Why do we value some forms of knowledge over others? In this fourth episode of our podcast With Reason, we talk to Minna Salami about her bold new book ‘Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone’ and its radical call to move beyond the damaging confines of the ‘euro-patriarchal’ to embrace a deeper way of knowing.

A conversation on decolonisation, iconoclasm, sisterhood, sexism and gender. For readers of Audre Lorde, bell hooks, James Baldwin and W. E. B. Du Bois.

Host: Alice Bloch
Co-host: Samira Shackle
Producer: Alice Bloch
Music: Danosongs

Podcast listeners can get a year's subscription to New Humanist magazine for just £13.50. Head to newhumanist.org.uk/subscribe and enter the code WITHREASON

Transcript:

Alice Bloch:

Hello and welcome to With Reason from New Humanist magazine and the Rationalist Association with me, Alice Bloch -

Samira Shackle:

And me, Samira Shackle.

AB:

This is the podcast where you can find radical, exciting, and sometimes surprising research and ideas, from thinkers who deserve to be heard, but who aren't exempt from being challenged either.

SS:

Yeah, With Reason is the place where you'll find intelligent thinking in turbulent times, and critical thought about belief and non-belief and the very nature of rational debate. In this series, we're meeting writers and academics whose work prompts questions like: How should we listen to people whose worldview we disagree with? What risk is there in sticking to narrow ideas of knowledge? And how are our relationships with our work and with each other, being changed by technology? Our guest this series include people like Kate Devlin, an expert in social and cultural intelligence, talking about the future of intimacy and tech. And next week, we'll hear from Mareile Pfannebecker on the subject of work and desire in late capitalism. But right now, we're meeting a feminist author and journalist who's challenging mainstream notions of knowledge.

AB:

Today, we're talking to Minna Salami. She is the woman behind the Ms. Afropolitan blog, a really successful blog that connects feminism with reflections on contemporary culture, from an Africa-centered perspective, and she is also the author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. In that book, she challenges the types of knowing that we've really taken for granted for way too long, and she offers a more inclusive, more holistic way of thinking about knowledge. I would say it's a book that speaks pretty strongly to questions of reason and unreason today. And in particular Minna exposes what she calls Europatriarchal knowledge. So we started by asking her exactly what that means.

Minna Salami:

The point of Europatriarchal knowledge is not so much that it is marked by Eurocentricity and by male dominance, but rather that it is a fragmented and polarizing, divisive worldview. And so it started in during the Age of Discovery, when European monarchs sent off explorers into parts of the world that were previously thought of as the unknown. And prior to that, so in medieval times, even in Europe, knowledge had been seen as something to preserve, so something that everybody had an investment in. And then during this period of discovery, knowledge became something to acquire instead of something to preserve. And you had Francis Bacon, who was really influential in shaping this new perception of knowledge. And so he coined this adage, knowledge is power, which today is used more positively, I would argue than than what he did. So what Bacon meant in his tractate Novum Organum, which he wrote in 1620, by "knowledge is power", was that the more knowledge we could acquire about nature and about all of these parts of the world that previously were thought of as unknown, the more power we would have, and, and so literally, it was sort of classifying nature as something to exploit, dominate and control. And then included in this perception of nature over time where women, you know, indigenous peoples, so basically, everything and everyone that wasn't the Eurocentric elite, or elite men who were shaping this, this worldview.

AB:

So Minna, I guess when you talk about Europatriarchal knowledge we're talking about knowledge as something that can be acquired, that can be used to dominate other people, that kind of thing - that can be measured, that leads to ranking, calculation, all of that. You suggest that Europatriarchal knowledge shapes things like politics and education to this day, and that its dominance means that we failed to address various social problems as well as we otherwise might be able to. I think you say the poorest in society often pay for this. Can you can you give any examples of the damage done today by that kind of thinking?

