Wed, 24 July 2024
Podcast for Social Research, Episode 80: On Realism, World-Building, Violence, and Desire—Joseph Earl Thomas, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Vinson Cunningham, and Paige Sweet in Conversation
What does literary realism look like in the 21st century—and what can it do? In episode 80 of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live at Liz’s Book Bar in Brooklyn, BISR faculty Paige Sweet sat down with fellow faculty and debut novelist Joseph Earl Thomas plus special guests, writers Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Vinson Cunningham, to talk about what it means, what it takes, and what it feels like to represent social reality in contemporary fiction. In novels that test the boundaries of realism, traditionally conceived—borrowing techniques from autofiction, speculative fiction, dystopia, satire, and academic non-fiction—Thomas (God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer), Adjei-Brenyah (Chain-Gang All-Stars), and Cunningham (Great Expectations) get beneath the detailed depiction of everyday life to discuss, among other things, the world-building that happens in every act of writing; how fiction can serve as a testing ground for theoretical commitments; the carceral nature of our social institutions and their ripple effects through our intimate lives; the violence that goes on under the guise of pleasure; and how to feel and depict life as precious in even the most devastating and dehumanizing conditions. Persons and things touched upon include: the US Constitution, bell hooks, Gayatri Spivak, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Henry James, Solmaz Sharif, Saidiya Hartman, Goodreads, love, looking, “boundaries,” and beauty. This episode was produced by Ryan Lentini.
Direct download: JosephEarlThomas_07.18.24_MusicAdded_BISR.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:43pm EST |
Fri, 12 July 2024
In episode nine of Faculty Spotlight, hosts Lauren K. Wolfe and Mark DeLucas sit down with Jenny Logan, Associate faculty (legal studies) and plaintiff's attorney, at the District Court level, in the case of Johnson v. Grant's Pass, on which the Supreme Court recently ruled. Speaking from London, Jenny discusses the origins of the case—in which a class of unhoused people sued the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, for imposing criminal penalties on people sleeping in public parks—and explains the reasoning behind the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling upholding the constitutionality of Grants Pass's anti-homeless statutes. What were the stakes of Johnson v. Grant's Pass; and why, as critics argue, does the Court's ruling effectively enable the criminalization of homelessness? Why have cities responded to homelessness with largely punitive measures? And how can the case of Grant's Pass, whose only shelter is a religious mission, be situated within the wider history of the evangelical-neoliberal alliance to undermine the New Deal social contract and welfare state? What is the future of "poverty governance" in the United States? |