Imagine Otherwise by Ideas on Fire
by Cathy Hannabach
A podcast about bridging art, activism, and academia to build more just futures. On each episode, host Cathy Hannabach interviews the scholars, dancers, authors, artists, and filmmakers imagining collective freedom and creating it through culture.
Episodes
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Raven Maragh-Lloyd on Black Networked Resistance
How can communities creatively adapt and reshape online practices to forge resilient digital publics? In episode 162 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews media studies scholar Raven Maragh-Lloyd about the historical contours of Black digital resistance. The Ideas on Fire team was...
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Natalie Zervou on Dance in the Age of Austerity
The relationship between dance and politics has long been a complex one. In moments of national and international crisis, artists are often at the center of resistance movements, and the embodied knowledges honed by dancers, choreographers, and performers can become key survival techniques for...
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Amber Rose González, Felicia Montes, and Nadia Zepeda on Mujeres de Maiz
In episode 160 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Amber Rose González, Felicia Montes, and Nadia Zepeda—three legendary feminist artists, activists, and scholars from the genre-defying, transnational feminist of color collective Mujeres de Maiz. Amber, Felicia, and Nadia are…
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Erin McElroy on Silicon Valley Imperialism
How has the Silicon Valley form of technocapitalism shaped geographies around the world? In episode 159 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Ideas on Fire author, University of Washington geography professor, and housing justice activist Erin McElroy about the global reach of...
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Juan Llamas-Rodriguez on the Visual Politics of Border Tunnels
How do media representations of US–Mexico border tunnels shape immigration discourse, public policy, and anti-immigrant violence? To help us think through how these tunnels are represented and often overrepresented in US media, in episode 158 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews...
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Tamara Kneese on Death in the Digital Platform Age
In episode 157 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews media scholar and Ideas on Fire author Tamara Kneese about the complex relationship between Big Tech and mortality, specifically how digital media platforms mediate our experiences of death. Tamara is a senior researcher and...
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Nicosia Shakes on Black Women's Activist Theater
In episode 156 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews scholar and artist Nicosia Shakes, whose creative and scholarly work celebrates the intertwining of political activism and performance across the African diaspora. Nicosia's play Afiba and Her Daughters, which offers an...
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Meryl Alper on Autistic Kids' Digital Media
In episode 155 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews disability media studies scholar Meryl Alper. Meryl is the author of 3 books about how kids with disabilities use digital technologies, including her most recent book, Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the...
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Kristie Soares on Joy in Latinx Media
In episode 154 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews performance artist and gender studies scholar Kristie Soares about the political power of pleasure, laughter, and joy in Latinx media. Kristie's new book Playful Protest: The Political Work of Joy in Latin Media has chapters…
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Cynthia Franklin on Narrative and Activist Politics
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews literature professor Cynthia Franklin about the politics of life writing. Cynthia's new book Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea traces the complex ways activists, artists, cultural producers, and scholars engage…
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Magdalena Barrera and Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales on The Latinx Guide to Graduate School
In episode 152 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews education scholars and leaders Magdalena L. Barrera and Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales about their new book The Latinx Guide to Graduate School. Magdalena and Genevieve teamed up to write this guide after many years of advising…
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Katie Walkiewicz on Indigenous and Black Freedom
In episode 151 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Indigenous studies and literature professor Katie Walkiewicz about states' rights and the role this concept has played in US settler colonialism, enslavement, and dispossession as well as in radical projects seeking to create...
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Jasmine Nichole Cobb on Haptic Blackness
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews Black visual studies scholar Jasmine Nichole Cobb about haptic blackness and the cultural politics of Black hair in US visual culture. Jasmine is a professor of African and African American studies and of art, art history, and visual studies at Duke University. Her...
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Mairead Sullivan on Lesbian Feminist World-building
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews women's and gender studies professor Mairead Sullivan about the histories and futures of lesbian feminism. Mairead is the author of the new book Lesbian Death: Desire and Danger between Feminist and Queer, which offers a love letter to lesbian feminist world…
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Josen Masangkay Diaz on Postcolonial Configurations
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews ethnic studies and women and gender studies professor Josen Masangkay Diaz about US–Philippine relations during the Cold War and how that history shapes Filipino America today. In their conversation, Josen and Cathy explore the role of race, nation, and gender…
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Erin Durban on the Sexual Politics of Empire
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews anthropologist Erin Durban about the past and present relationship between the United States and Haiti as it shapes the lives of queer and trans Haitians. In their conversation, Erin and Cathy talk about the history of US occupation and imperialism in Haiti and how...
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Jennifer Lynn Kelly on Anticolonial Solidarity Tourism
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews feminist studies and ethnic studies professor Jennifer Lynn Kelly about her new book Invited to Witness. In their conversation, Cathy and Jennifer talk about the temporality and pace of doing ethnographic research for this book while also navigating state visa...
