The Hopeful Reader – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Hopeful Reader

Finola Stowe

Fiction

Education

Society & Culture

Frequency: 1 episode/28d. Total Eps: 14

Yapping and reading, hopefully! Two siblings, bringing together fiction and critical theory in ways that open up the possibility of a hopeful present.

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🇫🇷 France - fiction
08/05/2025
#100

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Score global : 63%

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We are so back: szn 2, let's go!

Season 2 · Episode 1

Tuesday, May 6, 2025 • Duration 20:22

We are so back: szn 2, let's go! If you've been wondering what we've been up to, and what we've got planned for this season - this episode reveals all! We also talk about how the philosophical tradition of speculative pragmatism guides our hopeful thinking and reading. :)

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Cosy counterproductivity: a silly little episode

Episode 13

Monday, December 23, 2024 • Duration 44:23

In a society that ascribes inherent value to productivity, it’s easy to overlook the potentially harmful structures we are actually (re)producing through our labour. In this episode we explore the cult of productivity - life under capitalism - through a neuroqueer lens. We question how the individualistic nature of self-discipline that surrounds productivity interacts with acts of solidarity and mutual aid, and how we might build futures that are more welcoming of queer community building. You can also look forward to some hot takes on mindfulness and slow living, as well as some very un/serious yapping towards the end of the episode…

References:

Choi, M.A. (2021). The power of slowness: Governmentalities of Olle walking in South Korea. Transactions of the IBG. 47 (2). Pp. 562-576.

Cook, E. (2016). (Dis)Connections and silence: experiences of family and part-time work in Japan. Japanese Studies. DOI:10.1080/10371397.2016.1215228

Gregg, M. (2018) Counterproductive: Time management in the knowledge economy. London: Duke University Press.

Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Lorde, A. (1988) A burst of light. New York: Firebrand books.

Manning, E. (2016). The Minor Gesture. London: Duke University Press.

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Episode 4: "I'm training for a feeling that I don’t have yet”

Episode 4

Monday, June 24, 2024 • Duration 44:59

This episode is inspired by the novel, Almond by Won-Pyung Sohn (2020) - the protagonist’s experience of alexithymia enables us to see the world at a slant, disrupting normative affective genres in ways that open up the possibility of new forms of relationality…but at what cost? Using this book as a guide, we delve into Lauren Berlant’s idea of ‘cruel optimism’ to explore how hoping for an otherwise might keep us held in situations that are both life-threatening and life sustaining.

References:

Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham: Duke University Press.

Anderson, B. (2022) “Forms and Scenes of Attachment: A Cultural Geography of Promises”, Dialogues in Human Geography (online early).

Anderson, B. (2023) “Media Promises: On Attachment and Detachment with Berlant.” Media Theory, 7(2), 209–224. Retrieved from https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/580

Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Berlant, L. (2023) 'Poisonality' in The Affect Theory Reader 2 (eds Pedwell, C., Seigworth, G.J.), Durham: Duke University Press.

Berlant, L. (2022) The Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.

Lacey, C. (2021) Pew. London: Granta.

Sendra, P. & Sennett, R. (2022) Designing Disorder: experiments and disruptions in the city. London: Verso.

Tartt, D. (1993) The Secret History

Winterson, J. (1992) Written on the Body. London: Vintage International.

Won-Pyung, S. (2020) Almond. Glasgow: Harper Collins.

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Episode 3: Past lives, perfect days?

Episode 3

Monday, June 10, 2024 • Duration 29:00

Past lives, perfect days? We heard you like film bros...

Sometimes, we might feel unbearably caught between the regret of a seemingly lost past and the future we (think we should) strive for - in this episode we reframe this space as 'the elliptical present', a place of possibility, somewhere to playfully experiment with alternative ways of life. "Now is now, next time is next time" - inspired by the movies 'Past Lives' and 'Perfect Days', we reflect upon how we might keep on living in this elliptical 'now' amidst the oppressive structures that organise our everyday lives and imagined futures. In a world that propels us towards the future, how might looking back - a glance to the past - keep open the possibility of going astray...

