Feminism · Women’s Stories · The Creative Process

“This awe that I feel every time I meet an artist who has the courage to deal with what it means to be in the world as a human being and to tackle it from different ways and through different media. I always feel that through the collaborations I have with artists, I learn a little bit more about the world, myself, my feelings or emotions, and how I reflect on things. Getting another person's perspective and taking that in is extremely generous. What we can take with us from the artistic practices we encounter is significant. Again, I think one of the fundamental aspects of art is that it doesn't require agreement, consensus, or rules. It's a place where we can speculate, imagine, and, hopefully, re-courage ourselves in a way, if that's a word. I've always been motivated by working with artists; that personal meeting is always extremely fruitful.”In the ever-evolving world of contemporary art, some voices rise to shape the conversation in truly profound ways. Marie Nipper has spent her career at the nexus of institutional leadership, curatorial innovation, and artistic collaboration. As the director of the ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, she is not just leading a museum; she's rethinking its very purpose—from an artistic lab to a public town square. Her journey has taken her from the hallowed halls of the TATE and ARoS to the forward-thinking spaces of Copenhagen Contemporary, all while championing the freedom of artists and the civic role of the museum.“I think that is one of the places where we are really challenged, especially when we speak to kids and young people, as they often feel they have little agency in creating a better future for themselves. So, I believe we can really give that space to our audiences by showcasing some of these groundbreaking practices that are out there right now in contemporary art.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“We don't need to find an end solution, but it's a space where we can speculate, imagine, and practice our foresight. We can be part of a bigger imagination together with an institutional framework, which is really what we try to motivate as well when we communicate these exhibitions to our audience and speak with our guests about these works. We can also sense that it's really a place where a lot of people like to enter these days. When you turn on a TV, look at a newspaper, listen to your radio, or speak with your friends, it seems like the world is falling apart on so many levels. It's such a challenging time. I think we can also offer this space for reflection and hopefully provide a reflection that gives some idea or feeling of agency.For me, it's this awe that I feel every time I meet an artist who has the courage to deal with what it means to be in the world as a human being and to tackle it from different ways and through different media. I always feel that through the collaborations I have with artists, I learn a little bit more about the world.”In the ever-evolving world of contemporary art, some voices rise to shape the conversation in truly profound ways. Marie Nipper has spent her career at the nexus of institutional leadership, curatorial innovation, and artistic collaboration. As the director of the ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, she is not just leading a museum; she's rethinking its very purpose—from an artistic lab to a public town square. Her journey has taken her from the hallowed halls of the TATE and ARoS to the forward-thinking spaces of Copenhagen Contemporary, all while championing the freedom of artists and the civic role of the museum.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Poetry is like one of the great loves of my life, and I think it's probably the longest relationship I'll ever have. I read a lot of poetry. I also wrote these short stories even when I was pretty young, like in second grade, and the stories kept getting shorter and shorter. My family used to go to Damascus in Syria and Lebanon every summer for three months until 2011, when the Civil War broke out in Syria. In 2015, we made our first return after that gap, and my father and I went to Lebanon for two weeks. It's the first time I felt that I belong. To the extent that was true or not, I'm obviously irrevocably American. I speak broken Arabic. I don't think I could ever live in Lebanon or Syria. But for what it was worth at 15 years old, it was a life-changing trip. I wrote my first official poem on the plane back to San Diego from that trip, and I feel that was a formative moment for me. I felt that I had a story to tell and wanted to put it to paper in the form of poetry.”In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liutalks with poet Maya Salameh about her poetry collection, How to Make an Algorithm in the Microwave, which won the prestigious Etel Adnan Poetry Prize in 2022. The judges remarked, “Maya Salameh's poetry stood out for its inventiveness in cracking the code of life ‘between system and culture'…The turns and swerves the poems make are astonishing; the expectations they upend are remarkable… It's a testament to the aesthetic boundaries and intellectual revolt poets of Arab heritage are pushing, breaking, and reinventing.” We talk about what led her to both technology and poetry, language and story-telling, and the challenges and joys of representing life in the diaspora. In a time of war and genocide, Salameh's poetry shows how patterns of life and reproduction and desire persist. In her readings and discussions of three poems, we find a new lexicon and a new grammar.Maya Salameh is the author of MERMAID THEORY (Haymarket Books, 2026), HOW TO MAKE AN ALGORITHM IN THE MICROWAVE (University of Arkansas Press, 2022), winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, and the chapbook rooh (Paper Nautilus Press, 2020). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, and the President's Committee for the Arts and Humanities, and served as a National Student Poet, America's highest honor for youth poets. Her work has appeared in The Offing, Poetry, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, AGNI, Mizna, and the LA Times, among others. @mayaslmhhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

“There's something fundamental about the value of art and culture. Not just being integrated for vocational reasons, but because the experience of art and having a cultural element in one's life brings enjoyment, learning, relief, or any of the many experiences and feelings that art provides. I think this is quite fundamental as an element of life. Creativity is key in any career and also in personal life, especially in terms of problem-solving, relationships, kindness, compassion, and empathy. The arts, creativity, and the cultural world at large are not just nice to have; they are essential. Their value is fundamental, although sometimes it's extremely difficult to define. To see the arts lost from the developmental moments in one's life is tragic. Developmental moments in life come at all points in the arc of one's existence. To see that taken or diminished is unfortunate. Everyone involved in working with artists, artists themselves, or those who are creative knows this and believes in it.”Today, we have with us a figure from the heart of the London art scene, Hannah Barry. At a moment when the art world often feels centered on global mega-galleries, Hannah has cultivated something truly unique in Peckham. With her gallery and the ambitious non-profit, Bold Tendencies, she has created a vibrant platform for a new generation of artists, taking risks and championing experimentation. She has been pivotal in shaping careers and bringing ambitious projects to life. We'll talk to her about the mission behind her work, her journey as a gallerist, and her latest exhibitions, including The Garden with the photographer Harley Weir.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“My book is called Empire of AI because I'm trying to articulate this argument and illustrate that these companies operate exactly like empires of old. I highlight four features that essentially encapsulate the three things you read. However, I started talking about it in a different way after writing the book.The four features are: they lay claim to resources that are not their own, which is the centralization of resources; they exploit an extraordinary amount of labor, both in the development of the technology and the fact that they're producing labor-automating technologies that then suppress workers' ability to bargain for better rights; they monopolize knowledge production, which comes when they centralize talent.”In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with investigative journalist Karen Hao. She explains that OpenAI is anything but “open”—very early on, it left behind that marketing tag to become increasingly closed and elitist. Her massive study, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI had a rather different subtitle in its UK edition: Inside the reckless race of total domination. She fleshes out the overlap between these two points of emphasis. Hao argues that in general, the AI mission “centralizes talent around a grand ambition” and “centralizes capital and other resources while eliminating roadblocks, regulation, and dissent.” All the while, “the mission remains so vague that it can be interpreted and reinterpreted to direct the centralization of talent, capital, resources, however the centralizer wants.” Karen explains that she chose the word “empire” precisely to indicate the colonial nature of AI's domination: the tremendous damage this enterprise does to the poor, to racial and ethnic minorities, and to the Global South in general in terms of minds, bodies, the environment, natural resources, and any notion of democracy. This is a discussion everyone should be part of.Karen Hao is a bestselling author and award-winning reporter covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society. She was the first journalist to profile OpenAI and wrote a book, Empire of AI, about the company and its global implications, which became an instant New York Times bestseller. She writes for publications including The Atlantic and leads the Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series, a program that trains thousands of journalists worldwide on how to cover AI. She was formerly a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, covering American and Chinese tech companies, and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review. Her work is regularly taught in universities and cited by governments. She has received numerous accolades for her coverage, including an American Humanist Media Award, an American National Magazine Award for Journalists Under 30, and the TIME100 AI. She received her Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from MIT.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

