The Women Shaping the World Podcast

Back in March, I met Author Fatima Daas at the end of her tour of the UK, where she had been promoting her book, the Last One. It is a beautiful, honest, emotional conversation, where we discuss literature, queerness, racism, and homophobia. In the French version, you can hear that I keep switching from tu to vous because the nature of our conversation takes such a personal, raw turn, that it seems odd to put the distance that a vous would.  For the last episode of season 1, the episode is almost unaltered, to let her develop her thoughts and discuss everything she wants, the way she wants it.  This episode is in English, but the interview of Fatima Daas is in French. If you would like to hear the dubbed version, you can find it under Episode 12 ENG. 

Back in March, I met Author Fatima Daas at the end of her tour of the UK, where she had been promoting her book, the Last One. It is a beautiful, honest, emotional conversation, where we discuss literature, queerness, racism, and homophobia. In the French version, you can hear that I keep switching from tu to vous because the nature of our conversation takes such a personal, raw turn, that it seems odd to put the distance that a vous would.  For the last episode of season 1, the episode is almost unaltered, to let her develop her thoughts and discuss everything she wants, the way she wants it.  This episode is in English, but the interview of Fatima Daas is in French. If you would like to hear the dubbed version, you can find it under Episode 12 ENG. 

Episode recorded during the Women Shaping the World Festival, which happened at the French institute March 8-13th. What is the connection between textile crafts and feminist politics? Find out with Dr Katja May, a passionate London-based quilter and an interdisciplinary researcher who specialises in feminist theory, affect, social transformation and textile crafts. We discuss the historical links between art history, craft, and feminism and queer politics. At the end, a few audience members share their experience with craft and how they came to it. 

In this episode, we discuss how to integrate the wins of feminism in our cultural institutions and programmes with Author and Researcher Reine Prat . Her book « Exploser le Plafont : précis de féminisme à l'usage du monde de la culture » is a guide for cultural institutions, programmers, and makers, to feminist ideas into their work. We also discuss the work of her partner, Nathalie Magnan, who was a pioneer in bringing feminism and cultural studies to France. This is part 1 of our series on feminist cultural Institutions. In March, we will discuss this question with Jude Law, creator of the Women of the World Festival, ahead of the Institute's own feminist festival, the Women Shaping the World Festival.  Reine Prat is a Literature Scholar worked as an inspector for the French Ministry of Culture. She was a pioneer in bringing feminist questions to cultural institutions, with two ground-breaking reports on gender equality in the Arts and Culture, that she published in 2006 and 2009. She has now left the Ministry and still fights for gender equality in the cultural world, alongside working to preserve and promote the work of her late-partner, Nathalie Magnan.   Link to the Nathalie Magnan archives: https://www.archivesdelacritiquedart.org/isadg_fondsdarchives/fr-aca-nmagn : Link to the films of Nathalie Magnan, and recorded lectures on her work https://archive.org/details/@de_la_mule_au_web   

In this episode, we discuss how to integrate the wins of feminism in our cultural institutions and programmes with Author and Researcher Reine Prat . Her book « Exploser le Plafont : précis de féminisme à l'usage du monde de la culture » is a guide for cultural institutions, programmers, and makers, to feminist ideas into their work. We also discuss the work of her partner, Nathalie Magnan, who was a pioneer in bringing feminism and cultural studies to France. This is part 1 of our series on feminist cultural Institutions. In March, we will discuss this question with Jude Law, creator of the Women of the World Festival, ahead of the Institute's own feminist festival, the Women Shaping the World Festival.  Reine Prat is a Literature Scholar worked as an inspector for the French Ministry of Culture. She was a pioneer in bringing feminist questions to cultural institutions, with two ground-breaking reports on gender equality in the Arts and Culture, that she published in 2006 and 2009. She has now left the Ministry and still fights for gender equality in the cultural world, alongside working to preserve and promote the work of her late-partner, Nathalie Magnan.   Link to the Nathalie Magnan archives: https://www.archivesdelacritiquedart.org/isadg_fondsdarchives/fr-aca-nmagn : Link to the films of Nathalie Magnan, and recorded lectures on her work https://archive.org/details/@de_la_mule_au_web   

In December, we talked to Array Collective about creating in a group and finding strength in exploring with others. For the start of 2022, we continue exploring this theme with French feminist radical group Gang of Witches. Two members of the gang join us: Founder and Visual Artist Paola Hivelin, and Podcast Host Sabrine Kasbaoui.  We discuss how living in a welcoming community, with shares values and goals of deconstruction, helps members to feel empowered in becoming themselves, in creating more radically, understanding the ways they have integrated capitalist and patriarcal values. We also talk about the myth of the lone genius as a masculinist and capitalist creation, which itself needs to be unrooted and deconstructed, and the challenges it represents for female artists. Recorded remotely from France and Ibiza. 

