S5.1: Walter Chaw: Memory Kingdoms, the Terror of Anti-Asian Violence & Strength in Struggling

I wish I could properly tell you how much I enjoyed doing this episode.

I say that about every episode and I’m never lying.

It seems like no matter what, it just gets better.

This episode with my dear wonderful friend Walter Chaw is a little longer than usual but I don’t think you’ll feel it. And it officially marks the 4th year that Archivist’s Alley has been “on the air.” So I think that’s pretty cool.

I plan on having Walter on again. We barely touched the surface of so many things. But I hope that you enjoyed this episode and that you look out and read his work as it is published.

There are very few critics that I read anymore (some of the reasons we talk about in this podcast). But I will always read Walter’s work and highly recommend you do the same. Whether you agree with him or not, the writing is solid and brilliant and that’s about as rare as jackalopes.

As usual, bio and links under the episode. AND THERE ARE SOME REALLY AWESOME LINKS, y’all!!!


Bio:

Walter Chaw is senior film critic for FilmFreakCentral.net. He has various bylines, a brilliant and beautiful wife, two amazing kids, a helper dog and a simple dog, and has a book about the films of Walter Hill due in Spring of 2022.

Twitter: @mangiotto

www.filmfreakcentral.net


I’m also just going to PR him a bit because you all should check him out.

Bruce Lee & Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Judas and the Black Messiah

Walter does INCREDIBLE Saturday Matinee Film Discussions with the Denver Public Library. This one is with the always wonderful Edgar Wright!!! Check it out!!!

Here’s another one with Alex Winter (yep, Bill from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) for a film I absolutely looooooove!



Dr. T.J. Tallie: Queered Power Structures, Polygamist Archive Studies and How to Survive the Non-Stop Fiesta of Sadness

If I could shout it from every karaoke bar and academic institution that has ever existed, I would take up ALL THE SPACE yelling and singing about how much my dear friend (and glorious glamour queen) Dr. T.J. Tallie rules.
He has taught me so many things about how to be a better person, historian, activist and friend.

THE GREATEST THING IS THAT AS OF THIS LAST WEEK, THE BOOK THAT WE TALK ABOUT ON THIS PODCAST IS AVAILABLE FOR SALE AND YOU SHOULD ALL BUY ONE!!!!!!!!

The link is right here and it is available on Barnes & Noble and all kinds of online book sellers as well as the one I linked to.
This is what it looks like:

Buy this amazing work!!!

However, my convo with T.J. will be the second to last podcast that I do from the US. I will do one more and then….well, you’ll hear in the next podcast!!

Just check out this truly amazing and fun conversation with one of the greatest young professional minds/academics/historians and Missy Elliot Karaoke Singers of our time. ALSO- NO ONE LOOKS BETTER IN A CAPE OR VICTORIAN COLLAR THAN DR. TALLIE. This is just fact. Trust me on it.

As usual, bio and links under the podcast…

BIO:

T.J. Tallie is an Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of San Diego. His work focuses on questions of gender, race, colonialism, indigeneity, Africa, and sexuality. He is the author of Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa. He is from Los Angeles originally and is a sassy unicorn of knowledge and justice.

Links:

https://read.dukeupress.edu/glq/article/3/4/437/9940/Punks-Bulldaggers-and-Welfare-Queens-The-Radical

Genevieve Weber: Decentering the Colonial Narrative in First Nations & Indigenous Community Materials

On the second Monday in October, the US observes a day that is most commonly known as Columbus Day. It has been known to facilitate parades, festivities and celebrations of all kinds.

This day is said to commemorate Christopher Columbus “discovering America.” **AHEM** Discovering did you say? Yeah, I don’t think so. It is scientifically, physically impossible to discover a country that is already COMPLETELY FULL of people living in fully functional societies.
Hey there colonialism, how ya doing?

