The F Less Travelled

The F Less Travelled… Goldsmiths Strike! with Islam Al Khatib, Victoria Chwa, Akanksha Mehta, Caroline Frizell, Louise Chambers, Marina Benini, Sara Bafo, Sara Farris, Svenja Bromberg,

Thank you everyone for your time and energy on this episode. Special thank you to Maria Riga & Georgia Golebiowski who edited this together with speed and brilliance.

The F Less Travelled… with Dr Akanksha Mehta and Chloe Turner.

Chloe Turner is a writer, curator and PhD researcher. As of September 2021, Chloe is an Associate Lecturer in both the Design Department at LCC, University of the Arts London and the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Department at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Dr Akanksha Mehta is a feminist educator, researcher, writer, photographer, and organiser. She is a Lecturer in Gender, Race and Cultural Studies and the co-director of the Centre for Feminist Research at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

Akanksha's book choices:

Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks

Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante

Care Work - Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Akanksha's music choice:

Not so much one song - but a whole genre of women singing ghazal, qawwali, sufi, kafi music (in Urdu-Punjabi-Hindi)

Akanksha's object:

Grandmother's shawls/scarfs

Chloe's book choices:

Glitch Feminism by Legacy Russell

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girls Notes from the End of the World by  Kai Cheng Thom

Chloe's music choice:

Madison Moore's DJ lecture sets

Chloe's object:

Grandmother's rhubarb plant

Additional notes:

The F Less Travelled… with Stella Dadzie.

Stella is a feminist writer, historian and education activist, best known for her co authorship of The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain, which won the 1985 Martin Luther King Award for Literature, and was republished by Verso in 2018 as a feminist classic. \Stella has also written numerous publications and resources aimed at promoting good practice with Black learners and other minorities, including resources to decolonize and diversify the UK National Curriculum in schools and colleges. She is a founding member of OWAAD (Organisation of Women of African & Asian Descent) a national umbrella group for Black women that emerged in the late 1970s as part of the British civil rights movement. Her career as a writer, artist, and education activist spans over 40 years. She has written numerous publications and resources aimed at promoting good practice with Black learners and other minorities, including resources to decolonize and diversify the UK National Curriculum in schools and colleges

Book choices:

• Finding A Voice by Amrit Wilson
• Other Kinds of Dreams by Julia Sudbury
• Half the Sky: How to Change the World by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn

Music:

• Black Woman by Judy Mowatt
• Let there be Peace by Sweet Honey in the Rock

Object:

Stella’s gold earring(s) - which she had made in Ghana 20 odd years ago, based on the Ghanaian 'Nyinkyim' Adinkra symbol which literally means 'twistings' and stands for initiative, dynamism and versatility

Additional notes:

The F Less Travelled… with Guilaine Kinouani.

Guilaine is a UK based French radical and critical psychologist. She's a therapist, equality consultant and award nominated writer of the blog racereflections.co.uk. She works as a senior psychologist and is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University in London. Her first book Living While Black: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Racial Trauma is available now.

Book choices:

Sister Outsider - Audre Lorde

Black Skin White Masks - Frantz Fanon

White Racism: A Psychohistory - Joel Kovel

Music:

Le cul entre 2 chaises - Bisso na Bisso

Talkin' About A Revolution - Tracy Chapman

Object:

African drum

Additional notes:

The F Less Travelled… with June Reid.

June is an MA Cultural Studies student at Goldsmiths and is researching Black females who run and operate all female sound systems in the UK.

She herself has co-run and co-operated Nzinga Soundz alongside her long term friend, Lynda Rosenoir-Patten. Outside of University she works part-time as a Registrar of Births, Death and Marriages. During the 80s she was very active in the arts and cultural sectors including working with CEDDO Film and Video Workshop; and sitting on the Boards of Apples & Snakes (performance poetry), Munirah Theatre Company (Black Women's Theatre) and the Black Art Gallery/Organisation for Black Arts Advancement and Learning Activities (OBAALA).

