The Subverse

In this episode, Susan speaks to Alexis Pauline Gumbs , a writer, independent scholar, poet, activist, and educator based in Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.  Her most recent book Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, 2020, part of adrienne maree brown's Emergent Strategy Series at AK Press, flows from her previous works in a poetic continuum, with water playing a...

In this episode, Susan Mathews speaks to Dr Kartik Shanker , who was inspired to begin a career in ecology by an ancient reptile, a sea turtle that crawled ashore late one night in Madras (now Chennai). As faculty at the Centre for Ecological Sciences , Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, his focus is the ecology and evolution of frogs, reptiles, birds, plants, and marine fauna. His gro...

Welcome to Stories from The Subverse, where we uncover hidden and marginalized stories through a more personal storytelling lens. In our first story we listen to Yuvan Aves —naturalist, educator, and writer who is certain to transport you, at least briefly, to Chennai's beaches. Painting a vivid portrait of what a meaningful education should be, Aves is convincing in his point of view of why it's...

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this six episode mini-series, we talk to six South Asian sci-fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of assault and the depiction of traumatic events. Listener discretion is advised. In this episode we are in conversation with Indra Das , author, crit...

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this six episode mini-series, we talk to six South Asian sci-fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. Content Warning : This episode contains discussions of abuse, and the depiction of traumatic events. Listener discretion is advised. Today, we talk to Kuzhali Manickavel,  author, editor and columnist....

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this six episode mini-series, we talk to six South Asian sci fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. Today, we're in conversation with SB Divya, author, editor and engineer  with an encyclopaedic knowledge of sci-fi and speculative fiction.  Divya's work is a fascinating mix of her professional and pe...

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this six episode mini-series, we talk to six South Asian sci fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. In this episode, we're talking to one of India's best known Sci-fi and fantasy authors, Samit Basu.  An incredibly versatile writer,  Samit's work has spanned mediums, with comic books,   film scripts...

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this six episode mini-series, we talk to six South Asian sci fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. In this episode, we speak to  Lavanya Lakshminarayan, award winning author and games designer. Her work is interesting, layered and tackles some really hard topics with ease.  We discuss the books that...

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this six episode mini-series, we talk to six South Asian sci fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. We begin the series with author, storyteller and Twitter sensation, Shiv Ramdas. Shiv's work explores serious and often historical themes in nuanced and deft ways. His debut work, India's first mainstr...

At Dark 'n' Light we're deeply interested in stories and the people behind them,  and our podcast The Subverse is a fortnightly journey into weird and wonderful conversations with creators and thinkers.  Our new six part mini-series Arcx is all about literary inspiration, tracing its roots from conception to execution. We aim to arrive at the root of that inspiration, and find the spark that ignit...

Susan Mathews interviews Catarina de Albuquerque , Chief Executive Officer of Sanitation and Water for All (SWA), a global partnership which has positioned SWA as a vital contributor to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6. In a wide-ranging conversation, they speak of what human rights as a discourse brings to water and sanitation, the realities on the ground, and the backdrop in whi...

From Asia's mountain core flows ten great rivers that run through 16 countries, serving a fifth of humanity. The struggle for water in modern history is a global story, but nowhere has the search for water shaped or sustained as much human life as in India and China. In this episode, Susan Mathews speaks to Sunil Amrith , historian and writer, about his book Unruly Waters: How Mountain Rivers and...

In this episode, Susan talks to Sharanya Manivannan , who writes and illustrates fiction, poetry, and non-fiction for children and adults.  Sharanya's two most recent books are the graphic novel, Incantations Over Water, and the picture book, Mermaids In The Moonlight. Sharanya grew up in Sri Lanka and Malaysia and currently lives in India. Ila is the mermaid protagonist in her two recent books, a...

In this episode, Susan Mathews talks to Nandini Oza about archiving oral histories around the struggles against dam projects in the Narmada River valley. The former President of Oral History Association of India (2020-22), Nandini is a researcher, writer, chronicler, and an archivist.  For over a decade, she was an activist with the powerful people's movement, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA). In...

In this episode, Susan talks about the molecule of life, the matrix of the world, the cosmic juice - water.  As Barbara Kingsolver writes, "It is the gold standard of biological currency." She says, "Water is life, it's the briny broth of our origins, the pounding circulatory system of the world, a precarious molecular edge on which we survive. It makes up two-thirds of our bodies, just like the m...

In this episode, Susan speaks with Kumi Naidoo , a seasoned activist in South Africa during its struggle against apartheid who is recognized internationally as a forceful advocate for human rights, gender equity, economic justice and environmental justice. He headed Civicus, Greenpeace and Amnesty International and continues to serve in an honorary capacity as Global Ambassador for the Pan-African...

In this episode of The Subverse, we talk about soundscape ecology, the study of sounds and bioacoustics, which is the study of species vocalisations.  Susan talks to Pooja Choksi , a PhD candidate at Columbia University and co-founder of Project Dhvani about her fascinating research on e cological restoration in the central Indian landscape , using acoustics as a tool.   Pooja's primary research f...

In this episode, Susan speaks with Jisha Menon whose book ' Brutal Beauty: Aesthetics and Aspiration in Urban India ' was recently published by Northwestern University Press in October 2021. Jisha is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies and, by courtesy, of Comparative Literature at Stanford University . With a focus on performance studies, this book turns to artworks, perform...

In this episode, Susan speaks to Uttara Narayan , who explores the governance of the clean energy transition at the World Resources Institute, Chennai, India. Her focus is on expanding the interpretation of a just energy transition to include broader consequences of exclusion and injustice and ways to minimize them in an equitable manner. Uttara's work involves the use of interdisciplinary approac...

We live in a time of extreme weather events and after a sobering sixth assessment report was recently published by the IPCC on the physical science basis of climate change, the question of what is going to fuel the future has never been more urgent. The evolution of energy has changed both human and natural history in significant ways and yet our future is not preordained and there is great potent...

To understand life, you must understand proteins, the workhorses of the human cell. What a protein does and how it does it, depends on how it folds up after its creation into its final intricate shape and function. In this episode, Susan talks to Sudha Neelam, a cell biologist who studies the mechanisms of protein synthesis; exploring how misfolded proteins cause diseases and how therapeutics can...

Poromboke is a medieval Tamil word that refers to communally held commons such as water bodies, grazing lands and community forests. These lands were carefully managed, yielded value to the community, and were subject to strict regulation. But over time, they began to be perceived as 'wastelands' and have been dismissed as worthless. In this episode, Susan speaks to Nityanand Jayaraman, a Chennai...

Ryan Christie is a holistic movement coach who loves helping people achieve goals that at one time seemed unattainable, making the impossible possible. Moving and coaching people from children as young as 6 to his more life-experienced clients of 70+ years of age, Ryan's focus with his coaching clients is to provide support with 'life' coaching, focusing on mindset and mental tools, enhancing emot...

Devaki Panini is an environmental lawyer with conservation on her mind. Her work has taken her across the world, and she has witnessed first-hand how human actions are altering ecosystems. And yet she feels that our conversations on conservation still circle around mega-fauna, and we forget that bees, ants and spiders are the critical species that prevent mass extinction. Devaki believes in the po...

The Subverse, presented by Dark 'n' Light is a podcast that uncovers the hidden and marginal in stories about nature, culture and social justice . From the cosmic to the quantum, from cells to cities and from colonial histories to reimagining futures . Join Susan Mathews every fortnight on a Thursday for weird and wonderful conversations, narrated essays and poems that dwell on the evolving contin...