“I'm Lebanese. I grew up in Lebanon during the Civil War, and I came to the United States as a graduate student with the intention of going back. I never wanted to stay here. I really thought that my life would happen in Beirut, in a city that I loved and hated in the healthiest of ways. My investments, both literary and intellectual, were rooted there. I came here as a graduate student and joined the PhD program, and then the events continued to unfold there, making life more and more of a risk, building a life in a place like Lebanon. The most important counterpoint in my life was meeting my partner, Ahmad Almallah, who is Palestinian. So immediately, my life became the life of a Palestinian by association.Of course, the past two years—almost two years—have been surreal. I sometimes don't believe that we're going through what we're going through because, as security concerns have become something we think about at home, when we walk from home to campus or my office, I'm constantly anxious to open my mail because often there are things that will require a lot of energy, time, emotion, and are emotionally taxing. There's a lot of rage now in many aspects of my life, but all that aside, my personal experience—both professional and personal, and at home, familial—are not exceptional. Many other people are experiencing intimidation, silencing, and feeling cornered, censored, and oppressed just because they took a stand—a very decent, normal, basic human stand against genocide.”In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Huda Fakhreddine, writer, translator, and scholar of Arabic literature. Among the many topics they touch upon are the challenges of teaching Arabic literature, especially Palestinian literature, in a time of genocide, when universities, professional organizations, and political groups militate against any honest discussion of these topics, and punish those who do. They talk about the notion of belonging and the importance of being able to choose what to belong to, and what not to. Huda speaks of the freedom found in living in Arabic, and explains what that means to her. She also reads in Arabic and English Nima Hasan's stunning and wrenchingly beautiful poem, “Old Song.”Huda J. Fakhreddine is a writer, translator, and Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Metapoesis in the Arabic Tradition (Brill, 2015) and The Arabic Prose Poem: Poetic Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), and the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry (Routledge, 2023). Among her translations are The Sky That Denied Me: Selections from Jawdat Fakhreddine (University of Texas Press, 2020), The Universe, All at Once: Selections from Salim Barakat (Seagull Books, 2024), and Palestinian: Four Poems by Ibrahim Nasrallah (World Poetry Books, 2024). Her creative work includes a book of creative non-fiction titled Zaman saghīr taḥt shams thāniya (A Brief Time under a Different Sun), Dar al-Nahda, Beirut, 2019 and the forthcoming Wa min thamma al-ālam (And then the World), Manshūrāt Marfa', Beirut, 2025. Her translations of Arabic poems have appeared in Protean, Lithub, Words Without Borders, Nimrod, ArabLit Quarterly, Asymptote, and Middle Eastern Literatures, among many others. She is co-editor of Middle Eastern Literatures and section editor of the Encyclopedia of Islam.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

Today, we talk about creativity—not as a luxury, but as a national strategy. Sheila Deegan is one of Ireland's leading cultural architects. Over three decades, she's shaped the artistic life of Limerick and helped reimagine the role of creativity in civic life. She now serves in the Creative Ireland Programme, a bold cross-government initiative that sees culture as a force for personal and national wellbeing. From children's creative freedom to climate action, from local festivals to cross-border partnerships, Creative Ireland asks a radical question: what happens when a country places imagination at the heart of public policy? Sheila Deegan joins me now to talk about that question—about culture, community, the role of art in a divided world, and what it means to build something lasting through the machinery of government."I left the local environment to pursue Creative Ireland because I really believe in this broader approach. Let's try not to silo things. Let's try and get people working collaboratively for the benefit of everybody, not just one program over the other. I really hope that young people can hold a sense of social justice as we move forward into a very complicated world. They need to remember that we're all just people and that we all just need each other, whether that's creatively or within the landscape or within the economics."Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"For the last two decades, I've made over 20 films about the environment, starting with oil and carbon emissions. Those films, Kiss the Ground and now Common Ground, talk about how we can stabilize the climate, reverse climate change, grow nutrient-dense food, and help farmers make a profit through biodiversity and regenerative practices and principles.There's incredible intelligence in nature; it knows how to be resilient. We thought we could do it better, and in trying to mechanize and industrialize the entire system, we created a linear system that doesn't make sense. We're growing animals to produce food that we can't eat so that we can ship it halfway around the world. It's a system that doesn't work.The way to heal, regenerate, stabilize the climate, and reverse climate change is literally one inch and one acre at a time—through communities waking up to the power of soil and biodiversity to sequester carbon for all of us. The oceans can't handle any more carbon absorption; they're acidifying and heating up. We need to take the carbon we've emitted and put it back into the soil. When we do that, we create thriving ecosystems, biodiversity, and water infiltration, which massively reduces the risks from flooding. It helps reverse desertification and staves off droughts by retaining water like a sponge. Resiliency comes from having genetic diversity rather than just one of everything."Today, we explore the work of a filmmaker whose lens is consistently turned toward the most critical issues facing our planet. Rebecca Tickell, in collaboration with her husband Josh Tickell, has created a powerful cinematic catalog of films that are not merely observations, but catalysts for change. They've taken on the complexities of our energy systems, the deep-seated problems within our food supply, and now, with her latest work, Bee: Wild, they explore the essential, fragile, and often unseen world of pollinators.Their film Kiss the Ground sparked a global conversation about regenerative agriculture, leading to tangible shifts in policy and public understanding. Common Ground continued this exploration, unraveling the intricate web of our food systems. Now, with Bee: Wild, narrated by Ellie Goulding and executive produced by Angelina Jolie,Rebecca brings her characteristic blend of journalistic rigor, personal narrative, and solutions-driven storytelling to the urgent plight of bees, asking us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I think the community came together more when we started getting those notices about people being swept up by these supposedly ICE agents who are just covered up. So that was the thing that made us come out there and start defending everyone who doesn't want to come out to defend themselves.”In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with Daniela Navin and Jeanette de La Riva, two members of Grupo Auto Defensa a community organization based in Pasadena CA, which has come about in response to attacks by ICE, which have violently disrupted everyday life and led people to form new relations of mutual support and care. We hear their stories of how Trump lieutenant Stephen Miller's demand that ICE arrest 3000 people every day has put unbelievable constraints on hard-working people's lives. Nevertheless, we also hear how they have invented tactics to challenge these repressive measures. We are joined by journalist-activist Maxmillian Alvarez of The Real News Network who grew up in Los Angeles and comments on the broad networks of resistance cropping up organically to fight fascism.Maximillian Alvarez is an award-winning journalist and the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Executive Director of The Real News Network (TRNN) in Baltimore. He is the founder and host of Working People, "a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today," and the author of "The Work of Living," a collection of interviews with US workers recorded during Year One of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to joining TRNN, he was an Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review. His writing has been featured in outlets like The Nation, In These Times, Poynter, Boston Review, The Baffler, Current Affairs, and The Chronicle of Higher Education; as an analyst and commentator, he has appeared on programs like PBS NewsHour, Breaking Points, Democracy Now!, The New Republic, NPR's 1A, The Hill's Rising, and more.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

