The Art of Making Unfinished — with Leela Gandhi

10/18/22 • 28 min

Leela Gandhi is a professor and writer of the book, Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship. This episode goes into different forms of friendship in the contexts of democracy, post-colonialism, and climate change; and how friendship can change depending on different circumstances. It is fitting that this episode is hosted by Am Johal and Matt Hern, two close friends writing a book together about friendship and community. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/190-leela-gandhi.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/190-leela-gandhi.html Resources: Leela Gandhi: https://vivo.brown.edu/display/lgandhi Towards Democracy by Edward Carpenter: https://www.routledge.com/Towards-Democracy/Carpenter/p/book/9781138184121 The Common Cause: Postcolonial Ethics and the Practice of Democracy, 1900-1955 by Leela Gandhi: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo15220206.html Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship by Leela Gandhi: https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1024/Affective-CommunitiesAnticolonial-Thought-Fin-de Martin Heidegger: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ Bio: Leela Gandhi is a literary and cultural theorist whose research focuses on transnational literatures and postcolonial theory and ethics. Leela is a professor of Humanities and English and Director of Pembroke Centre at Brown University. She is also a Senior Fellow of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University. Leela received her B.A. from the University of Delhi, her M.Phil. and D.Phil. from Oxford University and authored the books, Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de-Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship and Postcolonial Theory: A critical introduction. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am and Matt Hern. “The Art of Making Unfinished — with Leela Gandhi.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 18, 2022. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/190-leela-gandhi.html.

Previous Episode

Nietzsche and Friendship — with Willow Verkerk

Philosophy scholar and author Willow Verkerk sits down with Am Johal to discuss Nietzsche and his ideas of friendship, as well as her current work on the Gendered Mimesis project at KU Leuven. Willow compares Nietzsche’s more agonistic notion of friendship with other philosophers like Aristotle, Kant, Derrida – and draws from Luce Irigaray to consider friendship from a more gendered lens. Willow also speaks about her creative writing in the past as a form of expression, and discusses her current work on Gendered Mimesis Project, from which she is looking to trace the genealogies of gendered-being by drawing from Adriana Cavarero, Judith Butler, and Catherine Malabou. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/189-willow-verkerk.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/189-willow-verkerk.html Resources: Willow Verkerk: https://philosophy.ubc.ca/profile/willow-verkerk/ Nietzsche and Friendship: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/nietzsche-and-friendship-9781350047341/ Gendered Mimesis project: http://www.homomimeticus.eu/gendered-mimesis-c1/ Willow Verkerk at KU Leuven: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/about/staff-hua/00060614 Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/555192/thus-spoke-zarathustra-by-friedrich-nietzsche-translated-with-a-preface-by-walter-kaufmann/9780140047486 Bio: Willow Verkerk is a Vancouver based scholar and author who has taught philosophy both within and outside of the academy in Europe, the UK, and Canada. She has published numerous academic essays on friendship, feminist activism, and gender identity and is the author of Nietzsche and Friendship. Willow is also an author of short fiction published in literary magazines in Canada and Europe. Her current research is concerned with providing a new account of the human subject through the philosophical concept of mimesis. Dr. Verkerk is frequently invited to speak about her research at universities and art institutions. She is passionate about communicating to diverse audiences the thinking of the three masters of suspicion- Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud- alongside a feminist politics that illuminates the importance of philosophical honesty. Willow brings philosophical frames of meaning from the foundations and legacies of critical theory to contemporary issues in both private and public life. In doing so, she connects thinkers in the history of philosophy to political and ethical studies that reflect upon the axes of oppression that are relevant today. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Nietzsche and Friendship — with Willow Verkerk.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 11, 2022. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/189-willow-verkerk.html.

Next Episode

Drug Policy — with Dr. Kora DeBeck, Erica McAdam, Kali Sedgemore, and Dean Wilson

This week, our host Am Johal is joined by Dr. Kora DeBeck, Erica McAdam, Kali Sedgemore, and Dean Wilson; four guests who all do important work in research and advocacy for drug users in Vancouver. They discuss the recent research that they’ve been involved in as well as the past and present models of drug policy in the city, looking at various decriminalisation policies and the current pressing issues of toxic drug supplies and community relationships with the law. Together they consider the future of provincial and federal drug policies, looking towards regulated supply, safety, and support. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/191-drug-policy.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/191-drug-policy.html Resources: Harm reduction calls to action from youth: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35505320/ Increased toxicity of Vancouver’s illicit drug supply during COVID: https://1sfu-my.sharepoint.com/personal/kdebeck_sfu_ca/Documents/2022_COVID%20quality%20of%20drugs%20and%20overdose_McAdam.pdf Low awareness of safe supply options in Vancouver: https://www.bccsu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Updated-Infographic.pdf BCCSU cohort studies: At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS): https://www.bccsu.ca/arys/ VIDUS https://www.bccsu.ca/vidus/ Bios: Dr. Kora DeBeck is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and a Research Scientist with the BC Centre on Substance Use at Providence Health Care. She holds a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research/St. Paul's Hospital Foundation-PHCRI Career Scholar Award. Kora is the Principal Investigator for the At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS) which is a longitudinal cohort study of >1,000 street-involved youth who use drugs in Vancouver. The cohort began in 2005 and is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the US National Institutes for Health Research. Erica McAdam, MPP is a research assistant at the BC Centre on Substance Use in Vancouver, Canada, and a recent graduate from the Master of Public Policy Program at Simon Fraser University. Erica’s thesis research conducted an evidence-based multi-criteria policy analysis of different decriminalization threshold models for British Columbia. Erica’s thesis research has won several awards, including the Philip Owen Award for Excellence in Policy Research. Kali Sedgemore (they/them) is a Youth Researcher & Consultant at ARYS (At Risk Youth Study), PHS Peer supervisor at MOPS (Molson OPS) & MOPU (Mobile OP unit), Youth Peer Support, VCH Peer harm reduction leader & outreach worker. They have been a Harm Reductionist with a focus on youth harm reduction & Stimulants. Through lived/ing experience with substance use, homelessness and government care they advocate, educate, consult & bring awareness to these issues. Currently, they are sitting president of the Coalition of Peers dismantling the drug war (CPDDW). Dean Wilson is the past president of VANDU. He started the non-profit BCAPOM (British Columbia Association of People on Maintenance) that has become a major proponent of life saving opiate substitution programs. Was awarded the Queens Jubilee Medal for work in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and is known internationally as a harm reduction activist. He works at PHS Community Services (Portland Hotel Society) as a community liaison and at the BCCSU (British Columbia Centre for Substance Use) as Peer Coordinating Lead. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “Drug Policy — with Dr. Kora DeBeck, Erica McAdam, Kali Sedgemore, and Dean Wilson.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, October 25, 2022. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/191-drug-policy.html.