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Pretty Heady Stuff
by Pretty Heady Stuff
This podcast features interviews with a variety of theorists, artists and activists from across the globe. It's guided by the search for radical solutions to crises that are inherent to colonial capitalism. To this end, I hope to keep facilitating conversations that bring together perspectives on the liberatory and transformative power of care, in particular.
Episodes
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Jessica den Outer and Shauna Doll dig into the growing certainty that Nature has Rights
Jessica den Outer is an expert in environmental law who advocates globally for the Rights of Nature. Since 2017, she’s been consulted and has spoken for institutions like the UN and Harvard. She founded the NGO ‘Stichting Rechten van de Natuur’ and has received numerous awards for her pioneering...
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Alexis Shotwell urges us to reconnect, even if "we're irritating and we hurt each other"
I was wowed by this book's wisdom about the ways that cynicism, anger and protective individualism get dumped into our minds and narrow our emotional range. Talking about the differences between "complicity" and "implication" might feel frivolous or semantic as the horrors persist, but Liberation...
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Matthew Huber wants to incite a class realignment to fight global heating & the tyranny of capital
In his recent writing, political theorist Matthew Huber (https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/directory/matthew-t-huber) has been making the point that climate action is needlessly polarizing, and that this polarization can be corrected by abandoning the sorts of virtue signaling and PR pomp and...
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Nina Newington embraces the uncertainty of organizing to protect the natural world
Nina Newington is a forest protector, organizer and award-winning author. Join us for a conversation about the connections and solidarities that build strength against extractive projects and the exploitation of nature for profit. Originally from the UK, Newington has lived in many countries…
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Chris Benjamin and Kate Brooks thoughts on how to decarbonize our lives and build a stable, equitable world
Kate Brooks works as the EAC's Community Climate Navigator, collaborating with HalifACT and other community groups to create programs supporting climate action. More recently, she joined the Food Team to assist in developing the Halifax Food Council's website. Kate comes from a public library and...
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Sadie Beaton rages against the extractive status quo and raves about resurgent geography
Sadie Beaton grew up in rural Nova Scotia where she could see a working wharf from her bedroom window and enjoyed countless hours exploring the rugged shorelines and scrubby Acadian forest. She eventually moved to Halifax where she got a B.A. in English from Kings College and a Masters in…
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Katherine Stewart decrypts how Christian fundamentalism is seizing power in the United States
Katherine Stewart has covered the intersection of faith and politics for over 17 years; her work appears in the New York Times, the New Republic, Religion News Service, the Guardian and elsewhere. Her latest book, Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, is one of...
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Alex Marland scrutinizes party loyalty in Canada as a program of coerced consent
What are the politics of party loyalty in Canada? Why do politicians follow the leader and rarely rock the boat? What solutions could exist for strengthening Canada's democracy by injecting more dissent into the system? Alongside Mireille Lalancette and Jared J. Wesley, Alex Marland is the author...
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Carl Wilson referees the poptimism wars & explores nostalgia, protest & world-building in music
Carl Wilson is a Canadian music critic who has written for many publications including The Globe and Mail. He writes wonderful long thought-pieces on music for Slate. Best known for his classic book Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, published in Continuum's 33 1/3 series…
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Marta Figlerowicz thinks Maria Janion’s political insights are key to navigating our present chaos
Why does the nation trigger so much emotion in us? How does being from a specific country shape our understanding of identity, and when does it drift into dangerous territory? Maria Janion, one of Eastern Europe’s most profound and original intellectuals, explores this fine line, and Marta...
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Alexander Gallant & Joel Plaskett harmonize on concept albums & finding the lyrical in everyday life
Alexander Gallant and Joel Plaskett are songwriters based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They have both written extraordinary records that take genre and move it a few degrees to the left to make something unexpected. In this conversation, we talk about Plaskett's foundational relationship to the…
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Steven Swarbrick conceives of a world where Palestine is free because none of us "belong"
What might the politics of masochism be able to do for the dangerously stagnant politics of liberation Is masochism more mobilizing than empathy? Empathy requires the Palestinian to be a "perfect victim," to use Mohammed El-Kurd's phrase. It says that the other must remain othered in its...
