Queer Lit

• "Black Trans Feminism" with Marquis Bey

  Do we perhaps deserve the impossible? This is only one of the many beautiful questions Marquis Bey asks in this poem of an episode. Marquis is an exquisite thinker who joins me to speak about the incredible book Black Trans Feminism and share thoughts about why such a feminism is for everyone. Marquis speaks about how literature allows us to imagine new possibilities to exist in the world and see how everything is entangled with everything else. Join me to learn from Marquis, to think about abolition, coalition, fugitivity and traniflesh, and to imagine what the world could be beyond the realistic and the possible.  References:https://www.marquisbey.com/Marquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism (Duke UP, 2022)Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure (Duke UP, 2022)Marquis Bey’s The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Gender (University of Minnesota Press, 2020)Marquis Bey’s “RE: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender.” Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences (2022)Saidiya HartmanAlexis Pauline Gumbs’ M Archive and UndrownedLauryn HillDenise Ferreira da SilvaToni MorrisonN.K. JemisinOctavia ButlerRivers SolomonAndrew CutroneSarah Jane CervenakFred MotenRoxane GayStefano HarneyJack HalberstamTina CamptRalph EllisonTranifleshEmma HeaneyHortense Spillers’ “Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe”K. Marshall GreenTreva EllisonTranifest Spillers, Hortense, et al. "" Whatcha gonna do?": Revisiting ‘Mama's baby, papa's maybe:’ An American grammar book": A conversation with Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Shelly Eversley, & Jennifer L. Morgan." Women's Studies Quarterly 35.1/2 (2007): 299-309.Abraham Weil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_Hm6weProCiara CreminTransgender Theory (Bloomsbury)https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/transgender-theory/A Nonbinary Life (forthcoming) Asterisk (Duke UP) https://www.dukeupress.edu/series/asterisk-gender-trans-and-all-that-comes-afterJian Neo ChenSusan StrykerEliza SteinbockC. Riley Snorton’s Black On Both SidesJess Goldberg’s Abolition TimeFrieren  Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:     What is Black Trans Feminism? Why is it for everyone?     How can identities provide comfort and safety and why is that not always useful?     What are the terms Marquis thinks about in relation to allyship?     How does Marquis define traniflesh?     Which thinkers inform Marquis’ thinking about fugitivity and what is the central metaphor Marquis introduces here?     What might be challenging about thinking Black Trans Feminism in the way Marquis proposes it?     How do you feel about the impossible and the unrealistic?

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• “Autotheories” with Alex Brostoff

  You’ve read Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts but have you heard of the scholar who puts the auto in theories? Meet Alex Brostoff, my new favourite autotheorist. Alex is here to clear up common misconceptions about autotheories and tell us more about biomythography, teoría de la noche, and reading beside. I was also intrigued to learn about intertextual kinship and hear Alex’s (beautifully phrased) thoughts on co-writing and co-translating. References:Alex Brostoff and Lauren Fournier (eds) Autotheory (special issue of ASAP/Journal, 2021)Alex Brostoff and Vilashini Cooppan (eds) Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025)Alex Brostoff’s Unruly Relations: A Critical Reframing of Autotheory (Columbia University Press, forthcoming)Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Trans Literature (special issue of College Literature, 2025)Alex Brostoff and rl Goldberg (eds) Reassignments: Trans and Sex from the Clinical to the Critical (Fordham University Press, forthcoming)Stryker, Susan. "Transgender studies: Queer theory's evil twin." GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies 10.2 (2004): 212-215.Intertextual kinship in Brostoff’s “An Autotheory of Intertextual Kinship: Ambivalent Bodies in the Work of Maggie Nelson and Paul Preciado.” Special issue, “Dissident Self-Narratives: Radical and Queer Life Writing,” ed. Aude Haffen. Synthesis: An Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies 14 (2021): 91-115.Kai Minosh Pyle trans*temporal kinshipMaggie Nelson’s The ArgonautsRoland BarthesPaul Preciado’s Testo JunkieOn the Eve of This DeathFreccero, Carla. "The ‘Auto’ of Theory." in Autotheories (MIT Press, 2025) FoucaultDerridaGloria AnzaldúaThis Bridge Called My Back Borderlands/La FronteraTheory in the flesh Autohistoria-teoríaAudre Lorde’s ZamiBiomythographyMaría Moreno’s teoría de la noche (theory of the night)Sedgwick’s reading besideLauren Berlant and Kathleen Steward’s The HundredsHeather LoveJohn MoneyRichard GreenJudith Butler’s Who’s Afraid of GenderCameron Awkward-RichStephanie BurtLiz RoseNat RivkinJordy RosenbergTrish Salahtorrin a. greathouseCole RizkiTSQ@alextakesfotos (on Instagram)@AlexBrostoff (on X)@alexbrostoff.bsky.social (on Bluesky)TravestiAmara Moira, “Loose Tongues,” a selection from Neca (2021), translated by Jesse Rothbard and edited by Cole Rizki, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (forthcoming, 2025).Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:What is autotheory and why might Alex prefer the plural autotheories?What are some related concepts or theories?Which thinkers do we commonly associate with autotheories?Name at least two texts that Alex posits as central to autotheories.Alex speaks a lot about co-writing. Have you ever experienced “being deep in the trenches of someone else’s sentences”? How do you co-write?