So in order to work against a landscape that praises Columbus Day and TOWARDS a world that celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day, today is the first of what I hope are a few eps this season with guests who specialize in working with archives/collections or media materials centered in and around Indigenous folx. This episode features the incredible Genevieve Weber and we talk about the amazing things that she is doing up in Canada with First Nations communities. She is a total rockstar. SRSLY, y’all.

Please join me as she and I talk in depth about her work and the commitment that her institution, the BC Archives, has made to try to heal some of the damage that settlers and colonialism in general has done to First Nations folx in Canada.  Bio & links are below the podcast link!

Bio:

Genevieve Weber is an Archivist with the BC Archives, part of the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, Canada. She completed a Master of Archival Studies (MAS) degree at the University of British Columbia in 2008 with a concentration in First Nations recordkeeping and archives. Since then she has worked in a number of Indigenous communities in BC, including the Nisga’a Nation and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations, and at MOA (the Museum of Anthropology at UBC). She has been with the BC Archives for the past two years. Helping community members access their cultural heritage in the archives is one of her favourite parts of her job.

Links:

BC Archives website: https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/bc-archives/about-us/about-bc-archives

Indigenous records at the BC Archives: https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/bc-archives/what-we-have/indigenous-material

The First Nations and Repatriation department of the Royal BC Museum  https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/first-nations/first-nations-repatriation

Episode 12: T.J. Tallie- Claiming Space, Archives on Their Own Terms & Weaponized Fashion

I got very lucky when I met T.J. and I have never taken our relationship for granted.

I learned some incredible lessons from T.J. about respect, listening and boundaries. I hope that everyone in their life can have a T.J. Seriously.

An excellent teacher, a brilliant human being, and an impeccable dresser. So that’s my spiel. But his bio and and the links below really say more than I ever could because I will just gush about his lovely laugh, warmth & sparkle. And the fact that I never knew what a clafoutis was until he posted pix of the ones he made. THEY LOOKED DELICIOUS, BTW.
I hope you enjoy this episode and this GLORIOUS WONDERFUL human!!!

T.J. Tallie is currently Assistant Professor of African History at Washington and Lee University.  This fall he will begin as an Assistant Professor of History at the University of San Diego.  He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  He is the author of the forthcoming book, Unsettling Natal: Race, Gender, and Colonial Logics in Southern Africa, 1850-1910, which examines the creation of the nineteenth-century settler colony of Natal and ideas of race, gender, and sexuality in the British Empire. His recent publications include “Sartorial Settlement: the Mission Field and Transformation in Colonial Natal, 1850-1897,” in Journal of World History, 27, no. 3 (2016): 389-410; “Queering Natal: Settler Logics and the Disruptive Challenge of Zulu Polygamy,” InGLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 19, no. 2 (2013): 167-189.  He is an Aries, an ENFJ, and an unapologetic Gryffindor with Ravenclaw tendencies.

Enjoy his ridiculous fashion blog, Clockwork Black (http://clockworkblackblog.wordpress.com)

Archives y’all should visit and show love to:

Killie Campbell Africana Library

Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository

National Archives, Kew

National Archives of New Zealand

Things to read, based on this podcast:

Cathy Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” GLQ, May 1997 3(4): 437-465

Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands

Tsitsi Dengaremba, Nervous Conditions

Mariama Bâ, So Long A Letter

Kopano Matlwa, Coconut: A Novel

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others

Michael Twitty, The Cooking Gene

Aimé Césaire. Discourse on Colonialism.

Maria Lugones, Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System, Hypatia,Volume 22, Number 1, Winter 2007, p. 186-209

Zackie Achmat, “‘Apostles of civilised vice’: ‘Immoral practices’ and ‘unnatural vice’ in South African prisons and compounds, 1890–1920,” Social Dynamics, 1993 19(2): 92-110.

E. Patrick Johnson, “‘Quare’ Studies, Or (Almost) Everything I know about Queer Studies I Learned From My Grandmother,” and Marlon B. Ross, “Beyond the Closet as Raceless Paradigm” in Queer Black Studies, p. 124-189.