Episodi

  • “Shameless Vampires” with RJ Wade and Sarah Prescott

    “Shameless Vampires” with RJ Wade and Sarah Prescott
    Oct 19 2026
    Welcome, children of the night, to a particularly shameless spooky special all about an eternally queer-coded fan favourite: the vampire. RJ Wade and Sarah Prescott join me to speak about bookish bloodsuckers, raunchy revenants, and sapphic succubi. The dramatic reading of a yet unperformed Carmilla play had me at the very edge of my seat and I also learned a lot about both the cultural and the literary history of vampirism.

    References:
    Quite Shameless: Cultural Reflections on the Vampire
    https://library.leeds.ac.uk/events/event/1900/galleries/1085/quite-shameless-cultural-reflections-on-the-vampire
    RJ Wade’s An Exhibition History of Victorian Leeds (Liverpool UP, 2023)
    https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781802078541
    University of Leeds Cultural Collections
    Bram Stoker’s Dracula
    Animated Activism: Women Empowered
    https://library.leeds.ac.uk/events/event/1900/galleries/844/animated-activism-women-empowered
    Hamilton Deane’s Dracula (1924)
    Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872)
    The Dark Blue
    Byron
    Dracula Society
    https://www.thedraculasociety.org.uk/
    Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928)
    Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928)
    Dora Mary Patrick
    Quincey Morris
    Van Helsing
    Stage@Leeds
    https://stage.leeds.ac.uk/
    Christopher Craft’s “‘Kiss Me with those Red Lips’: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula” (1984)
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928560
    Chris Latham
    Revenant
    Wharram Percy
    Maurice Beresford
    Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
    Josephine Butler
    @lulgalleries
    C.E. McGill’s Our Hideous Progeny
    https://cemcgill.com/our-hideous-progeny/
    BorrowBox
    Libby
    Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
    Ally Wilkes’ All the White Spaces
    The Bookish Type
    https://thebookishtype.co.uk/
    Kit Heyam https://kitheyam.com/

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. What might make a vampire queer? Which literary vampires do we speak about in the episode?
    2. When Sarah talks about a ‘pleasing terror’, what kind of experience is described and who is this phrase borrowed from? Have you ever felt a pleasing terror?
    3. How is the revenant figure similar to and different from the vampire?
    4. What does Wade say about the relevance of the medical humanities lens? Please look up the term medical humanities if you are not familiar.
    5. Do you have a favourite vampire? How queer-coded are they?
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    48 min
  • “Against Ageism” with Simon(e) van Saarloos

    “Against Ageism” with Simon(e) van Saarloos
    Oct 5 2026
    Have you ever thought about your age as being assigned at birth? In this episode, Simon(e) van Saarloos and I explore how queer thought might allow us to move beyond preconceptions of age, but also about the manifold and intersectional consequences of ageism. Simon(e) reflects on how trans narratives might work without reliance on linearity and why age is such a powerful category when it comes to agency.

    CW: Around minutes 11 to 13, there is a nongraphic mention of sexual violence.

    References:
    Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto (2023)
    Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Playing Monogamy (2019)
    Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Take ‘Em Down: Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021)
    Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Give Piss A Chance: A Willing Suspension of Consequences
    Trans Despair (2027)
    Samantha Nye
    MU Hybrid Art House in Eindhoven
    Mona Eltahawy
    Ira Kip
    KIP Republic
    Denise Ferreira Da Silva
    Roe vs Wade
    Crip time
    Mel Y. Chen
    Chrononormativity (Elizabeth Freeman)
    Alison Kafer
    JJJJJerome Ellis
    Fred Moten
    Fumi Okiji
    @svansaarloos
    Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn
    Saketopoulou, A. (2026). Exigent Sadism. Social Text, 44(1), 25–51. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-12195785

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. What does Simon(e) mean by ‘change-phobic’?
    2. I really love when Simon(e) explains that “linear time is mapped onto the body and we call that age.” – How could we understand age in other ways? What might a queer approach to age be?
    3. Simon(e) mentions age-segregated institutions. What are examples of these and how does age shape institutions?
    4. How do race and colonialism play into age?
    5. How often do you think about age? Do you perceive age differently in and outside of queer and trans community?
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    47 min
  • “Queering Prehistory” with S. K. Marley

    “Queering Prehistory” with S. K. Marley
    Sep 21 2026
    We all know that trans people have existed throughout history, but what about before that? S.K. Marley does fascinating research on queerness and transness that predates written history and joins me to speak about what antler headdresses and wooden dolls might teach us about transness. We also discuss how transness, walking and wellbeing are entangled, which landscapes are the most nonbinary, and why ‘prehistory’ is a contested term in itself. Since we’re chatting in a beautiful park in York, this episode has some bonus bird song and squirrel mischief.

