Episode 15: Heteropessimism

Pod45 returns with a discussion on, in, and around our recent cluster Samuel R. Delany's Improbable Communities. Contemporaries co-editor Francisco Robles hosts a conversation with cluster editor Blake Stricklin, and cluster contributors Y Howard, Kirin Wachter-Grene, Rebekah Sheldon, and Christopher Breu.

Pod45's 20th episode spectacular! To discuss our recent cluster on Suspicion, Contemporaries co-editor Francisco Robles is joined by cluster editor Eleanor Russell and cluster contributors Olivia Stowell, Sheera Talpaz, and Samuel Catlin. You can read all the essays in the Suspicion cluster now at: https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/suspicion/ Hosted and produced by Michael Docherty.

Welcome back to another episode of Pod45, the podcast companion to Post45: Contemporaries, with your host Michael Docherty. Today’s discussion responds to our recent cluster American Bimbo. Joining Michael in a conversation about the enduring potency and complexity of the bimbo as an American cultural figure, celebrity and media in the 2000s, and more recent hyperonline reclamations and revisions of bimbodom, are Emmeline Clein, who edited the cluster, and two of its fantastic contributors – Rax King and Rob Franklin. Read American Bimbo now at https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/american-bimbo, where you can also find hundreds more incisive and insightful essays on contemporary literature and culture. Emmeline Clein (emmelineclein.net; @emmelclein) is the author of Dead Weight (2024). Rax King (raxkingisdead.com; @raxkingisdead)is the author of Tacky (2021) and the forthcoming Sloppy (2025). Rob Franklin (robert-michael-franklin.com; @robfrank__) is the author of the forthcoming Great Black Hope (2025). Michael Docherty (michaeldocherty.co.uk; @maybeavalon) is the author of The Recursive Frontier: Race, Space, and the Literary Imagination of Los Angeles (2024). This episode was written, produced, and engineered by Michael Docherty for Post45.

Today on Pod45 we turn our attention to our recent cluster Reading Disco Elysium, edited by Jess Anderson and Carl White. Disco Elysium is a critically acclaimed videogame first released in 2019. It has been widely recognized for the richness of its storytelling, its political, moral, and ethical complexity, and how it plays with questions of choice, agency, and narrative structure in ways that fundamentally destabilize the gaming experience. That is to say, Disco Elysium is an incredibly readerly text, one that we were delighted to invite Jess, Carl, and their brilliant contributors to reflect on in this cluster. One of those contributors, Hayley Toth, joined Jess, Carl, and Contemporaries co-editor Michael Docherty, for this Pod45 conversation. You can find all the wonderful essays in Reading Disco Elysium at https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/reading-disco-elysium/ now. At https://post45.org/contemporaries/ you can also find our archive of over sixty more clusters. Follow us on Twitter/X, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky: the handle everywhere is @AtPost45. If you’re interested in pitching us an idea for a cluster, please email us at [email protected]. Further information on what we look for in a pitch can be found on our website.

Pod45 returns after a hiatus with a bumper episode responding to Contemporary Literature from the Classroom, a recent cluster edited by Rebecca Roach - available now at post45.org/contemporaries. Today's episode is a departure from our usual format. We begin as we always do, with a rich and wide-ranging roundtable discussion building on the cluster at hand: Contemporaries co-editor Michael Docherty hosts; his guests are cluster editor Rebecca Roach, and cluster contributors John Roache (no relation) and Tim Lanzendörfer. But in the second half we bring you something different: a very special conversation between Rebecca and Adrienne Ghaly, co-creator of Read for Action, also known as the Humanitarian Book Club. Thanks for sticking with us at Pod45: we've got exciting plans afoot to start bringing you episodes on a more regular and reliable basis. If you're enjoying the episodes, please tell friends and colleagues, and don't forget to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/contemporary-literature-from-the-classroom/ https://x.com/AtPost45 https://www.readforaction.org/

Welcome back to another year of Pod45! In today's episode, Post45: Contemporaries co-editor Francisco Robles sits down to discuss our recent cluster on The Bachelor with the cluster's editors, Rhya Moffitt and Annie Bares, and two of its contributors, Robin Hershkowitz and Emily Edwards. You can read The Bachelor at https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/the-bachelor/ now. Pod45 is hosted and produced by Michael Docherty.