In December, we talked to Array Collective about creating in a group and finding strength in exploring with others. For the start of 2022, we continue exploring this theme with French feminist radical group Gang of Witches. Two members of the gang join us: Founder and Visual Artist Paola Hivelin, and Podcast Host Sabrine Kasbaoui.  We discuss how living in a welcoming community, with shares values and goals of deconstruction, helps members to feel empowered in becoming themselves, in creating more radically, understanding the ways they have integrated capitalist and patriarcal values. We also talk about the myth of the lone genius as a masculinist and capitalist creation, which itself needs to be unrooted and deconstructed, and the challenges it represents for female artists. Recorded remotely from France and Ibiza. 

For December and the festive periode, the Women Shaping the World Podcast offers you two episodes! The first one, with 2021 Turner Prize Winners Array Collective.    Array Collective are a group of individual artists rooted in Belfast, who join together to create collaborative actions in response to the sociopolitical issues affecting Northern Ireland. Array's studios and project space in the city centre acts as a base for the collective.    We will follow up later this month with an episode with French Feminist Art Collective Gang of Witches, so stay tune!

For the London Jazz Festival, we receive Louise Paley from Women in Jazz, to discuss the project: how we can help young female jazz artists launch their career, develop a network, and create a strong following.  We then talk to French Singer Marion Rampal about her work in jazz, blues, and chanson. She will be singing with Archie Shepp at the Barbican for the LJF).  Women in Jazz: The organisation Women In Jazz aims to elevate female performers by hosting events and workshops. They have a network of 6,000 artists  from singer-songwriters to producers, instrumentalists and composers. French Singer and Songwiriter Marion Rampal entwines memory and invention, words and melodies, folkloric music, and classical occidental roots. Songs  La Belle et les Trois Capitaines (on Main Blue) Prison (on Le Secret)  Auf dem Wasser zu zinger (on Le Secret)  

For the London Jazz Festival, we receive Louise Paley from Women in Jazz, to discuss the project: how we can help young female jazz artists launch their career, develop a network, and create a strong following.  We then talk to French Singer Marion Rampal about her work in jazz, blues, and chanson. She will be singing with Archie Shepp at the Barbican for the LJF.   The organisation Women In Jazz aims to elevate female performers by hosting events and workshops. They have a network of 6,000 artists  from singer-songwriters to producers, instrumentalists and composers. French Singer and Songwriter Marion Rampal entwines memory and invention, words and melodies, folkloric music, and classical occidental roots.        Songs used  La Belle et les Trois Capitaines (on Main Blue) Prison  (on Le Secret) Auf dem Wasser zu zinger  (on Le Secret)  

TW: In our discussion with Lauren Elkin, we mention sexual harassment, violence against women, and rape, as well as the ongoing case regarding the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard.  How does someone make space for themselves? How does someone find freedom? It is hard, to know your place and to ask for it.  It's even harder for people who do not belong to sexual, gender, race majority.  In the case of women, it's been long proven how the world is not built for them. How cities are not a safe and welcoming place. Just this week, we are waiting for the verdict on the abudction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard, which happened last March, and which sparked a timid reflexion on masculinity in space and how we need to rethink gender dynamics in public space.  Maybe surprisingly, there is a long history of women using gardening and horticulture to build their own space. Maybe making space for oneself, can be just finding a way to carve time to build and grow something.    Today, in the Women Shaping the World podcast, we speak to two authors, Alice Vincent and Lauren Elkin, about literally shaping the world. Lauren Elkin discusses her books and work on urban women and “flaneuses”. Alice Vincent tells us about her book, Rootbound, where she candidly discusses her heartbreak and how gardening and relinking with nature helped her move forward.    Ressources:  Sexual Abuse Support - https://sexualabusesupport.campaign.gov.uk Rape Crisis -https://rapecrisis.org.uk Reclaim these Streets - https://reclaimthesestreets.com       

