UnLivable Cultures

How can psychoanalysis support the flourishing of queer and trans life in light of the discipline’s contested history and present? Why is it preferable to understand gender as a process of becoming instead of something that is a preprogrammed part of the self? In this interview from July 2024, Clayton speaks with Dr. Ann Pellegrini and Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou about their book Gender Without Identity...

This episode got a little spicy, and is a must listen for anyone who cares about climate change, geoengineering, or collaboration between natural and social scientists. If you are confused, check out Cody's piece on geoengineering governance: https://blog.castac.org/2024/09/geoengineering-de-facto-environmental-governance-and-alternative-future-making/ References: Frank Biermann et al., “Solar...

In this episode, Cody talks with Anton Keskinen (Head of Strategy at Operaatio Arktis, and part time Rebel with Extinction Rebellion in Helsinki) and Clara Botto (Director of Youth Engagement Director of Youth Outreach for The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, UNFCC Fellow, Advisory Board Member, Centre for Climate Repair and American Geophysical Union, among other things) ab...

Human remains scattered on the moon, pollution in the night sky, colonizing outer space—that’s capitalism, baby! In this episode, Clayton, Julia, and Cody discuss the idea of a “lunar anthropocene” and how settler colonialism shapes space exploration.   Sources The case for a lunar anthropocene by Justin Allen Holcomb, Rolfe David Mandel & Karl William Wegmann  Works of Zoe Todd Staying with t...

Curious about Taylor Swift's Carbon offsets? Well wonder no more. Oxford researcher talks to Cody and Clayton about carbon offsets, Taylor Swift, and what a functioning carbon market could do amidst their mostly catastrophic outcomes.

In this conversation, Clayton is joined by Dr. Mimi Khúc and Dr. Margaret Price to discuss their new books dear elia : Letters from the Asian American Abyss and Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life, both from Duke University Press. The three have a wide-ranging conversation about capitalist mandates for wellness, appropriations of accessibility and cultures of care...

Interview Transcript Link In this episode, Clayton is joined by members of the Access in the Making (AIM) Lab at Concordia University, Prakash Krishnan, Emery Vanderburgh, and Nicholas Goberdhan to discuss the work of the AIM Lab. The AIM Lab is an anti-colonial, anti-ableist, feminist research lab working on issues of access, disability, environment and care through creative experimentation. We t...

The It's Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby exhibit for the Brooklyn Museum of Art drew crowds and critiques. The multitude of harsh reviews suggest Gadsby should have stayed in their lane of comedy and stand up. But what does such criticism reveal about the art world itself? Sources It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby by Brooklyn Museum Trailer | It's Pablo-m...

How is suicide an issue of justice? How should our care for people experiencing suicidality  connect with the Land and Water in which people live? What does it mean to care for the life of Land and Water as well as the lives of people? Special guest Dr. Jeffrey Ansloos joins us for a conversation about how colonialism features in the creation of unlivable conditions, threatening the well-being of...

It’s obvious that some lives are valued over others, and some commodities are valued more than life. How have these determinations been made? In this episode, we talk about how medical care prioritizes some patients over others—even to the extent of taking some people’s personal ventilators to give to others who were considered to have a greater life expectancy or quality of life—how supply chain...

This is a big election year in the US, and legislative sessions across the country are beginning. It’s important to understand how we got here and recognize the patterns of anti-LGBTQ legislators and decision-makers to be strategic in our fight for livable worlds. Since 2022, we have recorded multiple episodes to discuss LGBTQ+ issues in America, but we kept running into a problem: By the time the...

It’s time for Season 2! We’ve been hard at work preparing our lineup of episodes for Season 2, and it’s finally time to go live! Thanks for joining us on this little journey. We hope you enjoy! Two quick notes: We won’t be following our previous schedule of releasing episodes every other Wednesday. We have a YouTube channel! We’re currently uploading Season 1 to YouTube. If you like Un/Livable Cul...

With the growing conversations on student debt, the value of higher education, and the need for livable wages, Dr. Elizabeth K. Briody joins Un/Livable Cultures to talk about the need for Anthropology and other social sciences to train students for the world outside of academia. Anthropology needs theory, method, and practice in order to be relevant. And as a discipline, anthropology needs to thin...