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Vijay Kolinjivadi and Aaron Vansintjan want a world where "sustainability" isn't meaningless
Vijay Kolinjivadi is an assistant professor at the School for Community and Public Affairs, Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He is also a co-editor of the website Uneven Earth. The co-author, with Aaron Vansintjan, of The Sustainability Class (The New Press), he has been published in Al...
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Arang Keshavarzian examines the politics of modern Iran and devises an escape from perpetual war
Arang Keshavarzian is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. He’s one of the most shrewd thinkers you’ll see on the politics of modern Iran and the Persian Gulf because he pays serious attention to how social and economic hierarchies constrain the formation of...
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Aaron Hagey-MacKay opines on satire as sensemaking, and scenarios where we 'bend but don't break'
Aaron Hagey-MacKay is a Canadian satirist as a longtime writer for The Beaverton and host of The Goose Media on YouTube. In a piece for The Tyee, Aaron writes that "satirists, like journalists and academics, are targeted by authoritarian bullies because satire deals with hard truths." In this...
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Ava Val believes in comedy as a source of joy, site of community and weapon against cynicism
Ava Val is a John Candy Award-winning comedian/musician/actress from Toronto. Her honest and insightful-yet-silly and spontaneous account of her transgender journey has turned heads across North America, earning her repeat appearances at renowned festivals including Just For Laughs, JFL Toronto…
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Wim Carton dissects the gore, gaslighting and chaotic consequences of fossil capitalism
Wim Carton is Associate Professor of Sustainability Science at Lund University, Sweden. He's the author of over 20 academic articles and book chapters on climate politics. His work has appeared in top journals such as Nature Climate Change, WIRES Climate Change and Antipode. His book with Andreas...
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Jeff Diamanti tracks the shockwaves disrupting the global economy as war rages on in Iran
Jeff Diamanti is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam and Professor of Global History of Sustainable Development at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. For over a decade he has researched and written on logistical cartographies, energy…
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C. Thi Nguyen troubles the way the art of play and agency in games is co-opted & commodified
Publisher bio and book description: C. Thi Nguyen is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, and a specialist in the philosophy of games, the philosophy of technology, and the theory of value. A former food writer for the Los Angeles Times, Nguyen is active in public...
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Shora Esmailian refuses to abandon hope for freedom and self-determination in Iran
Shora Esmailian is a journalist, author and lecturer based in Sweden. Her latest book is entitled Gaza: Att Spranga Ett Getto (2024). She is also the co-author, with Andreas Malm, of Iran on the Brink: Rising Workers and Threats of War (2007, Pluto Press) and Explosive Power in Iran: Workers’…
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Alyssa Battistoni takes apart the hostile system that incentivizes taking selfishly from nature
Alyssa Battistoni is an assistant professor of political science at Barnard College. She is the coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal and the recent Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. Alyssa knows why you feel helpless to stop the end of nature. In Free Gifts,...
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Timothy Leduc finds meaning in humility, ecological wonder and pluralistic thinking
Timothy Leduc is faculty in Land-based and Indigenous Social Work at Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario. He is author of A Canadian Climate of Mind (2016) that looks at climate change as a spiritual initiation into healing the pain at the root of modern culture.In this conversation,...
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James Adomian goads us to laugh our way through the absolute absurdity of our moment
James Adomian is a brilliant stand-up comedian, voice actor, writer and impressionist known for his work on Comedy Bang! Bang!, Last Comic Standing, and his many hilarious podcast appearances. He's also one of the funniest people in the world. Renowned for his impressions of figures like Bernie...
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Harsha Walia reframes ICE fascism and American aggression in an era of border brutality
Harsha Walia is a South Asian activist and writer based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territories. Author of the essential Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism, Walia has been involved in community-based grassroots migrant justice, feminist,...
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Anna Quon muses about mental health, social trust and the costs of inequality
In this episode of Pretty Heady Stuff, Halifax's Poet Laureate Anna Quon talks about the places and people that her poetry comes from, why she is committed to using art as a means of documenting the suffering and joy that we experience, and how to advocate for more inclusive forms of care. Quon…
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Rana Zaman struggles for universal human rights and peace globally. Why is she being attacked?
In the wake of October 7, two political modalities have emerged: one is an imperialist one that seeks to forcefully normalize the retaliatory genocidal violence Israel has inflicted on Palestine, the other is an anticolonial one that refuses the racial domination of people rendered disposable by...