Book choices:

Acts of Faith: Daily Meditations for People of Colour - Iyanla Vanzant

The Spook Who Sat by the Door - Sam Greenlee

Intersectionality - Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge

Music:

One Drop - Bob Marley

Someday We'll All Be Free - Donny Hathaway

Object:

Her friend - June Dennis

Additional notes:

The F Less Travelled… with Amelia & Sabrina

We're doing things a little bit differently in this episode and are taking the time to introduce each other and share our 3-2-1!

Amelia is an actor, writer and facilitator blending creative arts and community building. Whether her own words or bringing life to others, Amelia’s practice is centred around story-telling vectored at the intersection of race, class & gender.

In her day job, Sabrina works as a part-time strategy consultant, project manager and workshop facilitator primarily with media houses, technology companies and educational charities, which helps fund her passion for writing.

We're both also part-time students on the MA Gender, Media and Culture course at Goldsmiths, UOL

Book choices:

On Beauty - Zadie Smith

Heart of the Race - Beverly Bryan, Stella Dadzie, and Suzanne Scafe

Living a Feminist Life - Sara Ahmed

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado

Black Unicorn - Audrey Lorde

Music:

Both Hands - Arni DiFranco

My Queen is Harriet Tubman - Sons of Kemet

Funkier than a Mosquito's Tweeter - Nina Simone

Nont for Sale - Sudan Archives

Objects:

A deck of tarot cards

An ink drawing gifted by Rachel Valentine Smith

Additional notes:

The F Less Travelled… with Grace M. Cho

Grace M. Cho is the author of Tastes Like War, published in May 2021 (U.S release) with Feminist Press, and Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War, which received a 2010 book award from the American Sociological Association. Her writings have appeared in journals such as the New Inquiry, Poem Memoir Story, Contexts, Gastronomica, Feminist Studies, Womens Studies Quarterly, and Qualitative Inquiry. She is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island, CUNY.

Book choices:

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the practice of freedom - bell hooks

Dict​​ée - Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Music:

Four Women - Nina Simone
Changes - David Bowie

Object:

Photograph of Grace and her mother in Korea, shortly before moving to the U.S.

Additional notes:

We apologise for the sound quality of this episode. We had a problem with the original recording, but didn’t want to lose the wonderful words from Grace.

The F Less Travelled… with Chipo Chung.

Chipo is an actor and theatre maker, activist, and now burgeoning writer-producer. She works in theatre and television internationally, and her most notable performances include “The Master” in Into the Badlands, “Mary Magdalene” in A.D The Bible Continues and the title role of “Dido, Queen of Carthage” for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Book choices:

The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoire

The Beauty Myth - Naomi Wolf

Women, Sex and Power - Scilla Elworthy

Music:

Get Up - Salt n Pepa

Behind the Wall - Tracey Chapman

Object:

International Women's Day poster circa 1987 for Vancouver Co-operative Radio

Additional notes:

The F Less Travelled… with Dr Awino Okech.

Awino is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London. Dr Okech also has a much longer history of gender and conflict programming work in Africa with a range of international and national organisations.

Book choices:

Pedagogy of the oppressed - Paulo Freire

Decolonising Methodologies - Linda Tuhiwai Smith

I will write what I like - Steve Biko

Music:

Any Congolese Rhumba music by Franco or Madilu System

Object:

Her late mother’s rings

Additional notes:

The F Less Travelled… with Season Butler.

Season is a writer, artist, dramaturg & lecturer in Performance Studies and Creative Writing. She is also Goldsmiths alumni!

Book choices:

Leonora Carrington - The Hearing Trumpet

Toni Morrison - The Bluest Eye

Angela Davis - Women, Race and Class

Music:

Missy Elliot - Pass that Dutch

Hole - Violet

Object:

Her big leather shoulder bag bought on Brick Lane.

The F Less Travelled… with Dr Louise Chambers

Louise is co-convenor of the Gender, media & culture MA at Goldsmiths and teaches Amelia & Sabrina.

Book choices:

Valerie Walkerdine (1990) Schoolgirl Fictions

Judith Butler (2004) Undoing Gender

Grace M. Cho (2008) Haunting the Korean Diaspora

Music:

Patti Smith (1975) Horses

X-Ray Spex (1978) Identity

Object:

The tattoo on her right shoulder that tells the story of Lilith (by the artist Julie Bell)