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Josef Nguyen on the Politics of Flexibility
Cathy Hannabach interviews digital media scholar Josef Nguyen about the promises and perils of flexible planning, why cultural anxieties over uncertain futures are so often routed through debates over flexible educational technology, and ways to put flexibility to use in the classroom, on the…
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Anima Adjepong on Interdisciplinary Intuition
The massive changes we've collectively experienced over the past two years of a global pandemic have caused many of us to ask some big questions about who we are and what we want to be doing. It's also pushed us to embrace our embodied capacity and make conscious changes to nourish our spirit as...
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Nitasha Tamar Sharma on Recalibration and Balance
We're reaching that time of year when the days shorten and we start to wonder if we'll get everything done we wanted to this year. In this season, many of us yearn for more balance in our daily routines and the second year of an ongoing global pandemic has made that feeling even more intense.…
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Catherine Knight Steele on Black Feminist Extensions of Grace
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews digital studies scholar and professor Catherine Knight Steele, whose work reveals the central role Black women and Black feminists have played in developing, challenging, and transforming our digital technologies. Approaching Black digital studies holistically,...
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Christopher Ali on Building a More Connected World
Even before the global COVID-19 pandemic, access to reliable, high-performance broadband internet was a necessity for many of us to be able to meaningfully participate in our workplaces, schools, and communities. The pandemic has made this even more apparent. The digital divide separating those...
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Sandra Ristovska on Seeing Human Rights
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews filmmaker and media studies scholar Sandra Ristovska about the complex ethical, political, and legal relationship between imagery and human rights. They discuss the role of video evidence in simultaneously exposing and reproducing injustice, the often…
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Jessica Bissett Perea on Indigenous Transformations in Academic Publishing
Publishing plays a central role in higher education, primarily through the hiring, tenure, and promotion process. Because of this, transforming academic publishing means transforming how scholarly knowledge itself is produced, circulated, and applied. The research process, writing process, and...
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Priya Kandaswamy on Embracing Permanent Change
We've all experienced a LOT of change over the past year and a half. Many of the things we assumed to be stable anchors suddenly turned out not to be, as everything from the global economy and education to politics and media were irrevocably transformed. Many with privilege have responded to such...
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Mark Villegas on Collaborative Abundance in Hip-Hop Cultures
Host Cathy Hannabach interviews filmmaker and hip-hop scholar Mark Villegas, who has built his career foregrounding the power of collective abundance. Highlighting the strength, inspiration, and generosity that emerges from collaboration, Mark's endeavors illustrate the transformations that take...
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Maile Arvin on Kuleana and Indigenous Feminist Community
Community building is a cornerstone of progressive social and intellectual movements. Resisting capitalist individualism, we know how vital social bonds are in sustaining our identities, our dreams, and even our very lives. But it's easy to romanticize community and forget the work involved in...
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Christen A. Smith, Dána-Ain Davis, and Sameena Mulla on Cite Black Women
Centuries of Black feminist intellectuals have demonstrated how knowledge production is always deeply political, revealing whose labor and lives we value. Publicly citing and generously engaging with the contributions that others have made to our thinking is a crucial way we remake the world. In...
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Liat Ben-Moshe on Community beyond the Carceral State
Movements organized around disability justice, prison and police abolition, queer and trans feminism, and economic justice have long shown how intersecting systems of oppression require intersectional frameworks for resistance. On episode 134 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews...
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Mecca Jamilah Sullivan on Cultivating Joy through Queer Black Feminist Art
Over the past few years, we've seen more and more vibrant intersectional and interdisciplinary cultural production get the attention it so richly deserves. This work builds on a long history of refusing to separate the personal from the political in Third World and women of color feminism…
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J. Faith Almiron on Abolitionist Pedagogy within and beyond Institutions
Building an abolitionist university or museum requires more than just updating some policies. It requires rethinking from the ground up what we want out of our cultural institutions and renewing our commitment to bringing that abolitionist vision to fruition. In episode 132 of Imagine Otherwise,...
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La Marr Bruce on Renewal, Loss, and Black Creativity
As scholars, we often like to think we have everything under control. We work hard to meet deadlines, fulfill our responsibilities, and get everything done. So what happens when global and personal events throw all of that out the window? In episode 131 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach...
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Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart on Transgenerational Inspiration
Spring is normally a time of emergence and inspiration but many scholars, artists, and organizers are struggling after a year spent inside and a pandemic that is still far from over. In episode 130 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Kānaka Maoli food studies scholar Hiʻilei…
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Badia Ahad-Legardy on Black Historical Joy and Inspiration
How can looking to the past enliven the present and inspire the future? And how can we foment that inspiration in our daily practices and habits? In episode 129 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Badia Ahad-Legardy, whose most recent book Afro-Nostalgia is a brilliant and...