References:

Past Lives (2023) - Directed by Celine Song

Perfect Days (2023) - Directed by Wim Wenders

Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham: Duke University Press.

Anderson, B. et al. (2023) “Encountering Berlant part one: Concepts otherwise”, The Geographical Journal, 189: 117–142.

Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Berlant, L. (2022) The Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.

Cope, W. (2023) 'The Orange' in The Orange and other poems. London: Faber & Faber.

Oliver, M. (2016) Upstream: Selected Essays. London: Penguin Press.

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 2: Queer ghosts, hopeful presences

Episode 2

Monday, May 27, 2024 • Duration 29:29

Waluigi boards, Virginia's Wolf and fields of corn...The erasure of queer lives in dominant written history works to streamline the potentiality of the present moment, in turn, straightening the possible futures we might imagine. And so, in queering linear temporality, we explore how works of fiction can enable queer ghosts - those erased histories - to broaden the imaginative possibilities of the present-futurity. In this episode we head back to Virginia Woolf's London in the 1920s and perambulate Mark Hyatt's soho in the 60s in search of queer ghosts, reading as a way to commune with those who have lived, loved and walked ;) outside of normativity.

References:

Ahmed S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Duke University Press.

Anderson B. (2009). Affective atmospheres. Emotion, Space and Society, 2(2), 77–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2009.08.005

Gordon, A. (1997) Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the sociological imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Houlbrook, M. (2006) Queer London: Perils and pleasures in the sexual metropolis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hyatt, M. (2023) Love, Leda. London: Peninsula Press.

Ingold, T. (2007, 2016) Lines. Abingdon: Routledge Classics

Ingold, T. (2015) The Life of Lines. Abingdon: Routledge

Jones, A. (2013) A Critical Inquiry into Queer Utopias. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Munt, S (1995) 'The Lesbian Flaneur' in Mapping Desire. London: Routledge

Muñoz, J. E. (2009) Cruising Utopia: the then and there of queer futurity. New York: NYU Press.

Parlett, J. (2022) The poetics of cruising: queer visual culture from Whitman to Grindr. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Intro ep: being here (& queer) now

Episode 1

Monday, May 13, 2024 • Duration 29:20

Welcome to The Hopeful Reader Podcast! In this introductory episode Eve and Finola discuss how works of fiction can act as a source of creative moral and political vision - a portal to another world. The Hopeful Reader views fiction as a way to create and inhabit alternative world imaginaries from within the confines of normativity. This episode delves into the importance of imagination as well as thinking about fiction as a method of ‘slow refusal’.

References:

Anderson, B. (2006) ‘Becoming and being hopeful: towards a theory of affect’ Society and Space. 24(5)

Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism. North Carolina: Duke University Press.

Berlant, L. (2021) On the Inconvenience of Other People. North Carolina: Duke University Press.

Benjamin, R. (2024) Imagination: A manifesto. New York: WW Norton & Co.

Bown, A. (2022) Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships. London: Pluto Press.

Timperley, C. (2024) ‘Be Here Now: Feminist futures as present’ Feminist Review. 136(1).

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Poetry is cool!

Episode 12

Monday, December 9, 2024 • Duration 28:03

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hear me out: Joker 2...

Episode 11

Monday, November 25, 2024 • Duration 28:38

Leaning into our film bro personas, in this episode we use the latest Joker movie to explore how dissociation - the cultivation of numbness, or splitting of subjectivity - might be considered a subtle form of resistance whilst inhabiting hostile environments. Is our refusal to be affected by oppressive structures a revolutionary act of self-preservation? Or does cultivated numbness prevent us from mobilising towards radical change? Ultimately…why is everyone hating on the new Joker film?

