Category: Current Events

Invited to Witness: Jennifer Lynn Kelly on Solidarity Tourism E16

~ Bad-Art-Pod

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Colin talks with Jennifer Lynn Kelly, author of “Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine” to learn about the promise and pitfalls of solidarity tourism. On the one hand, solidarity tourism can be used to imagine and build a just future. On the other hand, it often recreates or reinforces structures of colonial inequality.

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Please check out Invited to Witness, available [here]

Kelly also talked in depth about the following:

Sophia Azeb: “Who Will We Be When We Are Free?” The Funambulist.

Dean Spade: “Impossibility Now: A Trans Politics Manifesto.”

Tanya Habjouqa: “Occupied Pleasures.”

Sophia Stamatopolou-Robbins: “The Joys and Dangers of Solidarity in Palestine: Prosthetic Engagement in an Age of Reparations.” The New Centennial Review.

And Colin mentioned:

Dina Matar and Venetia Porter eds. “Archiving Gaza in the Present.”

In our conversation, Kelly was diligent to note several people who have supported her work. Since not all of those shoutouts made it into the final edit, we’ll note that she credited Barbara Harlow, Ann Laura Stoller, and Ella Shohat.

 

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America’s Birthday Parties Then and Now E15

~ Bad-Art-Pod

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We look back at the man who called himself the “bicentennial president” — Richard M. Nixon — and the 1976 celebration he helped to plan. Examining the politics of past U.S. birthday parties, we ask what they can tell us about the present. How much has changed? We also spend some time talking about the World Cup and how much more fun it is than the Semiquincentennial. Yay 250!

Episode research draws heavily on two books:

Bicentennial! A Revolutionary History of the 1970s. by Marc Stein.

and

America, USA. How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries. by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Pod logo based on photo by Ted Timmons, Edited by Colin McLaughlin-Alcock
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Oh The Inhumanity: On A.I. Art. E14

~ Bad-Art-Pod

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Today we take on A.I. art.

We discuss the following references:

Duesterberg, James. 2023. “Neither Governed Nor Free.” Boston Review. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/neither-governed-nor-free/

Crabapple, Molly. 2026. “Is AI The Greatest Art Heist in History?” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/apr/12/is-ai-the-greatest-art-heist-in-history

Winegar, Jessica. 2008. “The Humanity Game: Art, Islam, and the War on Terror.” Anthropological Quarterly. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/247134

 

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Header image based on photo by Gary Coronado: https://tinyurl.com/kdzxt5k

Pod logo based on photo by Ted Timmons, Edited by Colin McLaughlin-Alcock

Creative Commons License: https://tinyurl.com/y9dj772p

 

Social Death: on the social mediatization of atrocity E12

~ Bad-Art-Pod

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Reflecting on current events, Mariel and Colin discuss the proliferation of atrocity images on social media. What is at stake when these images are treated as a tool of political mobilization?

References:

Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others.

Eubanks, W. Ralph. 2025. Emmett Till Then and Now. in Bulletin by Monument Lab.

Hernandez, Joe. 2021. “Read this powerful statement from Darnella Frazier, who filmed George Floyd’s murder.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/1000475344/read-this-powerful-statement-from-darnella-frazier-who-filmed-george-floyds-murd

Jackson, Jenn. 2022. “The Militancy of (Black) Memory ” SAQ. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-9825933

Music from #Uppbeat
https://uppbeat.io/t/night-drift/pastel
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Header image based on photo by Gary Coronado: https://tinyurl.com/kdzxt5k

Pod logo based on photo by Ted Timmons, Edited by Colin McLaughlin-Alcock

Creative Commons License: https://tinyurl.com/y9dj772p