    References:
    Out and Wild
    https://www.outandwild.co.uk/
    Our Transcapes
    https://skmarley.co.uk/our-transcapes/
    Ballachulish Goddess
    Braak Bog Figures
    The Wittemoor Figures
    Shigir Idol
    https://skmarley.co.uk/
    @sk____marley
    Our Flag Means Death

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. What does ‘prehistory’ mean?
    2. Why does S.K. speak about being trans and being in nature? What does this have to do with wellbeing?
    3. S.K. speaks about notions of truth in contemporary trans debates and about colonial perspectives in academia. Why is their focus on British prehistory important in both of these contexts?
    4. Why are the antler headdresses S.K. talks about a turning point in their research and their thinking about duality?
    5. Why are bogs trans? What is the most trans or nonbinary landscape you have ever encountered?
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    39 min
  • “Hyperpop and Queer Noise” with C. Jade MacDonald

    “Hyperpop and Queer Noise” with C. Jade MacDonald
    Sep 7 2026
    What does sound have to do with sexuality? C. Jade MacDonald has some fascinating insights on the queerness of noise, on trans voices in hyperpop, and on sound in literature. Learn about the queer kinship created by remixes and covers in contemporary music, but also about which sound technologies are historically entangled with sexology. My favourite bit: hearing about how Gertrude Stein resonates with SOPHIE.

    References:
    C. Jade MacDonald (2024) “The Alien Resonances and Queer Obscurities of Hyperpop’s 100 gecs” Journal of Popular Music Studies, 36.2, pp. 76-98.
    C. Jade MacDonald (2025) "'A Story that Wasn’t in the Words’: Music, Mothering, and Minor Figures" in The Crossroads of Music and Literature: New Essays on the Muse of Song, edited by Kelly Baron and Andrew DuBois, pp. 113-28.
    C. Jade MacDonald (2027) "Their Lover's Noise: Modernism's Queer Phonographies" in Routledge Companion to Literature and Sound, edited by Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen and Maria Engberg.
    Foucault’s The History of Sexuality
    Saidiya Hartman
    Julie Beth Napolin’s "Unrecordable Sound: Media History, Technology and the Racial Unconscious" in Anna Snaith, ed. Sound and Literature (Cambridge UP, 2020)
    Jonathan Sterne’s The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Duke UP, 2003)
    Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology
    Althusser
    Gertrude Stein
    SOPHIE
    100 gecs’ “money machine”
    Wendy Carlos
    Dorian Electra
    Charli xcx
    A.G. Cook
    Kodwo Eshun’s More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (Quartet Books, 1998)
    alien sonorities
    Alice B. Toklas
    Edmund Husserl
    Alexander G. Weheliye’s Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (Duke UP, 2005) Grace E. Lavery’s Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques (Princeton UP, 2023)
    Perverse sincerity
    Simon & Garfunkel
    Shakira
    Gorillaz “Feel Good Inc”
    @C.jademacdonald
    cameronjade.macdonald@utoronto.ca
    Aoife Josie Clements’ Persona (Little Puss Press, 2026)

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. Why might noise be queer?
    2. How is voice usually perceived in music? What might the distortion and non-human quality that hyperpop can lend voices signify in relation to transness?
    3. What does Jade say about remixes and covers? Do you see them as queer kinship?
    4. Why does Jade speak about 100 gecs? What is this example illustrating?
    5. Please listen to at least one musician that you heard about on this episode and think about whether you can hear any ‘alien resonances’.
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    42 min
  • “Lavender Sounds” with Stacey Copeland

    “Lavender Sounds” with Stacey Copeland
    Aug 24 2026
    Listen, this episode is as delightful as it sounds. Audiophile Stacey Copeland tells me all about feminist soundwork, radical radio, and lesbian podcasts – all of which Stacey writes about in the excellent new book Lavender Sounds. Tune in for the sonic histories, stay for the moment when Stacey illustrating the crafted intimacy of podcasts will make you a little weak in the knees. If you are interested in the politics and potential of audio media, you will absolutely love this episode.

    References:
    Stacey Copeland’s Lavender Sounds: From Lesbian Radio to Queer Feminist Soundwork (University of Michigan Press, 2026)
    Amplify Network
    Copeland, Stacey "Sustaining queer joy and potentiality: Through independent production with homoground music podcast." Journal of popular music studies 35.4 (2023): 111-124.
    Betty Friedan
    Lavender Menace
    Michele Hilmes
    Bluestockings Cooperative
    bell hooks
    Hannah McGregor
    The Lesbian Show Fonds are held at the City of Vancouver Archives https://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/the-lesbian-show
    Kaitlin Prest
    Jennifer Lynn Stoever’s The Sonic Color Line (NYU Press, 2016)
    Silva Tenenbein’s original interview with Stacey aired on FemRadio in 2018 https://soundcloud.com/scopeatryerson/the-lesbian-show
    Dykes on Mykes is back on the airwaves at CKUT Montreal https://ckut.ca/playlists/DM
    The ArQuives - https://arquives.ca/
    ‘Temporal drag’ is a reference from Elizabeth Freeman’s Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (Duke University Press, 2010)
    The Heart’s “Lesbian Separatism is Inevitable” - https://www.theheartradio.org/solos/2020/1/15/lesbian-separatism-is-inevitable
    NK (Nicole Kelly)
    Phoebe Unter
    staceycopeland.com
    Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives - https://www.nfb.ca/film/forbidden_love/
    Studio D – The women’s film studio founded in 1974 under the NFB (National Film Board of Canada)

