Hosts

B and their adorable godson, Santos

B Aultman is a PhD Candidate at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Their main areas of interest are social movements in American politics, transgender studies, and science studies. Their dissertation, entitled “The Epistemology of Transgender Political Resistance: Embodied Experience and the Practices of Everyday Life,” explores how the classificatory schemes within the study of social movements have occluded the political practices of trans people. Arguing that it is within these practices that constitute knowledge and political identities, they claim that certain forms of politics is thus overlooked, creating forms of epistemic injustice. They have published on the concept of cisgender, book chapters on American political institutions, and edited volumes on the politics of sexuality and global HIV/AIDS. Their website is here.

Rachel Brown is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She is working on a book manuscript about migrant labor and care and domestic work in Palestine. The project considers the particular forms that the reproductive labor done by migrants takes in a country with a de jure racial citizenship regime. It also examines how settler colonialism differentially impacts Israel’s temporary labor force and the military occupation of Palestinian land.  Her first book of poems, Atop the Staircase, was published in 2016. When not academia-ing or podcasting, she enjoys writing poetry, studying Hebrew Bible and singing stuff. For more info, Rachel’s personal site is here.

Emily K. Crandall holds a PhD in Political Science from the Graduate Center, CUNY, with a certificate in Women’s Studies. Her dissertation – “Imagined Futures: Feminist Science Studies in an Era of Climate Change Denial” – has been supported by fellowships from the Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies, the Committee for the Study of Religion, and the Center for Global Ethics and Politics.

Siddhant Issar is a PhD Candidate in the department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Drawing upon the Movement for Black Lives and the Black Radical Tradition, Sid’s dissertation project distills a critical theory of racial capitalism. More broadly, his scholarly interests lie in the intellectual history of Critical Theory, especially the first generation of the Frankfurt School, Black radical thought, decolonial and postcolonial theory, feminist theory, and queer theory.

John McMahon is Assistant Professor of Political Science at SUNY Plattsburgh*. His research interests include modern and contemporary political theory, emotion and affect, feminist thought, black political thought, and political theories of work and labor. His work has appeared in Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory, and Theory & Event, among other journals. John’s Ph.D. is from The Graduate Center, CUNY, where the AAP was founded! For more, visit John’s personal site.

*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on the podcast are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of SUNY College at Plattsburgh.

James Padilioni, Jr. is a Visiting Assistant Professor and Consortium for Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow in Religion (Black Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies affiliated) at Swarthmore College. James’ teaching and research foregrounds Black Diaspora ritual and performance studies, focusing on Afro-Latinx and Afro-Caribbean folk Catholicism, Black queer religion, Black music and choreography, and Caribbean magico-religious, ecstatic, and pharmacopic traditions. His forthcoming book project is part ethnography, part history, and part critical race theory, and will focus upon the fractal manifestations of the cult of St. Martin de Porres – the first saint from the Americas of African descent –  in overlapping Africana communities in Florida over the long 20th century. In his spare time, he can usually be found jogging, hiking, playing the piano, binging Netflix, or scanning the heavens for shooting stars.