The Many Academies Podcast

Season two. Lock in Lette [laughs]. Welcome to Season Two of The Many Academies Podcast . I am your host, Lette Bragg. It is International Open Access Week, and so this episode celebrates the responsibilities and pleasures of openness and access. If gates and locks are grounded in defensiveness and suspicion, openness trusts the possibilities of thinking and language. We can make peace now with how we think, what we reach for, what we need, the conditions that enable us to hold the utopian uncertainty of openness. In the spirit, and to build a bridge between seasons, I invited the podcast’s first research assistant, Nina Zhuo, to talk to me before she leaves about how ideas animating the first season interact with her decision to pursue graduate study. The theme of Open Access Week is, “who owns our knowledge,” which is a question about who has access to education, how knowledge is created and shared, and whose voices are recognized and valued. Why not talk to someone contemplating entry to academic study, confronting the ethics and limitations of knowledge production? First, I will play for you three clips from Season One that frame our discussion. You’ll hear Eileen Joy talking about thinking out loud, Kriti Sharma talking about a tender realism that keeps thinking in relation, and Sophie Lewis affirming existing spaces and networks of world-building. Then you will hear Nina and I talking about dreams of thinking, making zines, working for others, and why we take care of theory. It is always possible to create a space for thinking out loud, so easy to let in the ethos and activism of those we can call organic intellectuals of now, confronting anew the urgency of a philosophy of praxis. Stay with me, and here we go.

People should be able to do anything they want with any number of objects – call them texts or other things – and put them together and think about them. To think out loud is another way I think about it. This should be a place where thinking out loud is the job.

it’s not just that relationality is difficult to explain; it’s difficult to take in and I think that this taking in is because of just there’s a lot of resistances and some of those resistances, I think you know, to me, you know, somewhat obviously come from masculinist rationality or something like that, there’s like a lot of, one might say, like, the opposite of tenderness, [laughs] you know, like a kind of toughness or a kind of sense that, the real world is to be realistic and that the real world really is, you know, to access it means to, to have a particular kind of affect that is sort of unmoved, that is removed, that relates with the world that’s very much like on the outside. So there’s a tremendous amount of defendedness. It’s not just that we’re trying to say something that’s hard to hear, it’s that there’s so much defendedness in terms of listening. And so in order to open up listening, it’s like we’re trying to speak to the part of what we believe is in every reader.

There are things that I believe get left out of conversations about the crisis of the humanities, the crisis of the university, which is the, the skillfulness and the proliferation I see everywhere of groups of people doing study and policy research and, grief, sort of, processing together, death doula-ing, you know, critique, attempts at accountability and, you know, yeah, on Discord, you know?

My family – I’m the first in my family to do higher education. And I’m also, like, they don’t understand exactly what I mean when I say I wanna get a PhD, and I wanna be a professor, and I wanna teach, and I wanna engage in theory. I also get made fun of how much I want do theory [laughs]. And, like, everything I wanna do, it’s like – even in computer science, it’s like, I’m actually a lot more interested in theory than I am in like practical applications. And they’re like, okay. So everything I wanna do is abstract, which is fine [laughs]. But it makes it really hard to explain to my parents in Chinese, and so the only way I could think of to tell them was like, I’m just gonna do more school. And then listening to the podcast, it’s like – no, it doesn’t have to be more school. It’s just more learning and more finding ways to engage with learning in a way that isn’t attached to a university system, that is also part of so many awful things. Like, even just like, I don’t know. We went to a screening of the encampments with my friends, and just seeing what institutions are willing to do to students who are thinking outside of the bounds of what the university wants people to think. Um, it’s like, okay, well then what kind of educational work are they letting people do? Which is crazy, because you’re supposed to be exploring things that are calling to you. And then they’re like, oh, they can only call to you in this way.

Yes, yes, Nina. I’m thinking, as you’re speaking, I’m thinking of this idea that the university should be a place where thinking happens. And when you learn that it’s not, there can be something really disheartening and devastating about it, because you’re looking around for other spaces then. Right? It’s not only that you want to critique the university. You’re also thinking, okay, so then where can I think? Right? Because you need support for that, and infrastructure. And you need others, and you need space, and it’s a lot of work. [Nina: Mhmm] Um, and then I’m also struck by how the way you talk about theory is the way I also talk about theory. It’s like people make fun of me because I like theory. [Laughter] So the people who make fun of you – you say, Oh, people make fun of me for my interest in aesthetic theory" – those are people you admire, your friends. Right? So it’s not like… yeah. It’s like a real . . . it’s like, why are you interested in theory?