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Kai Bosworth wonders whether populism can turn us into climate activists
Kai Bosworth is a human geographer and political ecologist, and an Associate Professor at the School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University. He is currently working on a book project provisionally entitled Protectors of the Subsurface: Militant Investigation and Critical Imagination…
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Nora Loreto and Alex Khasnabish argue for saving the university from itself
Many academic workers are striking for better labour protections, including CUPE 3916 in Nova Scotia, but where are the connections forming between different labour movements? Can we forge deeper solidarity in this moment of crisis? Do we blow up the system or try to repair it?Nora Loreto, host…
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Sherene Seikaly knows the Nakba never ceased. Who will stop that history from being the future?
Sherene Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She’s the editor of a number of academic journals, including the Journal of Palestine Studies. She’s also a policy member of Al-Shabaka and the Palestinian Policy Network. Seikaly and I talk about…
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Sarah Stein Lubrano offers a recipe for reviving sociality and detoxifying democracy
Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano (https://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com/) got her PhD from Oxford and Masters degree from the University of Cambridge. She works with the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. She's also served as the head of content at The School of Life.Her new book,...
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Ingrid Waldron traces the psychological scars & medical neglect of trauma in Black communities
Ingrid Waldron is the founder and director of The ENRICH Project, the co-founder and co-director of the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice (CCECJ), and currently a consultant for Canada's Environmental Justice Strategy. Ingrid Waldron partners with equity demanding groups...
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El Jones and Jonathan Liew decode how sportswashing works and why Israel is struggling to use it
This episode comes out at a time when the movement for Palestinian liberation is relentlessly holding groups accountable for supporting and whitewashing the state of Israel's annihilationist violence against Gaza's people. The shaming of companies, states and cities for their complicity and...
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Dominic Boyer derides the fossilized luxury and conveniences that bind us to ecological breakdown
Dominic Boyer is an anthropologist, content producer and environmental researcher who teaches at Rice University, where he served as founding director of Rice’s Center for Environmental Studies. Some of his recent books are Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene and Hyposubjects: On...
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Rupa Marya demonstrates the courage required to contest the neocolonial erasure of Palestine
Dr. Rupa Marya is a physician and activist. She's been a major part of revolutionary health initiatives like the Justice Study, which looks at the links between police violence and health in Black, brown and Indigenous communities, and Seeding Sovereignty, a group that promotes Indigenous…
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Kilian Jörg plays with new ways of being toward nature and puzzles over the pitfalls of Reason
Kilian Jörg is an artist and philosopher who is interested in understanding how art can intervene to disrupt the ecological catastrophe we’re currently witnessing. His current research focuses on the car as a metaphor for the toxic behaviors of modernity, the psychological effects of living in a...
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Alexander Gallant and Sarah Swire walk us through the ecstatic discipline of making music
Alexander Gallant is a folk singer-songwriter from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. His songs are simple and direct but also singular and sardonic. He takes a lot of inspiration from the folk revival of the 1960’s, but uses a specific blend of open tuning style fingerpicking and percussive strumming…
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Caleb Wellum treats the oil shocks of the 1970s as a byproduct of neoliberalism’s Cold War conquest
Caleb Wellum is a professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He’s also the editor of Energy Humanities and a member of both the Petrocultures Research Group and the After Oil Collective. As an historian who studies the intersection of energy…
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James Rowe finds insight and sites of social justice in a mindful relation to death
James Rowe is a professor of Political Ecology and Cultural, Social, and Political Thought at the University of Victoria and the author of a great book called Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital. Radical Mindfulness examines the root causes of injustice and…
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Imre Szeman spurns the standard logic of the energy transition: that capitalism will save the Earth
Imre Szeman is the inaugural Director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation and Sustainability and Professor of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His recent book, Futures of the Sun: The Struggle Over Renewable Life, examines corporate and state control of the...
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Max Haiven invites us to unleash chaos and grab the world’s wealth with Billionaires and Guillotines
Max Haiven is the author of many books on finance capitalism, social movement organizing, anti-fascist revolt and the politics of revenge. His latest project focuses on games as a major feature of everyday life under advanced capitalism. His writing on games has really grown my understanding of...
