Imagine Otherwise by Ideas on Fire

How might speculative fiction help educators teach gender and ethnic studies to their students? What would it mean to reimagine the Pacific in an …

How might the world be transformed by honoring Pacific experiences? What can communal storytelling teach us about decolonial ways of knowing? How can …

What new pathways emerge when we theorize from the undercurrents? How can art challenge the corrosive logics of racial and extractive capitalism? What kind of world can we build by thinking beyond disciplinary …

How do we organize truly intersectional artistic collaboration across time and space? What might running a small business teach us about the creative …

What tools does feminism provide for dismantling domination? What might be possible when our work aligns with what nourishes our spirit? How might we …

How do Indigenous forms of governance provide models for organizing beyond the state? How might scholars better work alongside of and in the best …

How does music enable us to dream up a different world? What does respecting your audience look like as a writer? How can we empower young people access to tell stories that matter to them?

In episode 71 of the Imagine …

What politics shape information management and access to knowledge? What are the social and environmental implications of ubiquitous digital …

Professor Gayatri Gopinath talks about how visual culture allows us to draw alternative cartographies and see things queerly, how diasporic …

Do we really need sex classification in our education system, our public restrooms, or our government IDs? How can we alleviate some of the harm that trans and gender-nonconforming people who don't fit into a binary …

How has the concept of Universal Design and its application to architectural practice changed over the years? Who is left out of design practices that are meant for “everyone”? What if the design industry actually …

How does speculative fiction provide us models for more queer, just, and creative futures? How are Black women novelists helping us reimagine what …

How might we create a world where intersectional feminist, sex-positive sex education is the norm? What new avenues of liberation are opened up when we move past a theory vs. practice dichotomy in sexuality education? …

Professor Tavia Nyong'o talks about the ongoing project of Black abolition, repurposing social media platforms to create monthly political salons and …

Professor Tina Campt talks about how listening to images reveals their multisensory and embodied nature, the haptic connections we have to photos, …

Writer and cultural worker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha discusses the past successes and current challenges of the disability justice movement, …

Writer and cultural worker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha discusses her transformative justice memoir Dirty River, how queer brown and disabled …

Dancer and professor Manuel Cuellar talks about how queering Mexican folkloric dance lets him create the communities he wants to inhabit, how …

Writer and professor Lynn Comella covers the fierce women and queers who jump started the feminist sex toy revolution, how scholars can up their …

Cultural studies scholar and writer Sara Bernstein shares why she started a digital magazine focused on fashion and politics, why public engagement …

Community builder and historian Alice Y. Hom talks about the political and personal process of starting a history podcast about queer and trans …

Dancer and ethnographer Elizabeth Chin discusses the simultaneous freedom, fun, and vulnerability inherent in writing about oneself, how dance is …

Professor Shaka McGlotten talks about the erotic relationship we often have to the things that we study as well as how that always necessitates both desire and loss, how students can harness the power of Afrofuturism …

Cultural producer Yaba Blay talks about how beauty culture and colorism shape her publicly engaged approach to scholarship, how being an …

Sex educator and reproductive justice advocate Elicia Gonzales talks about how reproductive justice organizations can better incorporate …

Podcaster and professor Karen Tongson chats about music and its relationship to place, the migratory and melodic flows between Manila and Los Angeles, how the Spice Girls can help us understand Adorno and Horkheimer, …

Chef and eco-educator Aileen Suzara discusses her journey into professional cooking, the familial stories she has uncovered connecting land to …

Musician and scholar Lakshmi Ramgopal discusses her musical journey through Indian classical Carnatic music, electronica, and Riot Grrrl; her …

Adeline Koh discusses her journey from tenured English professor to entrepreneur, how she puts her postcolonial feminist training to work at her …

Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher discusses how poetry can be a community engagement practice; blending academic, artistic, and activist …

Nia King shares how she came to host the podcast We Want the Airwaves, the racial politics of the publishing industry, how she has put her ethnic …

Shanté Paradigm Smalls discusses their journey with Shambhala Buddhist Meditation, their research on the queer collision of race, gender, and …

Tanisha C. Ford discusses the cultural and political dimensions of Black fashion, the state of contemporary critical fashion studies and its possible …

Heath Fogg Davis shares why almost all sex classification is unnecessary, in everything from bathrooms and IDs to sports and education; how …

Ojibwe video artist and scholar Marcella Ernest shares why complex subjects require complex film techniques, how scholar-artists can use their …

What is the relationship between food insecurity, colonialism, and global warming? How can art intervene in these processes? Native Hawaiian artists …

How can shared space drive artistic, healing collaborations? How can art address global warming, gender identity, ancestral teachings, and the …

What if we designed art exhibitions around social justice community organizing principles? How can collaboration among artists, curators, scholars, …

Lila Sharif chats about the role of food in both transnational settler colonialism and resistance to it, how she gets students thinking about their …

Surbhi Malik talks about migrants’ complex place-making practices, mentoring students’ whole selves, how she went from hosting an American music …