“I didn't really appreciate bees until I became a farmer, and then I started to understand how essential bees are for our food. They pollinate 70% of our food, and that feeds 90% of the world. There's a whole world of insects that creates the color in our food; it's what creates the flavor in our food. It's part of our biodiversity, and it's essential for human life on Earth to protect and understand how to protect these bees and pollinators.If you look at the COP, the Conference of the Parties, they haven't even been talking about soil regeneration at all, and they've been holding these conferences in oil-rich countries, then talking about reducing carbon emissions. Soil has the power, through photosynthesis, to draw down carbon from the atmosphere. It's called biosequestration. It takes that carbon down into the roots, and then it turns it into healthy humus. That is the food for life in the soil. It needs that carbon. And so that is the purpose of plants. They breathe in the carbon and breathe out the oxygen. As we've been watching carbon levels increase in our atmosphere, we've been watching the ocean try to absorb as much of it as it can and become acidified as a result, leading to great losses to our ocean habitat and coral reefs.We've forgotten that simple tool of the solution that's right beneath our feet called soil health and soil regeneration. Not only does it draw down carbon, it's the only place we can put that teraton of carbon that we've emitted. There's only one place for it, and it's in the soil. So why isn't that the main conversation of every climate conversation? You not only bring the soil back to life, but you are creating nutrient-dense food. You're giving plants the ability to work in symbiosis with the soil that it co-evolved with. That then allows for it not only to be resilient and have a strong immune system, but also to absorb nutrition, which, in turn, we eat and absorb that nutrition. Like I said, we're a reflection of the soil.”Today, we explore the work of a filmmaker whose lens is consistently turned toward the most critical issues facing our planet. Rebecca Tickell, in collaboration with her husband Josh Tickell, has created a powerful cinematic catalog of films that are not merely observations, but catalysts for change. They've taken on the complexities of our energy systems, the deep-seated problems within our food supply, and now, with her latest work, Bee: Wild, they explore the essential, fragile, and often unseen world of pollinators.Their film Kiss the Ground sparked a global conversation about regenerative agriculture, leading to tangible shifts in policy and public understanding. Common Ground continued this exploration, unraveling the intricate web of our food systems. Now, with Bee: Wild, narrated by Ellie Goulding and executive produced by Angelina Jolie, Rebecca brings her characteristic blend of journalistic rigor, personal narrative, and solutions-driven storytelling to the urgent plight of bees, asking us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I had to become the father of my family very young because my parents divorced when I was 12. My situation was a little bit unusual in that my father kind of disappeared, and I had been making a fair amount of money as a kid, doing commercials and television and film. We needed money, and I kind of became the breadwinner. But I had this amazing world that I had access to, which was the world of the entertainment industry. My mom was supportive of my taking over and saying, "This is, I think, what we need to do." She liked the idea of moving to New York, so we moved to New York when I was 17 with a play that I had gotten. Then she got cancer and became really sick, so I had to take care of her full time. That lasted for about eight years, and then she died when I was 25. That was a rough go. At the same time, I had an amazing other world, and my other world was the world of make-believe and pretend, which I got to participate in on the soaps, with happy families and Christmases, Easters, miracles, love, weddings, and children. The pretend world that I spent a large amount of time in became a great way to balance what was sort of tragic in my real life.”Our guest today is Cady McClain. You probably know her from her long and celebrated career in daytime television. She is a three-time Emmy® Award-winning actress. She plays Pamela Curtis on CBS' Beyond the Gates, and is the Artistic Director of Axial Theatre, and her directorial work includes the documentary, Seeing is Believing: Women Direct, a fascinating look at the challenges and triumphs of women behind the camera. Her memoir, Murdering My Youth, is an honest and sometimes difficult book about growing up as a child actor in the spotlight. Her work across all these different art forms—acting, directing, writing, art, and music—all seems to be connected by a commitment to telling true stories, no matter how complicated. www.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I won my first Emmy when I was 21, which was the result of absolutely devoting myself day and night for two years to doing all the scene work. I attended classes simultaneously and did plays until my mother died. I studied with Michael Howard for eight years. Even when I was so tired I couldn't get up to do a scene, he would say, "Get up and do a poem." It helped me enormously; it saved me.The way I was trained and how I train others is that you know when you're in the zone. Oh God, it feels so good. It feels like flying. And that's what you want. You want to be so unselfaware that you're on liftoff?I had to become the father of my family very young because my parents divorced when I was 12. My situation was a little bit unusual in that my father kind of disappeared, and I had been making a fair amount of money as a kid, doing commercials and television and film. We needed money, and I kind of became the breadwinner. But I had this amazing world that I had access to, which was the world of the entertainment industry. My mom was supportive of my taking over and saying, "This is, I think, what we need to do." She liked the idea of moving to New York, so we moved to New York when I was 17 with a play that I had gotten. Then she got cancer and became really sick, so I had to take care of her full time. That lasted for about eight years, and then she died when I was 25. That was a rough go. At the same time, I had an amazing other world, and my other world was the world of make-believe and pretend, which I got to participate in on the soaps, with happy families and Christmases, Easters, miracles, love, weddings, and children. The pretend world that I spent a large amount of time in became a great way to balance what was sort of tragic in my real life.”Our guest today is Cady McClain. You probably know her from her long and celebrated career in daytime television. She is a three-time Emmy® Award-winning actress. She plays Pamela Curtis on CBS' Beyond the Gates, and is the Artistic Director of Axial Theatre, and her directorial work includes the documentary, Seeing is Believing: Women Direct, a fascinating look at the challenges and triumphs of women behind the camera. Her memoir, Murdering My Youth, is an honest and sometimes difficult book about growing up as a child actor in the spotlight. Her work across all these different art forms—acting, directing, writing, art, and music—all seems to be connected by a commitment to telling true stories, no matter how complicated. www.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Abolishing Silicon Valley means freeing the development of technology from a system that will always relegate it to a subordinate role, that of entrenching existing power relations. It means designing a new system that isn't deluged in the logic of the bucket. It means liberating our worlds from the illegitimate ring of capital. Perhaps this sounds unfair to capital. Perhaps I sound like I'm not grateful enough for everything that capital has given us, but we don't owe capital anything; the things we attribute to capital were built by workers.People can labor and sometimes die in a process. Their contributions are unrecognized in death as in life. So don't thank capital. It doesn't deserve our gratitude, and it doesn't need it. Thank the people who created everything that capital always takes credit for. Capital is a means of accounting for wealth ownership, not its creation. And that means it's perpetually shrouded in a fundamental untruth; we can leap the swamp of capital behind and start over with something new. “In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Wendy Liu. Ever since its publication, Abolish Silicon Valley—How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism has proven to be more urgent and insightful. Today, he talks with author Wendy Liu about how developments like AI and LLM, further erosions of intellectual property, and increased invasions of privacy make the case for abolishing Silicon Valley even more important. They talk about how abolition is critical at a time when more and more the private sector has come to eviscerate the public good. Turning to the genocide in Gaza, they discuss the ways Capital has enlisted technology in deadly and horrific manners. They end with a meditation on the commons and how one can live with fewer commodities and find value in common projects to make life more valuable and worthwhile outside of the logic of the market.Wendy Liu is the author of Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology From Capitalism, a memoir/manifesto about the tech industry from the perspective of a former believer. She lives in San Francisco and is working on a novel.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

“For us, I think it really is about trust and commitments, and I don't think that has necessarily changed over the years. As we work on that, obviously, we are very much invested in how we can engage an audience and spark the curiosity that people are looking for. The most important thing often is how we can spark that curiosity in ourselves. As a way of working, which I think is the most important framework for an institution, the institution should constantly want to learn and evolve, and it isn't a static place. Particularly coming from the opportunity of not being a collecting institution, we are ever-evolving and ever-changing.”Nicola Lees is truly pushing the boundaries of what a museum can be. Since 2020, she has been director of the Aspen Art Museum, a non-collecting, artist-founded institution dedicated to experimentation and supporting the most innovative voices in contemporary art. Under her direction, the AAM has just unveiled an ambitious, decade-long initiative called AIR Aspen. From July 26–August 1, 2025, AIR isn't just another program; it's the first artist-led global summit, a bold undertaking that will bring together artists, cultural leaders, policymakers, and influencers for yearly talks, performances, workshops, and an annual retreat. It's designed to explore the profound role of art in addressing the big questions of our time, from AI to how we relate to one another. The inaugural theme, "Life As No One Knows It," promises to be a deeply engaging exploration of what it means to be alive in an era of rapid technological and environmental change, and it will feature an extraordinary roster of creatives whose work transcends traditional disciplines, including Francis Kéré, Paul Chan, Aria Dean, Glenn Ligon, and Maya Lin.Before her tenure in Aspen, Nicola Lees made her mark as the director and curator of New York University's 80WSE and as a curator for Frieze Projects at Frieze London. Today, we'll delve into her philosophy of art, leadership, and the transformative power of this new initiative.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“It's a complicated time to think about how we can slow down, be still, and bring a brilliant group of people together to do something that feels purposeful and can be productive. It's a moment where things are moving so fast. When I brought up the idea of a hinge generation, I think it's impossible to know how we will look back and reflect on this time and these moments. We are very invested in enabling people to build new relationships. What we've found from these past gatherings in Aspen is that those are the things people still talk about from 40, 50, or 60 years ago. You were also asking about a relationship with the environment. I think Maya Lin, who is coming to give a keynote lecture, is someone who is very invested in that conversation. We are also working with the Serpentine Gallery and Hans Ulrich Obrist on the keynote lectures. Francis Kéré is also coming to talk about the sustainability of his architectural practice and how that navigates the world differently. We're also working with Storefront for Architecture, who have done this brilliant swamp project for the last two years. This year, there is a real emphasis on the relationship between the question we have posed for the retreat, which is fundamentally about our relationship with technology and identifying our relationship with the world and how we want to be present in the moment.Nicola Lees is truly pushing the boundaries of what a museum can be. Since 2020, she has been director of the Aspen Art Museum, a non-collecting, artist-founded institution dedicated to experimentation and supporting the most innovative voices in contemporary art. Under her direction, the AAM has just unveiled an ambitious, decade-long initiative called AIR Aspen. From July 26–August 1, 2025, AIR isn't just another program; it's the first artist-led global summit, a bold undertaking that will bring together artists, cultural leaders, policymakers, and influencers for yearly talks, performances, workshops, and an annual retreat. It's designed to explore the profound role of art in addressing the big questions of our time, from AI to how we relate to one another. The inaugural theme, "Life As No One Knows It," promises to be a deeply engaging exploration of what it means to be alive in an era of rapid technological and environmental change, and it will feature an extraordinary roster of creatives whose work transcends traditional disciplines, including Francis Kéré, Paul Chan, Aria Dean, Glenn Ligon, and Maya Lin.Before her tenure in Aspen, Nicola Lees made her mark as the director and curator of New York University's 80WSE and as a curator for Frieze Projects at Frieze London. Today, we'll delve into her philosophy of art, leadership, and the transformative power of this new initiative.“For us, I think it really is about trust and commitments, and I don't think that has necessarily changed over the years. As we work on that, obviously, we are very much invested in how we can engage an audience and spark the curiosity that people are looking for. The most important thing often is how we can spark that curiosity in ourselves. As a way of working, which I think is the most important framework for an institution, the institution should constantly want to learn and evolve, and it isn't a static place. Particularly coming from the opportunity of not being a collecting institution, we are ever-evolving and ever-changing.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I guess the book was about giving hope because I realized how much we could do together. I believe that ordinary people are the ones bringing changes here. I believe that the communities gathering together – for example, I am seeing that in this country around the protection of rivers – are the ones that will mark the change. It's not going to come from above; it's going to come from below, up. We all have a role. Working for the protection of what we love the most will make you happy. So get into a positive mindset. Learn all you can. Be part of things that make you feel positive. You will see how you will find your way, and there is no place for feeling disempowered. This is the moment where you should feel very powerful because it is us who are going to make the future of this Earth.”Monica Feria-Tinta is a British-Peruvian barrister specialising in Public International Law. She has been called one of ‘the most daring, innovative and creative lawyers' in the United Kingdom, and was shortlisted for “Barrister of the Year” at The Lawyers' Awards 2020 and at Chambers and Partners UK Bar Awards 2023 for her work in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. In 2020, she acted before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador in Los Cedros case, the first ‘Rights of Nature' case in the world. In September 2022 her work as Counsel secured a win in the Torres Strait Islanders case, a landmark moment in which the UN Human Rights Committee found a Sovereign state responsible, for the first time in history, for lack of action in addressing climate change. She is the author of A Barrister for the Earth: Ten Cases of Hope for Our Future.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“From my perspective, it just seemed like a way to terrorize a neighborhood and intimidate the people living there, and intimidate the city in a way that they've been trying to accomplish for the last six weeks, and it wasn't fun. So were there orders? There were no orders to disperse.”Last week, over 100 agents from nine federal agencies stormed a bucolic public park in Los Angeles, claiming it was a hotbed of terrorism and lawlessness. In fact, heavily armed soldiers in camouflage found a group of young children attending a summer camp. This was a show of force meant to intimidate, shock, and awe, but just like Trump's military parade in Washington, DC, it ended up pathetic and farcical. In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with longtime journalist Mel Buer, who was at MacArthur Park and witnessed this sad spectacle. We talk about what she saw and how is simply part of a recent history of attacks on mostly brown people. We get Mel's thoughts on both the broader national context, and how local people and longstanding immigrant's rights groups are resisting and fighting back.Mel Buer is an LA-based independent journalist covering labor, social movements, and community organizing. www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

