Mbiye) interviewed Tembe for my book podcast Unbound last summer. We dove deep into Tembe’s debut novel, Homebodies, her early reading habits, and her writing practice. As always, if t...

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst. In episode eight, we each share three book recommendations perfect for summer reading in August, emphasizing literature that explores deep relationships, identity, and personal transformation. As always, if there’s anything you want us to talk about on the pod during our office ho...

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst. This week we’re talking about legibility from a different perspective, thinking through how it protects us. We do this by examining the work of two artists: Simone Leigh and Amy Sherald, thinking of what they’re work is saying and how it impact us. It’s worth mentioning that Amy S...

Welcome back to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst. This week we’re thinking about legibility and what it costs us, as human beings and more specifically, as Black women. To investigate we dove into two primary texts. Tembe brought Sula to the table (again), and Mbiye analyzed a TikTok by kadencecentana , which asks the question—is...

Welcome to Sylly, a podcast for the curious and critical. We’re your hosts, Mbiye Kasonga and Tembe Denton-Hurst. This week, we talked about community. more specifically, we spent some time with Mbiye’s primary text, What is Community Anyway, an article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. In a world where community is diluted by the internet and weaponized by brands to get us to buy stuff,...

Thank you for listening to Sylly! Keep up with us on Substack . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.