Emily Hue explains how Burmese performance artists navigate the asylum/refugee process, why academics should explore outlets beyond the academic …

Leah Milne considers how metafictional narratives by authors of color can provide a pedagogy of discomfort, how comics and graphic novels can spur …

Tara Fickle explains why games and literature help us understand racial formation, how she built a video game about WWII Japanese-American …

Karen Jaime chats about NYC queer and trans* Puerto Rican poets, how masculine-of-center and butch professors can use the classroom as an …

E. Patrick Johnson shares his creative process, how he translates scholarly ideas into artistic work and vice versa, how Black gay men and women are …

Francisco Galarte considers the racialized politics of style for Chican@ queer and transgender subjects, the classroom as a social justice space, and …

Felami Burgess chats about queer of color media representation, her multimedia and transnational trajectory, how any class on any topic can be an …

Vince Schleitwiler talks about liberatory coalitions between Black and Asian communities, how the public humanities have shifted in the context of …

Tala Khanmalek shares how academics can incorporate healing justice and disability justice into academic workflows, how a holistic approach to …

Zach McDowell reviews the relationship between the open access movement and other social justice movements, how decreasing the “digital divide” isn’t the only thing needed for true media justice, and what it really …

Jessie Daniels and Polly Thistlethwaite discuss why so many scholars who are interested in open access publishing are also social justice activists, …

What does wellness and unwellness look like in the context of Asian America? In the context of academia? Mimi Khúc and Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis discuss how academia can better address parenting, mental health, and …

Mimi Nguyen addresses imperialist US discourse of debt and freedom repeatedly attached to refugees, how Mimi is drawing unexpected artistic encounters between actor Keanu Reeves and Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, and why …

Amanda Phillips chats about the politics of video game realism in an era of increasingly visible police violence, why marginalized communities have …

André Pérez shares his approach to multimedia projects, why he focuses on work that empowers marginalized communities, and how storytelling helps us …

Wazhmah Osman addresses the politics of memoir, what the trauma of war does to archival research, and her critically acclaimed documentary film, …

Ronak Kapadia shares how Middle East, Arab, and South Asian artists are using visual culture to critique US empire, the relationship between social …

April Lynn James addresses how storytelling can help trauma survivors heal, the role of poetry in racial justice struggles, crafting an altac career …

Karma Chávez discusses the intersectional politics of migration, how grassroots activism is essential to social change, the power of sound-based …

How can publishers promote voices from the margins, and how can writers do their part in insisting that their voices are heard? Minal Hajratwala talks about her genre-bending writing style, the joy of coaching other …

Elizabeth Walker and Maria Novotny discuss popular representations of infertility, the common misogynist refrain that tells women they need to “fix” …

Katie Manthey talks about feminist fat fashion blogging, running a website about body positivity, and the racially gendered politics of what counts …

Vicko Alvarez chats about using comics in the K-12 classroom and how she drew on her life to create her two comic series—ScholaR Comics and …

How can artists engage with the academy to share cultural work and activism? How is education a form of activism? Aishah Shahidah Simmons discusses …

What role do art museums and exhibition institutions play in creating political dialogue? Amy Sadao considers the role of art in social change, how …

Sarah Grey talks about using food to create community, editing for social justice, socialist feminist approaches to child care, the tastiness and challenges of food writing, and her weekly radical dinner party Friday …

How can we retool science and technology to serve marginalized groups? micha cárdenas discusses using digital media and wearable technologies to …

Nikiko Masumoto shares how women of color feminism informs how she runs the Masumoto Family Farm, the rich history of Japanese American farmers in …

How does the history of slavery shape modern-day surveillance systems? How is privacy inherently gendered and racialized? Simone Browne explains how Black communities have resisted and interfered with the surveillance …

How can media producers address the varied ways people with diverse disabilities use media and technology? Elizabeth Ellcessor explains why media …

What role does race play in imaginative literary genres like science fiction and fantasy? andré carrington discusses how bringing Black …

Eric Tang chats about why the US state resettled Cambodian refugees in historically Black neighborhoods in the 1980s and 1990s, how way urban spaces …

Lauren Rile Smith shares her experience directing the feminist and queer circus arts troupe Tangle Movement Arts, how disability and chronic pain …

Margaret Rhee talks about the magic that can happen when one brings art, activism, and academia together; her new poetry book Radio Heart: or, How Robots Fall Out of Love; and what teaching new media classes in prisons …

What are the benefits of indie television production for women, queers, and trans people of color? How is the slow speed of collaborative work …

Host Cathy Hannabach interviews Sarah Sawyers-Lovett, who shares her experience writing memoirs about “growing up poor, queer, and lonely in a conservative small town in Virginia”; the power of zines in queer and trans …

Host Cathy Hannabach interviews Minh-Ha T. Pham about her new book on elite Asian fashion bloggers and racialized (unpaid) blogging labor, the …

In this pilot episode, host Cathy Hannabach introduces the Imagine Otherwise podcast, which showcases the people and projects bridging art, activism, and academia to build better worlds. Episodes offer in-depth …