Well, but I think if you’re thinking about the way that your… Thinking about the way that your thinking is guiding the way you’re actually moving about in the world, and the way that you are participating in it with your like body – that makes sense to me as, like, this is what I want theory to be for me.

Mhmm, yeah. To think about thinking. Yeah, I really like that. So the reason why that stuck with me is because, when I was thinking about what I’m trying to do with the podcast, you know, when I first frame it to people, I’m like, oh, I’m trying to find other ways outside of the academy to think. And I’m trying to show that there are other paths through than the normal one we know about. But then, at its very core, I’m trying to speak to people who are making theory practice. So they’re enacting theoretical ideas. And in doing so, something real, something is opening up some space, even though it wasn’t seen as possible.You know?

I think that’s something that I’m trying to do right now, in a way that’s like- I’m rethinking about applying to grad school again, right? But I’m also like, but what do I want to do in grad school that I can’t do in my normal life, that I can’t do now? And I think that’s kind of where I’m like: I love doing my food service jobs, and I’m realizing, oh, I can just write things on my own and like send them to people if I want to. And if the thing that I want to engage in in a PhD program is like lectures and readings, I can find those online. I can find those with my friends, I can do my own reading groups. There are so many ways that you can learn and grow academically, intellectually, whatever, outside of an institution that like… I don’t know. The people that – I’m in New York now – and the people that I’ve talked to, they’ve gotten kicked out of their PhD programs because they were like engaging in pro-Palestinian protest. It’s like, well, if I go into a school and I want to be involved in a rally or sit-in or something, and then they kick me out anyway, what’s the point in spending a year slogging over an application, begging them to let me in, just for them to retaliate because my thoughts are already something that they don’t want to encourage. Or they only want to encourage in theory, and not in practice.

And so that’s what I’ve been thinking about, is like trying to, well, find spaces that encourage exactly what you’re saying earlier, like putting theory into practice and finding ways to build academic space outside of academia. And then also deciding, like, what does that look like for me if I want to create something like that? And yeah, I think going back to the podcast was really cool to rethink that, too.

It’s such a good question. You would go to grad school if you couldn’t find what it offered anywhere else. Is that right? [Nina: Yeah, mhmm] And it’s not about necessarily the learning, because you could do that anyway. Right? [Nina: Yeah] And it’s not the degree for you, right, the credential necessarily, right? It seems to be the thinking.

Yeah. And the classrooms. The classrooms are fun, guys! [laughs].

You like classrooms?

Yeah. And the classrooms. The classrooms are fun, guys! [laughs].

I do. I like the idea of me in front of a blackboard. [laughs]

Are you the teacher? Okay, so we have the teaching, the thinking, the learning. The thing about being a teacher is you get to decide the space and what becomes possible, too. You know, it is really fun. And it also sounds like you also believe in reading and the power of text and language to generate ideas and thinking.

Yeah, because that’s how I learned English – by reading. I didn’t speak for a really long time, and then when I did speak, it was in full sentences and people were really confused, and it was because I was reading books!

I love that. What would you study?

English literature!

As many issues as I have with the way that, like, how it is distributed or whatever, I do think it’s very important to have education accessible to people and to have education in a way that’s engaged with what’s actually happening in the world, instead of having it be this abstract, weird, lofty situation that feels so far removed from reality. Trying to find a way to connect, like even my parents’ thoughts about me making money to what I want to do, which is like find a way to educate myself and others at the same time, in a way that’s deeply connected to: how are we living, how are we trying to find – like, how are we trying to, one, survive; and two, like, actually look at each other and help each other survive and help each other live, and help each other understand why we can’t do that quite yet in the way that we all want to, and how we can get there.

Yeah. To me that’s theory, that’s theoretical thought, and that’s thinking as it happens at the edge of the possible world, where you’re thinking, we need this in order to make it through. And this is the thing we’re currently not producing. So I think of talking to Kriti and Michal on the episode on relationality, [Nina: Mhmm, yeah] and they were thinking about, I think, exactly that same thing: how to put into words this thing that’s not yet legible. You said how to look at each other? Is that right?