 “I think one must frame what happened in Iran recently in the context of what is happening in the larger Middle East, which is that Israel and the United States principally are orchestrating a kind of regional shift in their power that can only be seen in light of what happened, and it continues to happen in Gaza and the wider Palestinian Territories, which is that Israel is, by virtue of signaling an aggressive move towards Iran, suggesting that it will continue unabated to exercise its will throughout the region, and that it also is interested in destroying Iranian support for Palestinian rights in the region.”Today on Speaking Out of Place with David Palumbo-Liu, we have a special episode on Israeli attacks on Iran that resulted in 12 days of bombings and culminated with the US dropping bunker bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. Scholars and activists Persis Karim and Manijeh Moradian discuss both the Iranian national issues involved as well as the regional context, connecting this war with the genocide in Gaza and Israel's extensive wars elsewhere. At stake is both Iranian sovereignty and the calls for so-called “regime change.” We question the use of that term, delve into how the struggle for liberation in Iran rejects both the repressive Islamic state and the US/Israeli war machine. Our discussion draws the frightening parallels between Iran's stifling of dissent and imprisonment of political enemies and others with our own government's. Finally, we recall the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and build hope for international solidarity with groups working for liberation in Iran, Palestine, and elsewhere, and insist liberation will never be achieved by dropping bombs.Persis Karim is the director emeritus of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies and a professor in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers.Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States, was published by Duke University Press in December 2022.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with M. E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi about their dazzling and challenging book, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052 to 2072. They imagine a world haunted by genocide, ecocide, disease, fascism, and viral capitalism, but rather than writing a dystopian novel, O'Brien and Abdelhadi create a complex mosaic of oral histories, in which they each play the part of interviewer. The result is a story that far exceeds New York, and the twenty years noted in the title. The histories cover generations across the globe, and reach into the deep sources of trauma, and the kinds of mutual care we will need to not only survive, but also to thrive in these frightening times.Eman Abdelhadiis an academic, organizer and writer based in Chicago. She is co-author of "Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072," a revolutionary sci-fi novel published in 2022 with Common Notions Press. She is an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago, where she researches American Muslim communities, and she is a columnist at In These Times magazine where she writes on the Palestine Liberation movement and American politics. Eman organizes with the Salon Kawakib collective, Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine at the University of Chicago, Scholars for Social Justice, and other formations.M. E. O'Brien writes and speaks on gender freedom and capitalism. She has written two books: Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care (Pluto Press, 2023) and a co-authored speculative novel, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 (Common Notions, 2022). She is a member of the editorial collective of Pinko, a magazine of gay communism. Her work on family abolition has been translated into Chinese, German, Greek, French, Spanish, Catalan, and Turkish. Previously, she coordinated the New York City Trans Oral History Project, and worked in HIV and AIDS activism and services. She completed a PhD at NYU, where she wrote on how capitalism shaped New York City LGBTQ social movements. She currently works a psychotherapist in private practice and is a psychoanalyst in formation.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

“I like young people to know that they're extremely powerful. So I'm one person, but I think I always had this positive idea about my role. You cannot let anyone tell you what limitations are there, so you shouldn't feel limited by anyone telling you this is as far as you can go, or this is what you can do. I think only you know about that, and I think you start step by step. When I did the first case, I learned some things. Then was the next case. When the time to learn comes, learn with all your might because that's gold. It's a moment in life when you have the time to actually do that. Get informed. People who are into Googling everything should open up their searches, go out there, and learn in a different way. Don't hold back.I guess the book was about giving hope because I realized how much we could do together. If a person can manage to argue and make a major impact in the way we are understanding treaties in human rights or other things, imagine what could be if every single person is in their own place in some field, with that alertness and synced in the same way. I believe that ordinary people are the ones bringing changes here. I believe that the communities gathering together – for example, I am seeing that in this country around the protection of rivers – are the ones that will mark the change. It's not going to come from above; it's going to come from below, up. And that means all of us. We all have a role.To the young people, I would say you have the right to joy, and you have the right to be happy. Working for the protection of what we love the most will make you happy. So get into a positive mindset. Learn all you can. Be part of things that make you feel positive. You will see how you will find your way, and there is no place for feeling disempowered. This is the moment where you should feel very powerful because it is us who are going to make the future of this Earth.”Monica Feria-Tinta is a British-Peruvian barrister specialising in Public International Law. She has been called one of ‘the most daring, innovative and creative lawyers' in the United Kingdom, and was shortlisted for “Barrister of the Year” at The Lawyers' Awards 2020 and at Chambers and Partners UK Bar Awards 2023 for her work in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. In 2020, she acted before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador in Los Cedros case, the first ‘Rights of Nature' case in the world. In September 2022 her work as Counsel secured a win in the Torres Strait Islanders case, a landmark moment in which the UN Human Rights Committee found a Sovereign state responsible, for the first time in history, for lack of action in addressing climate change. She is the author of A Barrister for the Earth: Ten Cases of Hope for Our Future.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“ It's a really dangerous time we're living through, and I do think that when we talk about these progressive policies, a huge problem in the US is that we still have a lot of stigma left over from the Cold War that keeps us from really great ideas because they're branded as socialist or communist. And I've seen, in the time I've been a journalist for the past 15 years, how that stigma has slowly faded. And you see that younger people are more and more interested in these ideas, whether or not they're considered socialist.”Natasha Hakimi Zapata is an award-winning journalist, translator, and university lecturer based in Europe. She is the author of Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America From Around the Globe. Her articles appear regularly in The Nation, In These Times, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the former foreign editor of Truthdig and has received several Southern California Journalism and National Arts & Entertainment Journalism awards, most recently in 2024 for her work as a foreign correspondent.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