Season 6 of Netflix’s Black Mirror is out, and we reflect on the first three episodes of the new season— from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes to the true crime “obsession” to companies “winking” at social justice. But imagining futures is not a neutral enterprise. Does Black Mirror contribute to the colonizing of the future through Western domination? Sources: Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of...

*Content Warning: This episode mentions sensitive topics like suicide, psychological distress, hospitalization, and police violence. If you like Un/Livable Cultures , share with your friends, consider supporting the podcast on Patreon , or leaving us a review! And follow our Twitter @UnlivablePod for updates. Sources Suicide hotline shares data with for-profit spinoff, raising ethical questions AL...

Unlike any other AP course, AP African American Studies is the most complex course the College Board has produced. And it has also faced an unsurprising barrage of attacks unlike any other AP course. Why is there such a fear of Black Studies? Why do Texas textbooks now refer to enslaved folks as “laborers''? In this episode, Dr. Nishani Frazier discusses the value of Black Studies and how...

If Arthur’s Stone is an important British historical site yet we know very little of its history, why is it only now being excavated for the first time? Could it be that archaeologists knew the damage of excavating spiritually, politically, and/or historically significant sites in other cultures, so they didn’t want to do that at home? This episode deals with some of the politics of archaeology as...

“Museums are a gateway drug” - Cody Museums are typically a place of history, but museums have their own histories, which are also tied to cultural histories of imperialism, colonialism, capitalist exploitation, and white supremacy. How should museums care for our past, present, and futures?  We talk about The Met, Cultural Resource Management archaeology and construction, and The Witness Blanket...

Citation is reciprocity. Citation is legitimacy. And citations are the bricks that form the walls of academia. In conversation with special guest Dr. Jessica Falcone and drawing from the incisive critiques of Sara Ahmed, we discuss how writing culture in academia (specifically in the social sciences) encourages white, patriarchal practices and relations—citing white men. How can we be more reflexi...

We’re talking about Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” Netflix’s Stranger Things, and queer theorist Jack Halberstam’s concept of “the wild” and monstrosity. What more is there to say? Sources Testo Junkie Paul Preciado  Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory Deborah M. Withers Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire Jack Halberstam What is Gothic Marxism? A Conversation with The LitCrit Guy Acid Horizon...

The recent waves of unionizing in the US ranging from Amazon to Starbucks have garnered national attention. Not to mention the eye roll that is Elon Musk and his notorious Twitter takeover. Clayton, Julia, and Cody talk about the history of labor movements in the US, the union-busting tactics of corporations, and how the current workforce scene translates into everyday life. Consider supporting th...

De/Instutionalize is a new series from Un/Livable Cultures that focuses on the un/livability of academia and the ways in which academic institutions participate in regimes of oppression and subjugation. This first episode of the De/Institutionalize series covers the elitism of knowledge, the profitability of academic publishing conglomerates, and the struggle for open-access scholarship. The avera...

In today’s episode, resident archaeologist Julia teaches their co-hosts Clayon and Cody about the dark side of archaeology conspiracy theories, such as those forwarded by Graham Hancock’s popular Netflix Series, Ancient Apocalypse (Ancient Aliens connoisseurs beware—it may be next). In deconstructing Hancock’s language, “evidence”, and rhetorical flourishes, the hosts build on other scholars who h...

In today’s episode, Cody, Julia, and Clayton discuss the outcomes, manipulations, failures, and long-term impacts of COP27 and COP15, along with a multitude of topics surrounding the issue of climate change and environmentalism . They bring in the philosophy of French theorist Bruno Latour and others he has inspired, dissect that moment of dissent from the Democratic Republic of Congo at COP15, ta...

“I definitely write fan fiction of us three. … We break into an Anthropologie … take off the ‘ie’ and replace it with a ‘y’.” -Clayton In this introduction episode, Julia, Clayton, and Cody provide a breakdown of the trailer, explain their backgrounds, tell some jokes, and share their motivations behind the podcast. You can find our website at www.unlivablecultures.wordpress.com and our patreon at...