TW: In our discussion with Lauren Elkin, we mention sexual harassment, violence against women, and rape, as well as the ongoing case regarding the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard.  How does someone make space for themselves? How does someone find freedom? It is hard, to know your place and to ask for it.  It's even harder for people who do not belong to sexual, gender, race majority.  In the case of women, it's been long proven how the world is not built for them. How cities are not a safe and welcoming place. Just this week, we are waiting for the verdict on the abudction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard, which happened last March, and which sparked a timid reflexion on masculinity in space and how we need to rethink gender dynamics in public space.  Maybe surprisingly, there is a long history of women using gardening and horticulture to build their own space. Maybe making space for oneself, can be just finding a way to carve time to build and grow something.    Today, in the Women Shaping the World podcast, we speak to two authors, Alice Vincent and Lauren Elkin, about literally shaping the world. Lauren Elkin discusses her books and work on urban women and “flaneuses”. Alice Vincent tells us about her book, Rootbound, where she candidly discusses her heartbreak and how gardening and relinking with nature helped her move forward.    Ressources:  Sexual Abuse Support - https://sexualabusesupport.campaign.gov.uk Rape Crisis -https://rapecrisis.org.uk Reclaim these Streets - https://reclaimthesestreets.com       

For our September episode, we have the pleasure of discussing at lenght with Françoise Vergès her work and life, in decolonising feminism, and decolonising the arts. The French author has spent her life questionning racial domination systems in both areas, and much more. We discuss this, and the differences between France and the UK in the approach to decolonisation in an exceptionnal episode of 45 minutes.    Francoise Verges is an activist and public educator. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of many books including Resolutely Black. Conversations with Aime Cesaire (Polity, 2019), The Wombs of Women: Race, Capital, Feminism and Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Metissage (Duke University Press, 2020, 1999).  

For our September episode, we have the pleasure of discussing at lenght with Françoise Vergès her work and life, in decolonising feminism, and decolonising the arts. The French author has spent her life questionning racial domination systems in both areas, and much more. We discuss this, and the differences between France and the UK in the approach to decolonisation in an exceptionnal episode of 45 minutes.    Francoise Verges is an activist and public educator. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of many books including Resolutely Black. Conversations with Aime Cesaire (Polity, 2019), The Wombs of Women: Race, Capital, Feminism and Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Metissage (Duke University Press, 2020, 1999).  

Why is Pop Culture important? And more, why is it important when talking about feminism? Because of its very nature, pop culture, understood as the mass production and distribution of mass cultural products is necessarily reflective of who we are and what we want. With feminism becoming "mainstream" pop culture has followed the trend and integrated feminist principles. It also influenced it. Nevertheless, typically feminine cultural products (sitcoms, "romcoms" and "chick lit, or romance novels) are still despised and reduced to a "girl culture" (understand: low culture). This complicate relationship between pop culture and feminism, and between so-called "feminine culture" and feminism is to be questionned. Is Pop Culture good for feminism? Can it be a vehicle for its expansion? Why have we failed to understand and rectify the inherent sexism of criticising entire genres and products for being girly? Why do we criticise and dispise girls for liking what they like, and yet still exploit their massive buying potential? In August, as we relax by a pool or a beach and indulge in reading feminine magazines and "chick lit" novels, we discuss this with Author Sareeta Domingo.

Talking about the body, the female body, is always a bit difficult. It is intimate, contentious, delicate. It is both an eternal subject and something that we don't talk about enough . It crystalizes the infinite ways women are dominated in a patriarchal society, yet it's been ignored for years in feminist theory. Maybe it's too close, how could you be a feminist, talk about it and be objective?   Our guests both provide a wonderful reflexion on this question, a solace at a time where we would probably prefer to forget our body-worries, after a year of doing nothing but. Camille Froidevaux-Metterie calls herself a feminist philosopher, who's thought about the female body and how it has been analysed in feminist theory. In her research, she offers us a beautiful, intimate, research on what having a female body means and how we can reincarnate our bodies to find freedom. We also chat with Scottish artist Rachel Maclean, whose work explores body representation, body harm, make up and drag. I went to Scotland to meet her at Jupiter Artland, where she installed her latest commission It's a engaging, disturbing, and compelling piece of work  and she gives us insights into her work and process.       