What happens when the state, with the pretext of protecting public safety, can detain indefinitely certain individuals whose dreams seem to indicate they may be capable of committing a crime? Set in a precarious world where sleep-enhancing devices and algorithms provide the tools and formulae for making one's unconscious a witness to one's possible waking life, this novel touches on a myriad of political, philosophical, and moral concerns as they particularly connect to issues of gender, race, ethnicity, privacy, and the security state.In this episode of Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with award-winning novelist Laila Lalami about her new novel, The Dream Hotel. Laila Lalami is the author of five books, including The Moor's Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston / Wright Legacy Award. It was on the longlist for the Booker Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, was a national bestseller, won the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. Her books have been translated into twenty languages. Her essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, Harper's, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She lives in Los Angeles.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_placeEpisode WebsitePhoto credit: Beowulf Sheehan

“I would encourage you, as I do if you're an actor, to know your own equipment, know your own psychology, and use the great teachers that are synthesized in my favorite teacher's book, Moss, who I studied with later. There is a book called Intent to Live that distills down Uta Hagen, Stella Adler, Bobby Lewis, and Stanislavski. The great teachers at the Group Theatre believed that the method needed to be altered to be constructive rather than destructive to artists.David Milch's mind is so singular because he uses language in a way that defines character. That's what all good writers do: use language to get to the heart of something. He would use malapropisms to make up words, and Milch loved playing with that. As someone who played the love interest of such a unique character as Andy Sipowicz, I found it fascinating.Through Sylvia and David Milch's understanding, his wife humanized him. Sipowicz was portrayed as an addict, a very flawed human who had many addictions. David Milch is now suffering from Alzheimer's, so we won't get his words again. However, the words that he has to offer are timeless because he studied Robert Penn Warren and had many mentors throughout his vast literary education. That is key. I love speaking Noël Coward's words. As a bon vivant, he wrote musically, to charm us and amuse us. So going and reading Noël Coward is important for actors to learn those cadences and the musicality of a certain era. Of course, Shakespeare comes to mind. I also think of the female playwrights who delight me now, whether it's Caryl Churchill. She has that singular mind and plays with gender so well, challenging gender norms. Seeing ‘Cloud Nine' when I was in college blew my mind open because men were playing women and women were playing men. Of course, Shakespeare was doing it too, but her work felt more intimate; it was in a small theater. That's another thing I encourage actors and audiences to do: go see things in small theaters. See it up close because that will excite you and help you learn the craft.”Sharon Lawrence is an acclaimed actress best known for her Emmy-nominated, SAG Award-winning role as ADA Sylvia Costas on NYPD Blue. She has delivered memorable performances in Desperate Housewives, Monk, Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, Shameless, and Queen Sugar. On stage, she's earned praise for roles in The Shot (a one-woman play about the owner/publisher of the Washington Post, Katharine Graham), Orson's Shadow, and A Song at Twilight. Shestarred in Broadway revivals of Cabaret, Chicago, and Fiddler on the Roof. Her recent work includes the neo-Western series Joe Pickett, opposite Michael Dorman, and the films Solace with Anthony Hopkins and The Bridge Partner. Lawrence is also a dedicated advocate, serving on the boards of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, WeForShe, and Heal the Bay, and is a former Chair of the Women In Film Foundation.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram@sharonelawrence@creativeprocesspodcast

“That transformation was key to my next step as an artist, to knowing that's what acting is. It isn't just posing; it isn't just being a version of yourself in a way that was free. Performing wasn't just performing; it was transforming. I think that artists find that in many different ways, and as actors, there are many ways into that.I would encourage you, as I do if you're an actor, to know your own equipment, know your own psychology, and use the great teachers that are synthesized in my favorite teacher's book, Moss, who I studied with later. There is a book called Intent to Live that distills down Uta Hagen, Stella Adler, Bobby Lewis, and Stanislavski. The great teachers at the Group Theatre believed that the method needed to be altered to be constructive rather than destructive to artists.David Milch's mind is so singular because he uses language in a way that defines character. That's what all good writers do: use language to get to the heart of something. He would use malapropisms to make up words, and Milch loved playing with that. As someone who played the love interest of such a unique character as Andy Sipowicz, I found it fascinating.Through Sylvia and David Milch's understanding, his wife humanized him. Sipowicz was portrayed as an addict, a very flawed human who had many addictions. David Milch is now suffering from Alzheimer's, so we won't get his words again. However, the words that he has to offer are timeless because he studied Robert Penn Warren and had many mentors throughout his vast literary education. That is key. I love speaking Noël Coward's words. As a bon vivant, he wrote musically, to charm us and amuse us. So going and reading Noël Coward is important for actors to learn those cadences and the musicality of a certain era. Of course, Shakespeare comes to mind. I also think of the female playwrights who delight me now, whether it's Caryl Churchill. She has that singular mind and plays with gender so well, challenging gender norms. Seeing ‘Cloud Nine' when I was in college blew my mind open because men were playing women and women were playing men. Of course, Shakespeare was doing it too, but her work felt more intimate; it was in a small theater. That's another thing I encourage actors and audiences to do: go see things in small theaters. See it up close because that will excite you and help you learn the craft.”Sharon Lawrence is an acclaimed actress best known for her Emmy-nominated, SAG Award-winning role as ADA Sylvia Costas on NYPD Blue. She has delivered memorable performances in Desperate Housewives, Monk, Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, Shameless, and Queen Sugar. On stage, she's earned praise for roles in The Shot (a one-woman play about the owner/publisher of the Washington Post, Katharine Graham), Orson's Shadow, and A Song at Twilight. Shestarred in Broadway revivals of Cabaret, Chicago, and Fiddler on the Roof. Her recent work includes the neo-Western series Joe Pickett, opposite Michael Dorman, and the films Solace with Anthony Hopkins and The Bridge Partner. Lawrence is also a dedicated advocate, serving on the boards of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, WeForShe, and Heal the Bay, and is a former Chair of the Women In Film Foundation.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram@sharonelawrence@creativeprocesspodcast