Contemporaries co-editor Michael Docherty discusses our recent Heteropessimism cluster with two of its co-editors, Annabel Barry and Caroline Godard. The cluster's third co-editor was Jane Ward. You can read all the essays in the Heteropessimism cluster now at https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/heteropessimism/

After a short summer hiatus, Pod45 is back! We're delighted to bring you an episode discussing our recent 16-piece marathon cluster Abortion Now, Abortion Forever, which was published to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization. This urgently important cluster can be found at https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/abortion-now-abortion-forever/. In conversation on the cluster and the issues to which it responds are Contemporaries editor-in-chief Gloria Fisk and cluster editors Margaret Ronda, Jena DiMaggio, and Jeannette Schollaert. As Margaret, Jena, and Jeannette write in their introduction, "abortion aid funds and reproductive health collectives can always use more assistance, and we encourage everyone reading this cluster to donate if they can!" Please visit: National Network of Abortion Funds https://abortionfunds.org/ The National Network of Abortion Funds builds power with members to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice. Sister Song https://www.sistersong.net/  SisterSong’s mission is to strengthen and amplify the collective voices of indigenous women and women of color to achieve reproductive justice by eradicating reproductive oppression and securing human rights. Student Coalition for Reproductive Justice https://www.thescrj.org/donate Towards the end of this episode, we discuss Jena's involvement with the Student Coalition for Reproductive Justice, which is doing incredible work on college campuses across the USA. The SCRJ's mission is to educate and empower youth to take charge of their reproductive autonomy. Through intentional engagement and strategic activism, the SCRJ endeavors to break the systematic barriers that prevent equitable access for all students to reproductive health care and quality sexual education.

Contemporaries co-editor Francisco Robles discusses our recent cluster Little Magazines with its editor Nick Sturm, and two of its contributors - Danny Snelson and Stephanie Anderson. Nick's introduction to the cluster: https://post45.org/2023/06/introduction-deep-immersion-in-the-little-mags/ Danny's essay, "An Elegy for Jimmy & Lucy’s House of 'K' (1984–1989)": https://post45.org/2023/06/an-elegy-for-ijimmy-and-lucys-house-of-k-1984-1989/ Stephanie's interview with Susan Sherman: https://post45.org/2023/06/interview-with-susan-sherman/ Read all of the Little Magazines cluster at Contemporaries now: https://post45.org/sections/contemporaries-essays/little-magazines/ Follow us on Twitter at @AtPost45 (Bluesky and Threads coming soon, maybe), and if you’re interested in pitching us an idea for a cluster, please email us at [email protected]. Further information on what we look for in a pitch can be found on our website, post45.org/contemporaries.

The cluster up for discussion today is Minimalisms Now: Race, Affect, Aesthetics, edited by Connor Bennett and Michael Dango. This is somewhat ironically a rather maximalist cluster on minimalism, comprising eleven fantastic essays, including Connor and Michael’s introduction, plus a great interview with Mark McGurl. Contemporaries co-editor Michael Docherty sat down with Connor and Michael to think through some of the issues in contemporary minimalism with which the cluster engages, and the questions it invites. Joining us in our discussion were Annabelle Tseng and Tina Post. Annabelle wrote “On Being Okay,” one of two essays in the cluster that respond to the writing of Weike Wang, and one which explores what Annabelle calls “a commitment to an unwavering state of being okay” as way of refusing racialized expectations of Asian American affective performance. Listeners who like the sound of that may also want to check out our previous cluster and accompanying podcast episode Gestures of Refusal, where similar ideas are explored. Tina doesn’t feature in the cluster itself but we were delighted she could join us to share her expertise on the intersections of race, performance, withholding, and minimalism of both affect and aesthetics. Tina's book Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression was recently published by NYU Press. Michael Dango's book Crisis Style: The Aesthetics of Repair is available from Stanford University Press. Find Minimalisms Now at https://post45.org/contemporaries/. Follow Post45: Contemporaries on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AtPost45. Pitch us a cluster at [email protected]