Episode 4.4 Off-Mic Conversations with Khairani Barokka

Content warning for discussions of sexual abuse, child abuse, child pornography, racism and ableism. This episode was actually recorded in early May, and here it is over four months later, FINALLY seeing the light of day, and I’m so delighted because Okka–poet, writer, and artist–is a goddamn delight. But don’t just take my word for … Continue reading Episode 4.4 Off-Mic Conversations with Khairani Barokka

Content warning for discussions of sexual abuse, child abuse, child pornography, racism and ableism.

Photo credit: Christa Holka

This episode was actually recorded in early May, and here it is over four months later, FINALLY seeing the light of day, and I’m so delighted because Okka–poet, writer, and artist–is a goddamn delight. But don’t just take my word for it. Listen for yourself, and then check out some of these exciting and also very extensive links:

First off, you should definitely check out all of Okka’s work, including Rope, Indigenous Species, Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and her performance Annah: Nomenclature. You can also find her work in issue 24 of Uncanny Magazine, “Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction”! And here’s Katie Lewis Hood’s splendid review of Indigenous Species!The conference that had Okka in town was HASTAC 2019, “Decolonizing Technologies, Reprogramming Education” Okka mentioned the 2016 conference Archives Matter: Queer, Feminist and Decolonial EncountersI talk quite a lot in this episode about Lily Cho‘s remarkable research project Mass Capture (and gosh I hope I don’t misrepresent it!)Oh gosh, and we talk a lot about French painter Paul Gauguin, particularly his painted Annah the Javanese. Okka references the books Paul Gaugain: An Erotic Life and The Way to Paradise as well as the biopics The Wolf at the Door and Paradise Found, starring Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, respectively. You can learn more about the Dutch East India Company here! We discuss the incredible work of Lydia X. Z. Brown (apologies for getting their middle initial wrong!), the episode of Witch, Please we recorded with them, as well as Rowling’s article on “Illness and Disability” in the wizarding world. We also talk about environmental racism, the over-harvesting of white sage, and how white witches appropriate Indigenous practices. And finally, here are all of the books that I caught references to:Tina M. Campt, Listening to ImagesSaidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social UpheavalAnn Laura Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things and Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common SenseSlamet Thohari, Disability In Java: Contesting Conceptions of Disability In Javanese Society after the Suharto RegimeLeah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability JusticeJasbir K. Puar, The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, DisabilityMel Y. Chen, Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer AffectSimone Brown, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of BlacknessSara Ahmed, Living a Feminist LifeSafiya U. Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce RacismRobert McRuer, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and DisabilityTobin Siebers, Disability Theory

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The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Okka’s theme song was “Sparkly” by Young Magic.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.