Yeah.

Is it related to your zine-making?

I think yes. I found when I was younger – I’m like 22 – like, when I was 18, I would write essays that were like, we don’t all think very linearly. I needed the big blackboard, and I needed to scrawl all over it and draw arrows and be crazy and be messy. And I feel like the zine is such a good place to do that because it has a political history, something very DIY, something that you construct yourself and you just kind of give out to people. And I think it’s really good to have a space where thoughts can be messy. It’s not just size-12 Times New Roman font. It’s something that you can actually touch and figure out and mess up and fix. And, yeah, I think a zine are really cool. And then it’s something that you can hand off to people and be like, hey, this is what I’m working on.

Yeah!

I remember I was writing like a research proposal or something, and I was advised to start with a personal anecdote and then go into my theory. But then when I did that, it was such a switch, and I could see the tone change. It sounded like two very different things. I was like, no, but this is very much informed by this. And if I keep the first person, it’s so much more honest and it’s so much more actually what I think. And then I think that also challenges the way that people read it. Because if you’re reading it as, oh, the person who wrote this has thoughts, and the person who wrote this is a living being, you’re more compelled to critique them. You’re more compelled to think on your own instead of taking their word for fact. And I think that’s really important, too.

Yeah, you’re also going to be more gentle when you think of it as thinking that’s happening that matters to the person. So it’s both. It’s like, you can see that there’s nothing universal about what they’re saying that you have to accept as truth. Right? And at the same time, there’s this one person. There should be this vulnerability to it that changes the way we respond, to the way we write.

Yeah. Even thinking about like, recently, so many journalists have been murdered in Gaza, and then the way people write about it is just very removed. And then you read the testimonies, and then you read their last words, and that is so much more moving and so much more, like, because you have to fight with the fact that that is a real person. And instead of fact that’s out there.

And I think this is where the zine idea came from a little bit – translating it into a zine thing – cause one of my friends was writing something about images, and we can see all these things happening and we can see, like, it’s insane the images that we’re seeing, and then we’re just passively taking them in. We’re not – we don’t feel compelled to do anything because that’s not the way we’re taught to think. That’s not the way we’re taught to process information. We’re taught to look at it as a fact, critique it, and then move on. And that’s really dangerous when it comes to the way we start thinking about theory, and the way you start thinking about thinking about thinking.

Like, we need to be able to find a way to connect the two in a way that’s like, there are people behind everything that you read. There are people behind everything that is done in the world. And if you can’t contend with that – if we can’t contend with that – everything does become this weird, abstract system, and then it feels so helpless. And I don’t think that’s great in terms of how we’d like to look at each other. Yeah.

Yeah. I’m thinking about the first time we spoke about the zine project. If I recall correctly, you said there was something reparative about it, some way of repairing something about the way we are in the world. Right. So I’m imagining trying to think about how these images and these words and these lives and these deaths are or aren’t affecting us. And on the one hand, there’s this, okay, what do we do about it, right? But there’s also this, how do we survive in the face of it of the lack of any action, or the lack of any connection? Right?

Yeah. Because something we talked about was the idea of making zines together, and the idea of like sitting around and folding, and like having a passive activity that we’re all participating in, in a way that still allows us to engage with each other, and engage with what’s on the paper, like what’s in front of us. And I think that helps bridge a divide that is really present, and also hard to overcome when you’re walking into a bookstore and picking up a book. Like, it becomes a very isolated activity. When I don’t think it needs to be or should be.

Even… I’m thinking about the Socratic seminar model in the classroom, and how the way that I speak in those settings is very different than the way I would be talking about those same texts with my friends. And a big part of that is that when I’m with my friends, there’s an interpersonal connection. I feel safe saying, like stupid things, and I feel safe asking dumb questions. Yeah. I feel like we’re all trying to sound smart when we’re publishing things or writing something. And if we make it more about a conversation, it’s a lot more welcoming, it’s a lot more inviting. And then it’s also, I think, a lot more productive, because then we can poke at each other in a way that’s – I’m trying to help you, and I’m trying to also understand you, instead of, I think this is bad..