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Gwen D'Arcangelis on Inspiration for Scholar-Activists
For those of us in the social justice-oriented interdisciplines like gender studies, ethnic studies, and disability studies, our desire to make real people's lives better is often the reason we became scholars to begin with. But it can be difficult to sustain that inspiration over the long term,...
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Dolores Inés Casillas on Flexible Planning with Bullet Journals
Our systems for tracking and making progress on our goals are often deeply personal and idiosyncratic. How we organize our days to find motivation changes over time as well, as our lives and our worlds shift in ways we don't always get to control. In episode 127 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy...
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Meredith D. Clark on Adapting Plans to Where You're At
Even our best-laid plans go awry sometimes and require us to adjust on the fly. Whether it's throwing out our timeline for publication or experimenting with a new teaching technique, adapting our plans to meet the changing world is a crucial part of any interdisciplinary project. But how can we...
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Chris Barcelos on Beginning from Educated Hope
It's the beginning of a new year and normally that would mean a flurry of ambitious new projects, goals, and plans to achieve them both. But ten months into the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are hesitant to begin new things right now, given the degree of uncertainty shaping our world and our…
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Siobhan Brooks on Reckoning with Violence
Despite the cliché, 2020 really is one for the history books. Between a global pandemic disproportionately harming communities of color, racist and ableist police shootings, and legal and personal attacks on queer and trans populations, we have a lot to reckon with as this year comes to a close.…
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Bakirathi Mani on Curating with Confidence
The collaborative art of curation is one that takes a complex mixture of confidence and humility. Curators need confidence in their choices and artistic voice but the humility to stay open to learning from others and being surprised by the process. The career of today's guest, Bakirathi Mani,...
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Jillian Hernandez on the Politics of Confidence and Creativity
Women and girls are constantly bombarded with messages to be more confident. Although such advice might be useful for some, it doesn't account for how race and class shape the politics of confidence to begin with, much less center the perspectives of women, girls, and femmes of color in…
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Aimi Hamraie on Sustainability and Disability Justice
How does disability justice provide tools for building more sustainable social relations and practices, both during and beyond the current pandemic? In episode 121 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews permaculture designer and disability studies scholar Aimi Hamraie about using...
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Anusha Kedhar on the Limits of Flexibility
The dance world and academia are two creative industries known for innovative thinking and vibrant collaborations. But they also share a sustainability problem, as burnout and exhaustion are par for the course and the vast majority of jobs are temporary and precarious. Today's guest—dancer,...
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Sasha Engelmann on Art and Activism in the Air
What do politics, community, and artistic resistance look like beyond the terrestrial? What would happen if we took them to the sky? In episode 119 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews feminist geographical researcher and practitioner Sasha Engelmann, whose work radically...
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Christopher Persaud on Creating Balance to Avoid Burnout
For those of us who thrive on doing all the things, it is incredibly easy to put off rest and self-care—at least until we hit burnout. Scholars, artists, activists, and other creatives are particularly prone to burnout under even normal circumstances but the pandemic has made this even more acute...
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Koritha Mitchell on Homemade Citizenship
How might the history of Black women's creative homemaking and citizenship practices help us navigate our current political and cultural moment? What might this history reveal about the racially gendered roots of blurred work and home boundaries? In episode 117 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy...
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Kishonna Gray on Teaching and Parenting in a Pandemic
One of the biggest concerns right now for academics who are also parents is figuring out how to juggle education for both their students and their children. Many K–12 and higher education institutions have moved to remote instruction for the fall while racialized patriarchy and heteronormativity...
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Adrienne Shaw on Accessible Online Teaching by Design
How can we build accessible online courses in the middle of a pandemic? More than just a call to reproduce in-person teaching in digital environments, this pivot to online education has a powerful potential to help us reshape higher education for the better, to ensure it embodies the racial,...
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Dorinne Kondo on Reparative Creativity
What role can performance play in racial justice struggles? How can theater help us remake the world? The past several months have made even more urgent the centuries-long fight to dismantle the antiblackness and Orientalism that are baked into our social institutions. Such transformations are at...
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Ani Maitra on Media and Identity in the Public Sphere
The mediated politics of identity have animated movements as diverse as anticolonial nationalisms, multiple forms of feminism, transgender and disability rights struggles, and Indigenous protests for environmental justice. In all of these examples, media has been a primary and deeply public means...
About this show
A podcast about bridging art, activism, and academia to build more just futures. On each episode, host Cathy Hannabach interviews the scholars, dancers, authors, artists, and filmmakers imagining collective freedom and creating it through culture.
Hosted by
Cathy Hannabach