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Mark Bourrie rips Pierre Poilievre for being Canada's "Trump-lite,” sowing division and stoking political grievance
Mark Bourrie is an Ottawa-based author, lawyer, and journalist. He holds a master’s in journalism from Carleton University and a PhD in history from the University of Ottawa. In 2017, he was awarded a Juris Doctor degree and was called to the bar in 2018. He has won numerous awards for his...
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Judy Haiven knows we can't wait for the powerful to change, we have to organize against them
Judy Haiven is the co-founder of Equity Watch and part of the national steering committee for Independent Jewish Voices Canada. She worked for nearly 20 years as a professor of industrial relations at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. Now, her main focus is left wing activism and political...
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Deborah Britzman wants education to be antagonistic toward closemindedness, carelessness and violence
Deborah Britzman is a practicing psychoanalyst and philosopher of education. Her research connects psychoanalysis with pedagogy, teacher education, and the idea of vulnerability as a "constitutive inequality." We discuss her recent book When History Returns, which brings together theories of...
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Abdaljawad Omar and Ajay Parasram outline postcolonial paths to peace via Palestinian liberation
Abdaljawad Omar is a Lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Birzeit University. He has written some indispensable articles on the assumptions people have about Palestine and Palestinian resistance, on the internal tensions in the Palestinian diaspora, the complicity of…
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Mark Stoll charts a path through histories of energy, extraction and profit
Mark Stoll teaches American environmental history and American religious history at Texas Tech, where he also serves as director of Environmental Studies. Stoll’s latest book is an environmental history of capitalism, Profit: An Environmental History (2022). From the publisher: "Profit — getting...
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Sarah Marie Wiebe cares about care, insisting we fight climate change through love and reconnection
Sarah Marie Wiebe is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria whose research and solidarity work focuses on community development and environmental justice. When we last spoke on the pod, we looked at her writing broadly, but this time around…
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Ava Val gets bravery, but wonders why comedy can be so cowardly when it comes to trans lives
Ava Val is a comedian, actor, writer and musician based in Toronto. She’s made multiple appearances at Just For Laughs and The Halifax Comedy Festival, and recorded stand-up sets for CBC Gem, Crave TV, and CTV. She has a weekly podcast of her own called PodGis, which is a great place to get a…
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Wim Carton and Andreas Malm want a radical break to overcome the resignation to overshoot
Andreas Malm works in The Department of Human Geography at Lund University. He’s a scholar of human ecology and environmental history and has written several books, including The Progress of this Storm, Fossil Capital, How to Blow Up A Pipeline and White Skin, Black Fuel. Wim Carton works in the...
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Jennifer Wickham documents the fight of the Wetʼsuwetʼen against pipelines, pollution and plunder
Jennifer Wickham is a filmmaker and a member of the Gidimt’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en people. In 2012, she moved home to defend her clan’s territory against multiple pipeline projects, and especially the aggression of Coastal GasLink. Her work on the documentary film Yintah is the main focus of...
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Alder Keleman Saxena sees how climate impacts & neoliberalism exacerbate each other
Alder Keleman Saxena is an environmental anthropologist whose research looks at the links between agricultural biodiversity and food culture, especially in relation to nutritional health in the Bolivian Andes. Her collaboration with Anna Tsing, Feifei Zhou and Jennifer Deger for the online Feral...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
This podcast features interviews with a variety of theorists, artists and activists from across the globe. It's guided by the search for radical solutions to crises that are inherent to colonial capitalism. To this end, I hope to keep facilitating conversations that bring together perspectives on the liberatory and transformative power of care, in particular.
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Pretty Heady Stuff
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How many episodes does Pretty Heady Stuff have?
Pretty Heady Stuff currently has 141 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Pretty Heady Stuff about?
This podcast features interviews with a variety of theorists, artists and activists from across the globe. It's guided by the search for radical solutions to crises that are inherent to colonial capitalism. To this end, I hope to keep facilitating conversations that bring together perspectives on...
How often does Pretty Heady Stuff release new episodes?
Pretty Heady Stuff publishes regularly with 141 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to Pretty Heady Stuff on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Pretty Heady Stuff?
Pretty Heady Stuff is created and hosted by Pretty Heady Stuff.
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