References:

Aitken, S. in Anderson et al. (2022) Encountering Berlant part one: Concepts otherwise. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12494

Awkward-Rich, C. (2022). The Terrible We: Thinking with trans maladjustment. Durham: Duke University Press.

Berlant, L. (2022). The Inconvenience of Other People. Durham: Duke University Press.

Bissell, D. (2021). The Anaesthetic Politics of Being Unaffected: Embodying Insecure Digital Platform Labour. The Anaesthetic Politics of Being Unaffected: Embodying Insecure Digital Platform Labour - Bissell - 2022 - Antipode - Wiley Online Library

Malatino, H. (2022). Side Affects: On being trans and feeling bad. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Turner, C. (2024). The transgender space invader: Out of time and out of affect. European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Becoming beautiful, online

Episode 10

Monday, November 11, 2024 • Duration 39:33

In the age of the algorithm, social media platforms and machine learning technologies are now defining, and perpetually updating, aesthetic ideals and beauty standards. In this episode, we discuss how beauty culture is entangled with the digital technologies that have become so pervasive in everyday life. How does ‘algorithmic oppression’ play into the creation and maintenance of beauty standards, and how does it feel to exist as cyborg, changeling bodies within all of this? Inspired by various works of fiction and drawing upon critical theory, we explore how we might hack and resist the affordances of these technologies through embodying and embracing glitches, and in ways that gesture towards queer and non-binary becoming.

Atlanta, E. (2024) Pixel Flesh: How toxic beauty culture harms women. London: Headline Publishing Group.

Awad, M. (2023) Rouge. New York: Scribner Publishing.

Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: New York University Press

Russell, L. (2020) Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. London: Verso Books.

Sender, K. & Shaw, A. (2017) Queer Technologies: Affordances, Affect, Ambivalence. London: Routledge

Ta-Wei, C. (1995 [2021]) The Membranes: a novel. Columbia: Columbia University Press.

Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. London: Profile Books Ltd.

Zwick, D. & Knott, J. D. (2009) “Manufacturing Customers: The database as new means of production.” Journal of Consumer Culture, 9(2).

Subscribe to our Patreon for exclusive unfiltered book-club style episodes about our current reads and thoughts... patreon.com/TheHopefulReader

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happy Hopeween, little monsters (a monster mash up)

Episode 9

Thursday, October 31, 2024 • Duration 29:12

Happy Halloween, hopeful readers! In this episode, we bring all the spooky vibes with a little monster mash up…From Frankenstein and witches to a jellyfish communist revolution, we explore what the figure of the ‘monster’ tells us about the exclusionary, anthropocentric category of the human, as well as how the affective circulation of fear works to maintain hierarchical boundaries and binaries. Can we be hopeful little monsters in a world that sometimes feels monstrous?

References:

Ahmed, S. (2014) The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Chollet, M. (2022) In defence of witches: Why women are still on trial. London: Picador.

Enriquez, M. (2009). The dangers of smoking in bed. London: Granta books.

Greenaway, J. (2024) Capitalism, A Horror Story:Gothic marxism and the dark side of the imagination. London: Repeater Books.

Halberstam, J. (1995) Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monstrosity. London: Duke University Press.

Musharbash, Y. (2023) Monsters and Crises, a seminar.

Nordmarken, S. (2013) Becoming ever more monstrous: feeling transgender in-betweenness. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(1).

Preciado, P. B. (2021) Can the monster speak? London: Fitzcarraldo editions.

Rumfitt, A. (2023) Brainwyrms. Cipher Press.

Shelley, M. (1818) Frankenstein. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth editions.

Stryker, S. (1994 [2024]) My words to Victor Frankenstein above the village of Chamounix: Performing transgender rage. Durham: Duke University Press.

Tsing, A., Bubandt, N., Gan, E. & Swanson, H. (2017) Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

The Hopeful Reader – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Hopeful Reader – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

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