“I think that it all goes back to childhood. I've always really been writing about family. I suppose we always are. I do think that it is the original wound, and it's where we are kind of wired and built from those early years. So I think every other relationship just replicates that. It's very natural for me to go there, I suppose because the feelings are most intense there. We just keep recycling these relationships and dynamics over and over again—until maybe someday we can catch ourselves and try to break the bad patterns. It feels the most visceral and real to me, always. You're always looking for that in writing. You want everything to be at this peak intensity, or at least I do. That seems the most natural place to start.I've thought about that a lot while writing the book. We really are in the age of the grifter, as they keep saying. In some ways, it's the most deeply American type, the hustler of American aspiration. And money, I think that was hovering in my head when I wrote the book. How women persuade and convince one another of things feels particularly complex to me. I think there are so many layers to female relationships. That was really interesting to me to pursue because, in some ways, it's much more veiled and complex. So I tend to write about groups of women a lot, regardless of the field, but particularly the way they communicate or don't communicate, or communicate without words to one another, is an ongoing fascination of mine.”Megan Abbott is the Edgar award-winning author of twelve crime novels, including Beware the Woman, You Will Know Me, Give Me Your Hand, and the New York Times bestseller The Turnout, the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Paris Review and the Wall Street Journal. Dare Me, the series she adapted from her own novel, now streaming on Netflix. Her latest novel, El Dorado Drive, is available June 24, 2025.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I always say to young writers, you need to put your heart on the page. Don't worry about being like anyone else. I would say that foremost, in any of the arts, it is self-expression at its core. I don't buy rules or a set criteria or a static criteria. I don't believe in any of that. I think the most exciting talents are kind of inexplicable. You can't really understand why that art works. It just does, and that feels like it comes from a very pure place.I think that it all goes back to childhood. I've always really been writing about family. I suppose we always are. I do think that it is the original wound, and it's where we are kind of wired and built from those early years. So I think every other relationship just replicates that. It's very natural for me to go there, I suppose because the feelings are most intense there. We just keep recycling these relationships and dynamics over and over again—until maybe someday we can catch ourselves and try to break the bad patterns. It feels the most visceral and real to me, always. You're always looking for that in writing. You want everything to be at this peak intensity, or at least I do. That seems the most natural place to start.”Megan Abbott is the Edgar award-winning author of twelve crime novels, including Beware the Woman, You Will Know Me, Give Me Your Hand, and the New York Times bestseller The Turnout, the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Paris Review and the Wall Street Journal. Dare Me, the series she adapted from her own novel, now streaming on Netflix. Her latest novel, El Dorado Drive, is available June 24, 2025.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“The more that you have that evolving relationship with the natural world, that's dynamic and alive to the moment you're in, and that's not afraid of the feelings of fear, hopelessness, grief, or pain that attend paying close attention to the world as it is evolving around you, the better we are able to be flexible in the relationship we need to form with fixing what we can and holding onto what we have. The more we rely on that black-and-white thinking of either being in grief or being out of it, where we have a loss and we have to move on, or we don't and we're fine. The more that happens, the more difficult it is to flow into what we really need in terms of emotional flexibility to get through the staggering changes that are starting to happen regarding climate issues.”Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion,Guernica, The LA Review of Books, Al Jazeera, and the anthology Elementals. She has received a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and a 3Arts Make a Wave grant. Her work includes her memoir The Mourner's Bestiary, the short film Becoming Oceanthatshe made with Scott Foley, and her novel All the Water in the World.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“We are in a complex and delicately balanced relationship of connection to everything else on the planet. We begin to recognize, write into, and speak into the complex interdependence and interconnection of every gesture that we make on the planet. Most storytelling that I really respond to, whether it's from my own culture or from previous civilizations, acknowledges that we are in this complex relationship where every gesture we make is connected to the lives of every other creature on the planet. The more narratives we allow to be complex in that way and interconnected, the more we begin to change our brain chemistry around how we protect ourselves and everything that is in relation to us. The more that you have that evolving relationship with it, that's dynamic and alive to the moment you're in, and that's not afraid of the feelings of fear, hopelessness, grief, or pain that attend paying close attention to the world as it is evolving around you, the better we are able to be flexible in the relationship we need to form with fixing what we can and holding onto what we have.”Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, Guernica, The LA Review of Books, Al Jazeera, and the anthology Elementals. She has received a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and a 3Arts Make a Wave grant. Her work includes her memoir The Mourner's Bestiary, the short film Becoming Ocean that she made with Scott Foley, and her novel All the Water in the World.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I think that it's almost like in some ways the specificity of Palestine also becomes kind of a universality, where you can stay in this specific example because there is something about this experience that makes it specific, right? It's happening because it's been sanctioned to happen in this way. Right? Because you can't slaughter tens of thousands of people without consequence unless you have made those people less than people. Unless there has been a very effective project of dehumanization that's been carried out against the people that are being killed.I think, in some ways, this memoir was a project of sifting through and excavating the darkest hours, both for me and for the lineage and ancestry that I came from. I think the darkest hours were experienced by so many people I come from who have had to leave places they didn't want to leave. I live in exile and have been forced to leave behind houses, land, cities, and people. Oftentimes, this has happened more than once in a lifetime, so they have carried that trauma. Of course, it plays out intergenerationally in many different ways.”Hala Alyan is the author of the memoir I'll Tell You When I'm Home, the novels Salt Houses—winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize—and The Arsonists' City, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Moon That Turns You Back. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her family, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I want to live a life of consequence, and I want to live a life that has stakes in it because that means that things matter to you. I think, in some ways, this memoir was a project of sifting through and excavating the darkest hours, both for me and for the lineage and ancestry that I came from. I think the darkest hours were experienced by so many people I come from who have had to leave places they didn't want to leave. I live in exile and have been forced to leave behind houses, land, cities, and people. Oftentimes, this has happened more than once in a lifetime, so they have carried that trauma. Of course, it plays out intergenerationally in many different ways.I think it's a time of fear. I don't think I'm alone in that. I am scared for people that I love. I am scared for people who are quite vulnerable. I worry for my students. I am concerned for the places that I feel are engaging in complicity because that will be such a heavy legacy to endure later on, how people, places, and entities comport themselves in moments like this. They will be remembered. There will always be people who remember it.”Hala Alyan is the author of the memoir I'll Tell You When I'm Home, the novels Salt Houses—winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize—and The Arsonists' City, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Moon That Turns You Back. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her family, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I want to draw the similarities with alien life, and we have these questions. They're the same questions that we would be asking if we could get a sample from Europa or if we could get a sample from Mars. I think the parallels are partly in how we study them. They're teaching us how to look for strange life, but then they're also teaching us about what's possible with life, and they're so close to the edge of what is and isn't life that it really helps us to sort of — I don't know. I don't know where to draw that line personally, but they at least show us that that line is maybe closer to non-life than we would have thought, than I would have thought.”Karen G. Lloyd is the Wrigley Chair in Environmental Studies and Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California. Her work has appeared in leading publications such as Nature and Science. She is the author of Intraterrestrials: Discovering the Strangest Life on Earth.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“It's really changed my view of what life is. So many of the things that we attribute to the trappings of life look like requirements, like oxygen and sunlight. All the things that humans would absolutely die without — they're not really necessary for life. Studying these things sort of breaks down what is necessary; what are the things that life has to have?”Karen G. Lloyd is the Wrigley Chair in Environmental Studies and Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California. Her work has appeared in leading publications such as Nature and Science. She is the author of Intraterrestrials: Discovering the Strangest Life on Earth.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I think income inequality really greatly contributes to the rage that people might feel, even as some Americans won't. What don't recognize that a more communal society might benefit them. What they see instead is, why don't I have what that person has? Something's getting in my way. And it's not a lack of, of community, it's: somebody else is keeping me down, you know? And that's, I think that's a theme that emerges in The God of the Woods.I think there's a certain thread in American history of, like, individualism at all costs. The Van Laars named their house Self-reliance, which is a testament to the idea that they, I think, falsely believe themselves to have, have created their own power, their own capital, their own wealth, and ignore the fact that it's really the labor of the working class community around them- that, and of the people of Albany who've invested their money in the Van Laars Bank - that that really contributed to the acquisition of this enormous wealth that they now have and this enormous power that they now have.”Liz Moore is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Long Bright River, which was one of Barack Obama's favorite books of the year, and has been made into a Peacock series starring Amanda Seyfried. Set against the opioid crisis and a string of mysterious murders, it's a love story between two very different sisters and their path to recovery. Moore is winner of the 2014-2015 Rome Prize in Literature. Her other books include The God of the Woods, Heft, and The Unseen World.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“ I've lived in Philadelphia for about 16 years.  The book itself was inspired by my time spent in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia interviewing a lot of the people that I met there, both longtime residents of the neighborhood and also people who were transient,  a lot of people struggling with addiction and a lot of women doing sex work to fund their  physical addiction to opioids. You find out about their past,  their road into addiction, their aspirations, their fears.  I began to lead free writing workshops at an organization named St. Francis Inn, which is a longstanding food service organization in the community. They had a women's day shelter where I taught.  I was really able to connect with people within the community on a quite personal level and loved my experiences in Kensington. And I still go, I'm still quite close with a number of the community workers, people who run free healthcare clinics. All of it ultimately informed the writing of Long Bright River.”Liz Moore is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Long Bright River, which was one of Barack Obama's favorite books of the year, and has been made into a Peacock series starring Amanda Seyfried. Set against the opioid crisis and a string of mysterious murders, it's a love story between two very different sisters and their path to recovery. Moore is winner of the 2014-2015 Rome Prize in Literature. Her other books include The God of the Woods, Heft, and The Unseen World.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“This novel is the third in what I see as a little set of books that all feature unnamed female protagonists who have experienced varying degrees of passivity and agency in their lives. They're all women who speak the words of other people.”Katie Kitamura is the author five novels, most recently Audition and Intimacies, which was named one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021, longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a finalist for a Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, fellowships from the Cullman Center and the Lannan Foundation, and many other honors. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I'm really interested in the formal aspect of characters who are channeling language, who are speaking the words of other people, and in characters who are aware of how little agency they actually have, who have passivity forced upon them, who perhaps even embrace their passivity to a certain extent but eventually seek out where they can enact their agency.”Katie Kitamura is the author five novels, most recently Audition and Intimacies, which was named one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021, longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a finalist for a Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, fellowships from the Cullman Center and the Lannan Foundation, and many other honors. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“When I first started writing this book, it really foregrounded the problems within our land ownership system, which treats land as a commodity. The way we talk about land and issues like racial and food justice reflects this. We tend to focus on the problems, attaching big concepts to them, such as racial justice or environmental justice. I realized that my job primarily consists of going around and talking to activists and community groups about their work. I'm interested not just in the very big problems we face as a society, economy, and political system, but also in how people are trying to think through solutions or approaches to those problems.Audrea Lim is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and journalist whose work focuses on land, energy, and the environment. Her writing has appeared in TheNew Yorker, Harper's, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and The Nation. Lim is the editor of The World We Need and the author of Free The Land: How We Can Fight Poverty and Climate Chaos. She is a visiting scholar at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University and was a 2022 Macdowell fellow.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast@audrea_limThe music on this episode is “Snowball” from the album Sunken Cities, performed by Audrea Lim and her band Odd Rumblings.