Talking about the body, the female body, is always a bit difficult. It is intimate, contentious, delicate. It is both an eternal subject and something that we don't talk about enough . It crystalizes the infinite ways women are dominated in a patriarchal society, yet it's been ignored for years in feminist theory. Maybe it's too close, how could you be a feminist, talk about it and be objective?   Our guests both provide a wonderful reflexion on this question, a solace at a time where we would probably prefer to forget our body-worries, after a year of doing nothing but. Camille Froidevaux-Metterie calls herself a feminist philosopher, who's thought about the female body and how it has been analysed in feminist theory. In her research, she offers us a beautiful, intimate, research on what having a female body means and how we can reincarnate our bodies to find freedom..   We also chat with Scottish artist Rachel Maclean, whose work explores body representation, body harm, make up and drag. I went to Scotland to meet her at Jupiter Artland, where she installed her latest commission It's a engaging, disturbing, and compelling piece of work  and she gives us insights into her work and process.     

For the second episode of the Women Shaping the World Podcast, we discuss the fluid boundaries between online radical misogyny and extremist movements. The intoxicating nature of hateful online communities makes people, especially young men, susceptible to radicalisation, when they find the social life online that they lack in real life. While they might not be swayed by anti-semitic and racists rhetoric when they initially enter chat rooms, their isolation makes them easy prey to the discourse.  Researcher Julia Ebner went undercover and infiltrated these communities for more than a year. Her book, Going Dark: The Secret Social Life of Extremists out in paperback now, tells the fascinating and alarming story of her journey to the darkest corners of the internet. She will tell us about the mechanisms of recruitment and her personal experience when confronted with ideas and images whose violence is hard to stand as a young woman. After the break, Blast Theory's Ju Row Farr will tell us about the company's Operation Black Antler, a participatory theatre play where the audience is invited to go undercover and infiltrate a far-right group. Can culture create bridges to reach out to young people before they are radicalised?  

When bestselling author Kate Mosse launched the Women's Prize of Fiction, she was trying to resolve a seemingly impossible puzzle: how was it that women made up a vast majority of the readership, and yet only a very small minority of the authors who were short-listed for literary prizes? Twenty-five years later, with prize-winning authors such as Lionel Shriver, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, or Ali Smith, the Women's Prize for Fiction has proven to be a reference for millions of readers. In France, publishing companies are only just starting to wake up to the idea that other stories are worth telling. Since the creation of her agency, feminist literary agent Ariane Geffard has changed the game, one bestseller after another, giving voice to marginalised authors and shedding light on the work of many new, different artists. Hosted by Clémence Rebourg (Institut français), this episode explores how to lift women's voices in the publishing world.   For this episode, Ariane Geffard's interview will be dubbed. If you would like to listen to the original version, you can find it under Episode 1- Fr. 

When bestselling author Kate Mosse launched the Women's Prize of Fiction, she was trying to resolve a seemingly impossible puzzle: how was it that women made up a vast majority of the readership, and yet only a very small minority of the authors who were short-listed for literary prizes? Twenty-five years later, with prize-winning authors such as Lionel Shriver, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, or Ali Smith, the Women's Prize for Fiction has proven to be a reference for millions of readers. In France, publishing companies are only just starting to wake up to the idea that other stories are worth telling. Since the creation of her agency, feminist literary agent Ariane Geffard has changed the game, one bestseller after another, giving voice to marginalised authors and shedding light on the work of many new, different artists. Hosted by Clémence Rebourg (Institut français), this episode explores how to lift women's voices in the publishing world.   For this episode, Ariane Geffard's interview will be featured in its original French. If you would like to listen to the dubbed version, you can find it under Episode 1- ENG. 

The Women Shaping the World Podcast, the first podcast from the French Institute in London comes on May 2!  In each episode, Clémence Rebourg will receive two guests, with whom she will discuss feminism and culture, how they interact and influence each other, and how it differs between France and the UK. A bientôt!