(Un)Box the Soap Podcast

Ep. 12: Queer Analysis

In this episode, Shane and Lou sit down with Drs Diego Semerene and Misha Kavka of the Queer Analysis research group, a collective at the University of Amsterdam that analyses queerness through a psychoanalytic lens. They discuss the (often problematic) legacy of psychoanalysis as it approaches issues of queerness, as well as the specificity of queer psychoanalysis here at the University of Amsterdam. This episode is part of a broader series exploring the various ASCA research groups at the University of Amsterdam. See more here: https://asca.uva.nl/research/research-groups/research-groups.html [https://asca.uva.nl/research/research-groups/research-groups.html] Queer Analysis: https://asca.uva.nl/content/research-groups/queer-analysis/queer-analysis.html [https://asca.uva.nl/content/research-groups/queer-analysis/queer-analysis.html]

Ep. 11: On Movement and Memory

In this episode, Fern sits down with Aileen Ye, a filmmaker, writer and curator based in The Netherlands. Aileen’s practice explores contemporary subcultures, the body as a site of resistance, and the sociopolitical forces that shape visibility and expression. We discuss the power of movement, from diasporic club culture, to re-connecting with the land, and having dance parties in your bedroom. How does the body hold memory, rhythm and refusal?  Aileen shares how she approaches filmmaking as a method of reframing the archive, challenging visual hierarchies, and experimenting with new visual and sonic languages. Throughout, we explore the importance of community, what it means to centre joy and hope, and how inspiration exists in our everyday worlds. This episode is the first in a new series exploring the themes of our forthcoming seventh issue: Between Bodies and Homes.

Ep. 10: Threads of Resistance

In this episode of Unbox the Soap, hosts Anna and Shane interview Dr. Zay Dale from the University of Canvas to discuss his ongoing research into the politics of textiles in American slave narratives. Drawing from his article in the ASAP Review [https://asapjournal.com/feature/ethereal-fabric-exploring-textiles-and-black-existence-in-america/#easy-footnote-10-13537], Zay explains how fabrics such as osnaburg, cotton, and wool historically functioned as both tools of dehumanization and as sites of radical resistance. Our conversation traces the complex relationship between material history and Black existence, from the subversive storytelling of Olaudah Equiano and Harriet Jacobs to the practices of contemporary artists like Kara Walker, Kiyan Williams, and Precious Lovell. Foregrounding the ways in which the enslaved used textiles as a mode of resistant world-making, Zay provides insights into the "aesthetic vocabulary" of Black survival and gives some reflections on the ongoing importance of witnessing these historical gestures from the present.

Ep 9: Textile Work and the Politics of Repair

In this episode, we sit down with Ren Ewart, a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen, to reflect on their 2021 piece for Soapbox Web, “Can you fix this for me? Knotted writing, textiles and language”, and discuss their current research project, “Tracing repair, needlework, mending in and beyond the museum.” Ewart's research attends to the various sites in which textile maintenance occurs to uncover the different types of labor involved in keeping cultural objects intact. Throughout our conversation, they challenge the notion of repair as a simple transition from broken to fixed, instead framing it as an inevitably ongoing ecological process that requires continuous effort and "showing up". We delve into the invisibilized labor of care, drawing on Marxist and ecofeminist critiques to understand repair as a form of reproductive labor that allows systems and objects to function. Finally, we dwell the provisionalities of research: itself an essentially provisional and collabarative process, susceptible to fray and repair.

Ep.8: Uses of Absence: Sex Negativity

After a short break, Unbox the Soap returns with an episode on absence, featuring Marija Cetinić and Tessel Vaeneboer discussing their contributions to Soap Box Journal’s latest issue On the Uses of Absence (6.0). The conversation explores the concept of sex negativity through feminist theory, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, from feminist celibacy movements to filmic abstraction in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. Together with our hosts Shane Farragher and Anna Winter, the guests reflect on absence as a productive contradiction shaping politics, form, and contemporary critical thought.