Why is there so much conflict over people, land, and resources? How can we rethink capitalism and land ownership to create a fairer, more equitable society?Audrea Lim is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and journalist whose work focuses on land, energy, and the environment. Her writing has appeared in TheNew Yorker, Harper's, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and The Nation. Lim is the editor of The World We Need and the author of Free The Land: How We Can Fight Poverty and Climate Chaos. She is a visiting scholar at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University and was a 2022 Macdowell fellow.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast@audrea_limThe music on this episode is “Snowball” from the album Sunken Cities, performed by Audrea Lim and her band Odd Rumblings.

How has feminism changed in light of the way we live now?DEAN SPADE (Author of Love in a F*cked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up & Raise Hell Together) on recognizing political conditions in personal relationships.MARILYN MINTER (Artist, Feminist) on sexual agency, beauty & her creative process.TEY MEADOW (Author of Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century) on the necessity of creating an inclusive environment & argues that diverse storytelling is crucial for healthy development.ELLEN RAPOPORT (Creator, Exec. Producer of Minx) on the evolution of feminism, the divides that emerged in the 70s over pornography & sex work.LAURA EASON (Emmy-nominated Producer, Screenwriter · Three Women, House of Cards) on the significance of representing ordinary women's experiences.SHARMEEN OBAID-CHINOY (Oscar & Emmy-winning Director of Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge · Forthcoming Star Wars film) on the legacy of von Furstenberg.SARA AHMED (Author, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook) reclaims the stereotypes, calling for solidarity among feminists.INTAN PARAMADITHA (Author, The Wandering) reflects on the importance of intergenerational knowledge among women.DIAN HANSON (Editor) on participating in the sex-positive movements of the 1960s to creating niche fetish magazines.KATE MUETH (Neo-Political Cowgirls Founder) on the importance of finding meaning in creative work, community & storytelling in human experience.Listen to full interviewsEpisode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podIG:@creativeprocesspodcast

In this episode on the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liutalks with Tao Leigh Goffe about her new, magisterial Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis. Spanning many fields and disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, the humanities, and the arts, Professor Goffe weaves together a historically rich and geographically complex picture of how capitalism and racism undergird the climate crisis in ways made invisible or benign via the work of the west's “dark laboratory.” Writing back through accounts of indigenous bird watching and Black provisional grounds, we talk about things as seemingly different as the massive guano industry built on Chinese and Indian labor in the 19th century to Malcolm X's boyhood vegetable garden in Michigan. We talk in particular about one of the key passages of Dark Laboratory, where Tao writes:“Still, we manage to create a poetics out of that which wishes to destroy us and the planet. How else will we be able to live in ‘the after'? We must reassess what a problem is. Living is not a problem, as Audrey Lorde reminds us. I would add that dying is not a problem either. Decomposing is essential to the natural order and cycle of life. Living at the expense of others is a problem.”Tao Leigh Goffe is a writer, theorist, and interdisciplinary artist who grew up between the UK and New York City. For the past fifteen years she has specialized in colonial histories of race, geology, climate, and media technologies. Dr. Goffe lives and works in Manhattan where she is an Associate Professor at CUNY in Black Studies. She teaches classes on literary theory and cultural history. Dr. Goffe's book on how the climate crisis is a racial crisis is called DARK LABORATORY (Doubleday and Hamish Hamilton (Penguin UK, 2025). Her second book BLACK CAPITAL, CHINESE DEBT, under contract with Duke University Press, presents a long history of racialization, modern finance, and indebtedness. It brings together subjects of the Atlantic and Pacific markets from 1806 to the present under European colonialism. Dr. Goffe is a fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School in racial justice. Her research explores Black diasporic intellectual histories, political, and ecological life. She studied English literature at Princeton University before earning her PhD at Yale University. Dr. Goffe's research and curatorial work is rooted in literatures and theories of labor that center Black feminist engagements with Indigeneity and Asian diasporic racial formations. Committed to building intellectual communities beyond institutions, she is the founder of the Dark Laboratory, an engine for the study of race, technology, and ecology through digital storytelling. Dr. Goffe is also the Executive Director of the Afro-Asia Group, an organization that centers the intersections of African and Asian diasporas, futurity, and radical coalition towards sovereignty. www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

JULIE ANDREWS (Oscar, Tony & Pulitzer Prize-winning Actress & Singer · The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins) Andrews shares her experience working on Mary Poppins, revealing behind-the-scenes secrets about the character. She reminisces about her collaboration with Walt Disney and Tony Walton.ETGAR KERET (Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director & Author) Keret discusses the profound impact of his parents' survival stories from the Holocaust on his work. He explores how extreme human experiences can lead to extraordinary resilience and creativity,JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY (Oscar, Tony & Pulitzer Prize-winning Writer/Director · Doubt, Moonstruck, Joe Versus the Volcano) Shanley highlights the invaluable lessons and life experiences gained from his time in the Marine Corps. He emphasizes the significance of diverse interactions and communal living, underscoring how these experiences shape both his artistic vision and societal views.JOY GORMAN WETTELS (Exec. Producer of 13 Reasons Why, UnPrisoned · Founder of Joy Coalition) Joy Gorman Wettels reflects on her theatrical upbringing and the influence of her mother's passion for Sondheim and Neil Simon. She shares touching memories of the LGBTQ+ community in her life and how these early experiences cultivated her love for storytelling and community theater.PAUL SCHRADER (Screenwriter/Director · Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, First Reformed) Schrader analyzes the lasting impact of Taxi Driver on his work. He details his technique of immersing the audience into the protagonist's perspective and psychology.CHAYSE IRVIN (Award-winning Cinematographer · Blonde starring Ana de Armas · Beyonce: Lemonade · Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman) Irvin discusses using mise-en-scène to represent characters' psychological states.MANUEL BILLETER (Cinematographer · The Gilded Age · Inventing Anna · Jessica Jones · Luke Cage) Billeter recounts his early inspirations from masters like Fellini and Antonioni and his invaluable learning experiences while working alongside Alfonso Cuarón.To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInsta:@creativeprocesspodcast

In this episode of Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson on their new book, We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition. They talk about what inspired them to commission a wide range of amazing activists, artists, scholars, and organizers to write whatever came to their minds about the topic of parenting and abolition. The result is a rich mosaic of unique insights expressed in diverse forms, but each one touching deeply on the interdependency of living beings and the importance of caregiving in all its forms. It is this commitment that leads us always to imagine an abolitionist future for ourselves, and all children.Maya Schenwar is Truthout's editor-in-chief, author of Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better, and co-editor of Who Do You Serve, Who Do you Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States. Kim Wilson is an artist, educator, writer, and organizer. She is the co-founder, cohost, and producer of Beyond Prisons, a podcast on incarceration and prison abolition. A social scientist by training, Dr. Wilson has a PhD in Urban Affairs and Public Policy, and her work focuses on examining the interconnected functioning of systems, including poverty, racism, ableism, and heteropatriarchy, within a carceral structure. Her work delves into the extension and expansion of these systems beyond their physical manifestations of cages and fences, to reveal how carcerality is imbued in policy and practice. She explores how these systems synergize to exacerbate the challenges faced by under-resourced communities, revealing a deliberate intention to undermine and further marginalize vulnerable populations.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

“In reality, we're all complex people with feelings and our own sets of baggage. I do think we are very good at self-sabotage, all of us. It's a very easy road to go down. It's safe because it's comfortable, and we know it. When you can find the ways you self-sabotage and try to stop that, it will hopefully lead to a happier life and things that are meaningful. When I was in my late twenties, I got out of a serious relationship and kind of reentered the dating scene. I was shocked by the simplification of a lot of complicated feelings around dating and how women are so easily labeled crazy, and men are so easily labeled assholes.”Sophie Brooks is a London-born, Brooklyn-based writer and director. Her sophomore feature Oh, Hi! premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Her debut film, The Boy Downstairs, was acquired by Film Rise and HBO at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was produced by David Brooks, Paul Brooks, and Dan Clifton and stars Zosia Mamet, Matthew Shear, and Diana Irvine.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