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  46:39
• "Cyrano" with Virginia Gay

  Are you in the mood for queer joy and lots of panache? Come, come, listen to this episode about Virginia Gay’s Cyrano, an excitingly fun, gender-twisting play that you will love to the moon and back. Virginia talks about why this play resonates so much for queer people, how James McAvoy made her want to write it, and why theatre should always be hot, weird, funny and no more than a 90-minute experience.To keep up-to-date with this beautiful production, follow @cyranolive and @thatsmsgaytoyou on Instagram. @queerlitpodcast is there too.  References:Cyrano de BergeracFried Green TomatoesPark Theatre London @parktheatrelondonJames McAvoyJamie LloydSteve MartinRoxanne (1987)Daryl HannahL’esprit de l’escalierJessica WhitehurstJoseph EvansThe HandmaidenSarah Waters’ FingersmithRoxane GayVirginia Gay’s Cyrano (Spotify) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Uayz56Nzmdekj1rry7rIP   Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:     Virginia’s Cyrano is what one might call a gender-swap moment. Can you think of other plays, rewrites, or adaptions that alter the story by changing the protagonist’s gender?     We use three different pronouns for Cyrano in the episode. Which one is your favourite and why?     Virginia speaks about several moments of metatheatre. Can you look up what metatheatre means and name one example?     What does ‘l’esprit de l’escalier’ mean and how does it relate to writing?     Virginia speaks about the complicity of the audience in problematic stories. Have you ever wanted to apologise to a character?     What playlist (or play) gives you queer joy?

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• Festive Special Part 2

  In part two of our festive end-of-year special, you will hear about queer families and mourning, gay novels and book festivals, cargo pants and Vaseline, and lesbians and travel. What’s the queerest thing you did in 2024? And how will you power bottom that in 2025?  References:Karen Tongson’s Norm PornAmber Jamilla MusserFeminist Keywords podcastAlexis Pauline Gumbs’ Survival is a Promise and UndrownedMabel MundyKerstin-Anja MuenderleinJack Strange’s Look Up, HandsomeGay on WyeOut and WildPigeon BooksLondon LGBTQ CentreBluestockingsLiz’s Book BarSweet Pickle BooksThe Ripped BodiceGay’s The WordHappiest Season  Victor Garber

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• Festive Special Part 1

  In part one of our festive end-of-year special, you will hear about queer weddings and Madonna, intersex dinosaurs and PhDs, crafting and queer culture, and how all lesbians do kind of know each other. What’s the queerest thing you did in 2024? And how will you top that in 2025?  References:Hollis GriffinLibro.FmAshley Herring Blake’s Make the Season BrightBridgertonMaterial GirlsHannah McGregor’s Podcast or Perish and Clever GirlJurassic ParkTheoryishHannah AyresPaola Medina-GonzalezToshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets ColdMo MoultonSo Mayer’s Truth & Darelistenqueer.co.ukBlossom LGBTQThe Female GlazeKit SchusterMartha Wells’ The Murderbot DiariesMarquis Bey’s Black Trans Feminism

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