EYeah. No. Yeah, I agree. I think it’s crucial to any sort of thinking and creating and composing. And just to being. I think it’s, yeah, it’s 100% necessary. I think it’s really hard to let go of that performance.

Even… I’m thinking about the Socratic seminar model in the classroom, and how the way that I speak in those settings is very different than the way I would be talking about those same texts with my friends. And a big part of that is that when I’m with my friends, there’s an interpersonal connection. I feel safe saying, like stupid things, and I feel safe asking dumb questions. Yeah. I feel like we’re all trying to sound smart when we’re publishing things or writing something. And if we make it more about a conversation, it’s a lot more welcoming, it’s a lot more inviting. And then it’s also, I think, a lot more productive, because then we can poke at each other in a way that’s – I’m trying to help you, and I’m trying to also understand you, instead of, I think this is bad.

Yeah, I guess what I’m thinking about: do I have a calling for grad school? And it’s like, I think I have a – I don’t know if I’d call it a calling – I think I have a really urgent desire to just be involved, or to create, like spaces where people feel safe to think really messily and feel safe to be really emotional in their thinking, and really active in the way that they’re – that we all should, like, be – trying to connect the theoretical and the material, and…Yeah. Like, trying to – I just keep thinking of – like, is it the Kriti episode the proliferation I see everywhere

Oh, Sophie Lewis.

Sophie Lewis. Like, it’s like – yes, it’s everywhere. And we should all be trying to find a way to question everything. And I think that starts with breaking the sort of classroom model that we’re very indoctrinated in, and where there’s one person at the front telling you what to think. And it’s like, no, the person in front should be teaching you… should be empowering you to think, should be telling you, I’m just here. I want to be, I want… Oh, this sounds so annoying. I want to educate in a way where I’m being educated. Like, yeah. And I keep thinking about that in terms of my friendships. And I think that’s why I’m so, like, I want things to be interpersonal, because I think that contributes so much when you feel safe with the person that you’re talking to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love how much you love other people’s thinking. Like, you really care about the capacity and the right for other people to be able to think. And that it’s crucial for you, for your own thinking. And just this act of helping each other think is also related to how we live and what it is to be, and how to change things. It’s not a trivial thing. You know, and it’s become this thing that we have to actively work towards, kind of thinking with each other. And you’re doing the same thing with the zine, too. So, yeah, you might be a teacher. [laughter] You just… [laughter]

SWe’ll see. I’ll let you know if I need a rec letter.

I’ll write you one then.

I’m thinking about Sophie Lewis, too, and the tentacular way she had of thinking. And so also, I enjoy the way you’re interested in helping other people think, right? And the different ways that we have – like, sometimes we have to step outside of the academic model in order to help those we’re working with think. And then also, you don’t like walls [laughter] Of course, you don’t like them. And so there’s a lot that you do that is about, like “Nope!” .

Yes. I think labels are stupid. I think identifying with a specific theorist or a specific school of thought makes you a fan of that school of thought, not an actual thinker. And I think that ruins the way that we start to look at things, cause then you’re not thinking for yourself. You’re thinking along the lines of what other people have told you to think, or, like, what other people have taken the time to develop on their own. And it’s like, no—you should be putting things together in a way that makes sense now, because also we’re looking at stuff from, like [laughs], centuries ago. And it’s like, if we don’t put that into what we’re experiencing now, it’s kind of useless. Because they were dealing with similar contexts – history does repeat itself, blah blah blah – but in a very different way than the way we’re experiencing it now. And we need to respond to that in a way that puts old and new together to have something that’s actually effective now, instead of something that was effective a while ago, or that someone thought would be effective a while ago.

Yeah, yeah. No, I see, like, the breaking down of walls, and also the idea of terms that don’t do the necessary work for you.

It’s been about an hour. Is there anything you want to have said?.

I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think we just, we just did a lot..

Okay, I’m gonna turn it off.

Thank you, Nina Zhuo, for returning to old haunts to have this conversation with me, and thank you for all your help with the podcast. Thank you to the Aydelotte Foundation for supporting Many Academies. Thank you to Jodie Riddex for the art and Sebastian Bauer for the music. And thank you for listening.