 ​What is love? How do the relationships we have early in our lives affect us for years to come? How can we break free from cycles of damage to form relationships of mutual understanding, respect, and love?Sophie Brooks is a London-born, Brooklyn-based writer and director. Her sophomore feature Oh, Hi! premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Her debut film, The Boy Downstairs, was acquired by Film Rise and HBO at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was produced by David Brooks, Paul Brooks, and Dan Clifton and stars Zosia Mamet, Matthew Shear, and Diana Irvine.“In reality, we're all complex people with feelings and our own sets of baggage. I do think we are very good at self-sabotage, all of us. It's a very easy road to go down. It's safe because it's comfortable, and we know it. When you can find the ways you self-sabotage and try to stop that, it will hopefully lead to a happier life and things that are meaningful. When I was in my late twenties, I got out of a serious relationship and kind of reentered the dating scene. I was shocked by the simplification of a lot of complicated feelings around dating and how women are so easily labeled crazy, and men are so easily labeled assholes.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“This book has a lot of the wisdom of things that feminists and queers have learned in the community about sexuality, but the book is really for anybody who is political, even those just starting out and beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the systems they live under. I want to be in movements. Our movements are made of relationships. So, if you're just getting into our movements, or if you've been here for years and have been watching the ways we hurt each other and fall apart relationally, this book is about identifying these common patterns.”Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. He is the author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the next) and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law. His latest book is Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Why is it that we find the courage to boldly confront mainstream societal norms and structures, yet are so often unable to treat romantic partners with care and generosity? Why do we lose our principles when we become insecure, disappointed, or jealous? Why do we act our worst in sexual and romantic relationships? And why do we prioritize romantic connection above other types of relationships, like friendship?Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. He is the author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the next) and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law. His latest book is Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together.“This book has a lot of the wisdom of things that feminists and queers have learned in the community about sexuality, but the book is really for anybody who is political, even those just starting out and beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the systems they live under. I want to be in movements. Our movements are made of relationships. So, if you're just getting into our movements, or if you've been here for years and have been watching the ways we hurt each other and fall apart relationally, this book is about identifying these common patterns.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“I think the show conveys to the women watching that their lives matter. They don't have to be some gorgeous aspirational person, although Sloane absolutely fits that mold. But for others living in the Midwest, struggling and feeling unseen, hopefully, the mirrors of Lina and Maggie will help them not feel so alone and remind them that their stories are important and matter.”Laura Eason is an Emmy-nominated producer, screenwriter, and playwright. Currently, she is the executive producer and showrunner of the Starz drama series Three Women. Based on a book by Lisa Taddeo, the series stars Shailene Woodley, DeWanda Wise, Betty Gilpin and Gabrielle Creevy. Laura's writing and producing credits for television include The Loudest Voice and four seasons of House of Cards. Laura's many plays include the critically acclaimed Sex with Strangers. She has also adapted many classic novels for the stage, including a highly successful version of Around the World in 80 Days. She has served as Artistic Director of Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago, where she also acted, directed, and produced in upwards of 20 shows.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

What is love? How do the narratives we internalize shape our understanding of relationships, intimacy, and family?Laura Eason is an Emmy-nominated producer, screenwriter, and playwright. Currently, she is the executive producer and showrunner of the Starz drama series Three Women. Based on a book by Lisa Taddeo, the series stars Shailene Woodley, DeWanda Wise, Betty Gilpin and Gabrielle Creevy. Laura's writing and producing credits for television include The Loudest Voice and four seasons of House of Cards. Laura's many plays include the critically acclaimed Sex with Strangers. She has also adapted many classic novels for the stage, including a highly successful version of Around the World in 80 Days. She has served as Artistic Director of Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago, where she also acted, directed, and produced in upwards of 20 shows.“I think the show conveys to the women watching that their lives matter. They don't have to be some gorgeous aspirational person, although Sloane absolutely fits that mold. But for others living in the Midwest, struggling and feeling unseen, hopefully, the mirrors of Lina and Maggie will help them not feel so alone and remind them that their stories are important and matter.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu is delighted and privileged to be in conversation with Azucena Castro and Malcom Ferdinand. They start with a discussion of what Ferdinand calls the “double fracture”—the environmental division of humans from their connection to the biosphere, and the colonial division instantiated by white supremacism and patriarchy. He insists that we not see these two phenomena as separate, rather as intimately connected. This double fracture makes any attempts to solve either environmental violence or colonial violence ineffective. In her foreword to Ferdinand's Decolonial Ecologies, Angela Y. Davis writes that as she read the book, she “recognized how perfectly his conceptualizations illuminate the frameworks we need for both philosophical and popular understandings of our planetary conditions today.” The conversation covers how art, film, and poetry can manifest some of those frameworks, and Azucena takes us into a deep discussion of this and reads two poems in Spanish and then in English translation and has Malcom gloss them for us.Azucena Castro is assistant professor at Rice University in Houston. Currently, she is a Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Faculty of Science, Stockholm University. She held positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Latin American and Caribbean cultures at Stanford University and cultural geography at the Institute of Geography, University of Buenos Aires. Her scholarly work focuses on 20th and 21st-century Latin American cultural products through the lens of climate and energy justice, multispecies resistance, and anti-extractivist critique in the artivist scenes of South America, particularly, Southern Cone and Brazil. Azucena is the author of the book Poetic Postnatures. Ecological Thinking and Politics of Strangeness in Contemporary Latin American Poetry, Series SubAtlantic at De Gruyter (2025). She has edited the volume Futuros multiespecie. Prácticas vinculantes para un planeta en emergencia (Bartlebooth. Critical Spaces, 2023), and co-edited the Essay Cluster “GeoSemantics: Earthly Memories and Inhuman Becomings in the Global South” at ASAP/Journal. As part of her engagement with community-based research and collaborative filmmaking, she has co-developed the energy justice project “No aire, no te vendas” (Penn Environmental Humanities, University of Pennsylvania) focusing on winds in ancient cosmologies and human communities in the Afro-Wayúu territories of La Guajira, Colombia in the intersection of old and green extractivism.Malcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is now a researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroad of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. He published a book based on his PhD dissertation entitled Decolonial Ecology: Thinking of Ecology from the Caribbean World.( Polity 2021) that challenges classical environmental thoughts. He recently published an in-depth study of the pesticide contamination of martinique and Guadeloupe entitled S'aimer la Terre: défaire l'habiter colonial ( Seuil 2024).www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Professor Persis Karim, co-producer and co-director of a new documentary film, The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life. She is joined by Roya Ahmadi, a student at Stanford who interned at the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University and was part of the production team for the film. The film captures the lives of young Iranian-Americans who come to the San Francisco Bay Area around the time of the Iranian Revolution, and find themselves involved with, and helping to shape, a vibrant, international culture of politics and art. We talk about both the similarities and differences between those days and today—especially with regard to diasporic identity formation in different historical times, and the persistent need to resist racism and bigotry and act in solidarity with others.Persis Karim is the director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University, where she also teaches in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers. Before coming to San Francisco State, she was a professor of English & Comparative Literature at San Jose State where she was the founder and director of the Persian Studies program, and coordinator of the Middle East Studies Minor. She has published numerous articles about Iranian diaspora literature and culture for academic publications including Iranian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asian, African and Middle East Studies (CSSAMES), and MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States. “The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life,” is her first film project (co-directed and co-produced with Soumyaa Behrens). She received her Master's in Middle East Studies and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UT Austin. She is also a poet.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Professor Christen A Smith on a new book she has co-edited entitled, The Dialectic is in the Sea: The Black Radical Thought of Beatrix Nascimento. Smith explains that “Beatriz Nascimento was a critical figure in Brazil's Black Movement until her untimely death in 1995. Although she published only a handful of articles before she died and left only a few other recorded thoughts, her ideas about the symbolic relationship between quilombos (Afro-Brazilian maroon societies) and black subjectivity encourage us to re-imagine the meaning of Black liberation from a transnational, Black feminist perspective.”The conversation delves into Nascimento's rich and complex cultural and intellectual productions, taking in everything from her films and essays to her student papers, which Smith and her co-editors include in their volume. Nascimento was also a poet, and we are grateful that Christen graces us with reading two poems in Portuguese and then in English translation.Christen A. Smith is Associate Professor of African American Studies and of Anthropology a Yale University. Before arriving at Yale, Smith was Associate Professor of Anthropology and African and African Diaspora Studies and Director of the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of the book, Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence and Performance in Brazil (University of Illinois Press, 2016), co-author of the book The Dialectic is in the Sea: The Black Radical Thought of Beatriz Nascimento (Princeton University Press, 2023) and co-editor of Black Feminist Constellations: Black Women in Dialogue and Translation (University of Texas Press, 2023). In 2017, she started Cite Black Women.—a transnational initiative that brings awareness to society's gross tendency to ignore Black women's intellectual contributions and not to cite Black women inside and outside of the academy.www.palumbo-liu.comhttps://speakingoutofplace.comBluesky @palumboliu.bsky.socialInstagram @speaking_out_of_place