epistemic unruliness

Interview: Jason Ortiz on #RickyRenuncia and Puerto Rican Sovereignty Movements – Epistemic Unruliness 26

In this new installment of Epistemic Unruliness, James interviews Jason Ortiz, president of the Connecticut Puerto Rican Agenda, to discuss the recent #RickyRenuncia Uprising in Puerto Rico. To place these protests in their long historical context, Jason and James transport the listeners to the island of Borikén, home of the Taíno Rebellion of 1511, and condense over 500 years of anticolonial movements in Puerto Rican history to a 90-minute conversation. The pair details the various iterations of U.S. colonialism that have ensnared Puerto Ricans in global political economic confrontations over the twentieth century as the Caribbean formed a microcosm of Cold War statecraft, with Puerto Rico and Cuba figuring as proxy theaters for Washington and Moscow’s war games. As the Iron Curtain fell and the new millennium dawned, Puerto Rican colonialism entered a reconfiguring phase with the near-collapse of global financial markets during the Great Recession of 2008 and the subsequent neoliberal austerity regimes it catalyzed. Hurricane María’s devastating landfall in September 2017 served only to amplify the material and political precarity of Boricuas caught in the dual maelstroms of the American Empire and the Anthropocene.

When a team of investigative journalists released a cache of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s homophobic, misogynistic, and classist chat messages in July 2019, Puerto Ricans seized the 500-year moment once again and initiated the #RickyRenuncia/#RickyResign Uprising. Nearly a million Boricuas took to the streets of San Juan, (and many more in la diaspora), staring down police tear gas canisters as they banged their pots and danced perreo to reggaeton and trap music, giving new life to the adage of Emma Goldman lore, “if I can’t dance I don’t want to be in your revolution” (Si no puedo perrear, no es mi revolución).

Support us on Patreon to help us upgrade our recording equipment, potentially provide episode transcripts, and more – plus, you may have the chance to jump your request to the top of the request queue. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Bad Infinity for the opening and interstitial music, “Post Digital,” from their album FutureCommons. For the mp3 of the episode click here.

Links:

National Puerto Rican Agenda

Full 889 page cache of Roselló documents from the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo

The New York Times interview with Colectiva Feminista en Construcción who organized the initial protests of the Uprising

Fernando Tormos-Aponte’s Jacobin article “Puerto Rico Rises”

Sandy Plácido’s historicization of Caribbean anti-imperialist movements in The Washington Post

Video montage of “Perreo Combativo” dance protest, July 25, 2019A

NPR coverage of Bad Bunny, Residente, and iLe protest song: “Afilando Los Cuchillos”

Minority Cannabis Business Association

#RickyRenuncia protester. Photo courtesy of Resumen Latinoamerica

James Padilioni on the Wild Mind Collective: Visionary Scholarship Beyond Recognition with the Ancestors

In this special crossover episode of Epistemic Unruliness, James sat down with Kaitlin Smith, the founder of the Wild Mind Collective and host of their podcast, for an intimate conversation focusing on the spiritual praxis of critical cultural studies. The pair discussed the inspiration behind Epistemic Unruliness and the interpersonal relationships between Always Already hosts, James’s pursuit of African Diasporic ethnohistorical research through an ancestral methodology of co-presence, and the relationship between the Black radical tradition and Black mystic and gnostic practices.

Thanks to Kaitlin for letting us cross-post the episode here on AAP!

Always Already On the Road: Voices from ASA, Part 2 – Epistemic Unruliness 18

It’s Part 2 of Always Already on the Road (for part 1 click here!), where James attends the American Studies Association Annual Meeting in Denver, CO for conversations with a multiplicity of critical, engaged scholars. In this episode, James and his guests discuss American colonialism and Puerto Rico, Standing Rock and the dispossession of indigenous land that gave rise to the city of Denver as the “home” for this year’s conference itself, Chicano punk culture, and more. Dr. Kara Keeling pays us a very special visit to give a word on black queer studies’ central role to imagining more ethical worlds and mobilizing tactics to realize those futurities, and a senior editor of a university press shares #protips on how to turn your dissertation into a published book.

This episode features music from the Deleuze-inspired EDM musician Bad Infinity (whom we interviewed earlier this year), with clips from his songs “Being in the World,” “Mirrors,” and “The Order of Things,” all off of the 2015 album Monadology. Check out Bad Infinity on Soundcloud. Thanks also to Leah Dion for our intro music, her “Static Loops.”

Please support us on Patreon to help with recording equipment. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Get the mp3 of the episode here.

50154382111__3ac9969a-5014-4f8b-8f47-f22f393193ef

Always Already On the Road: Voices from ASA, Part 1 – Epistemic Unruliness 17

In Part 1 of this first-ever Always Already on the Road, James attends the American Studies Association Annual Meeting in Denver, CO. This year’s theme was Home/Not Home: Centering American Studies Where We Are, and this allowed for James and attendees to discuss the urgencies created by the election of Donald Trump, including the rise of the Alt-Right and the revival of white nationalism, and concerns over American imperial policies in Palestine and Iran. Also, John is joined by Sid Issar for a conversation about whiteness and Left discourse after Trump’s election.

Stick around for Part 2 (coming soon) of Always Already On the Road for some dialogue about Puerto Rico and US colonialism, a visit by Kara Keeling (!), reflections on Standing Rock, and tips from a University Press editor on turning your dissertation into a book.

This episode features music from the Deleuze-inspired EDM musician Bad Infinity (whom we interviewed earlier this year), with clips from his songs “Monadology” and “Desiring Machines” off of the 2015 album Monadology. Check out Bad Infinity on Soundcloud. More Bad Infinity tracks coming your way in part 2. Thanks also to Leah Dion for our intro music, her “Static Loops.”

50154382111__3ac9969a-5014-4f8b-8f47-f22f393193ef

Interview: Lester Spence on Neoliberalism and Black Politics – Epistemic Unruliness 9

Join James as he talks with Dr. Lester Spence (Political Science and Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins), about his book Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Dr. Spence makes a critical intervention to analyzing how the neoliberal turn in American politics since the 1970s has created a crisis of shrinking material resources and waning political imagination within Black communities. How has grindin’ and being about the hustle gone from something culturally shady into the valorized ethos of 21st Black life? Listen and learn!

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. Thanks to Leah Dion and to B for the music.