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. How does Stacey define lavender sounds and why is the colour lavender connected to queerness, historically and politically?
    2. What is soundwork? What is feminist soundwork?
    3. Why is audibility important to consider, not just visibility?
    4. What does Stacey mean when speaking about the everydayness of soundwork?
    5. Why does radio hold radical potential?
    6. How does sound relate to time in Stacey’s work?
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    44 min
  • LIVE at Out and Wild with Ayse and Queer Girls Book Club

    LIVE at Out and Wild with Ayse and Queer Girls Book Club
    Aug 10 2026
    Meet Ayse, founder of Queer Girls Book Club, defender of the heated debate, and dyke of the people. In this live recording from the amazing Out and Wild festival, Ayse tells me about why running a queer book club is not just about putting LGBTQIA+ titles on your reading list, all the work she is doing to nurture her bookish community, and a why disagreeing is a good skill to have. To quote Joelle Taylor: That’s community, babe!

    References
    Out and Wild
    https://www.outandwild.co.uk/
    Housmans
    Joelle Taylor’s The Night Alphabet
    Emily Witham
    Grace Flahive
    Polly Shute
    Gillian Anderson
    Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Spent
    Gay on Wye
    Carol Ann Duffy’s Rapture and “Forest”
    Jackie Kay
    Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues
    Zoë Berryman

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. Why did Ayse start Queer Girls Book Club? Have you ever thought about starting a group? What was/would have been your motivation?
    2. What does Ayse say about contributing to community? How do you feel about this?
    3. We speak about literature as being a protected space to practice debate and disagreement. Have you ever experienced this? Which example does Ayse give?
    4. How does Ayse speak about marginalised voices in the publishing industry? What can we as readers do to promote change?
    5. Are you coming to our next live recording?
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    40 min
  • “Spin Cycle” with Zofia Zerphy and Rhiannon Bell

    “Spin Cycle” with Zofia Zerphy and Rhiannon Bell
    Aug 3 2026
    In the sapphic launderette play Spin Cycle, the washers are loaded and so are the questions. Penned by Zofia Zerphy, Spin Cycle is an absurdist exploration of intense connections, queer memory and lesbian storytelling. In this summer special, I am joined by Zofia and Rhiannon Bell, who play the main characters and speak to me about crafting a play in queer community, why queer narratives can operate in different realms of sense and meaning making, and why exploring flawed characters is vital to queer and trans representation.

    References:
    Berserk Theatre
    The L Word
    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    Mitski’s “Washing Machine Heart”
    Act On Tap
    Bethan Rose
    Edinburgh Dyke Bar
    Ros Watt’s Trans People Are Awful
    Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness
    Joe Carstairs

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. Zofia and Rhi speak about the different responses queer and non-queer audience members had to the play’s absurdist elements. What do they say about queer narratives making sense and what is your take?
    2. Which trope(s) of sapphic storytelling do we mention in the episode?
    3. We speak about Spin Cycle using memory and forgetting in queer ways. What could queer memory mean? What does it mean to you?
    4. Rhi highlights the importance of showing flawed trans and nonbinary characters on stage. How do you feel about this? Can you think of another example of a flawed LGBTQIA+ character in literature or theatre?
    5. Have you ever seen yourself represented on stage? What was that like?
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    42 min
  • “Cisgender” with Perry Zurn

    “Cisgender” with Perry Zurn
    Jul 20 2026
    Who coined the term cis and why are some people calling it a slur? Amazing return guest Perry Zurn joins me to discuss what the concept of cis does, why it’s helpful to look at its origins and etymology and where it might oversimplify the project of gender. Not one to be missed!

    References:
    Perry Zurn’s Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (Duke UP, 2026)
    Perry Zurn’s How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University (Duke UP, 2024)
    John Hollister
    Riva Lehrer’s Golem Girl
    Marquis Bey’s Cistem Failure: Essays on Blackness and Cisgender (Duke UP, 2022)
    Stephanie Clare’s Nonbinary: A Feminist Autotheory (Cambridge UP, 2023)
    Jonathan Ned Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality (1995)

    Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    1. What does cis mean?
    2. Which term is older: cis or trans? When does the term cis emerge?
    3. Which community coined the term cisgender and why?
    4. What is Perry saying about simplified notions of cis and which example does he give?
    5. How does Perry put disability and race in dialogue with cisness and transness?
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    46 min