MS:

Yes, so Europatriarchal knowledge is a worldview that sees fragmentation, polarization and division at the heart of it, we see the same pattern, the same kind of system of fragmentation in all parts of society and all institutions. And in order to uphold the fragmentative, and divisive thought, we kind of have to use a mechanistic method, because anything that is holistic, anything that speaks to the unity that ultimately exists between human beings of different races and genders or between the non-human natural world and human beings will destroy this system of thought. And so we find this replicated from a very early age in our educational systems, where children are taught to rank each other, to be competitive, to think of what they are learning as fragmented systems. So we think, you know, there's no connection between the arts and the sciences, for example, and that humans and nature are divided. And in contemporary society, because we are educated in this way, we continue to replicate this in our forms of thinking. And so when you look at the types of institutions that govern the lives of the most disenfranchised, there is this neglect of wholeness, where basically divide between what I would label the aesthetic and the mystical, so things like embodiment, and the arts and myth and lived experience, basically. And then on the other hand, we have what I would label the the political and demystifying. So science, critical analysis, reasoning, rational thinking. We are educated to believe that we're not allowed even to bring these two together. And whatever kind of oppressive structure or system we are looking at, you tend to find this at the very heart of the matter.

SS:

And when you talk about the Europatriarchal view, you're not seeking to simply overthrow or battle with it, are you? It's something more complex.

MS:

Exactly. So first of all, when I speak about Europatriarchal knowledge, I'm not speaking about white men, per se. So just because somebody is a white male does not mean that they automatically perpetuate Europatriarchal knowledge. You know, Europatriarchal knowledge goes back centuries. And there have always been people even within this system, this worldview, who have opposed it, many of whom have been white people, or male people or white male people. And the other reason that I'm not seeking to sort of overthrow Europatriarchal knowledge as my main focus is because whatever you resist, whatever you're protesting against, is what you centre at the end of the day. So my interest in engaging with Europatriarchal knowledge, is to critique it for one, but more importantly, is to expose it because once people see the flaws in something, it has less power over them.

AB:

And you talk about the holes, the gaps in Europatriarchal knowledge, one thing that you do to illustrate the idea of a more nuanced approach to knowledge and how that could be helpful is you tell the story of Yoruba city of Ife in southwestern Nigeria, Could you just tell that story for us briefly and and what its message is for you?

MS:

Ife is the city that lies at the cradle of Yoruba civilization, Yoruba civilization, for those who don't know consists of millions of people around the world who are of Yoruba descent. So it's not like a small village or tribe or anything like that. So Ife is a major city, and it's also the city from which the Yoruba philosophy and mythology emanates. And so when it comes to knowledge, the ancient myths have this story that the gods gave people something called ogbon. Ogbon could be translated to knowledge, but more precisely, it is the ancient Greek term for anasis, which means practical wisdom. And when when the gods gave the people of effect of ogbon, they understood that it had to speak to the hearts and the minds of the people of Ife. And so they split up Ogbon into what they called ogbon-ori, which basically means, literally translated means "knowledge of the head", and ogbon-inu which literally translates as "knowledge of the gods". So you could say these are respectively, intellectual and emotional intelligence, and according to the Yoruba epos, to only have one type of ogbon, one type of knowledge, was to be only partly wise. The reason that I share this this ancient myth is to argue that what Europatriarchal knowledge, this dominant system that we now have does, is to only focus on ogbon-ori, knowledge of the head, so to speak, and furthermore, it does so in ways that creates this hierarchy and ranking, and says that ogbon-ori, knowledge of the head is better than knowledge of the gods. Whereas the two are parts of the same coin. Is this something that needs to be recognized for the benefit of everyone? So you write about the harm that's done by Europatriarchal knowledge not just to women, but also to men. Absolutely, it is something that needs to be recognized by everyone, because ultimately, we're all made up of the same kinds of interiorities, as human beings, we're all driven by our fears and our desires. And, you know, society is a relational phenomena, you could actually say that the male gender, in some specific ways, suffers even more from Europatriarchal knowledge, being a worldview that does this fragmenting, dividing thing. And because of its association with male dominance, it means that men are even more prone to internalize separative way of looking at things. And so men are especially socialized to repress and neglect the emotional and the embodied side of life and of knowledge production. And this kind of repression leads to violence, whether it's a kind of emotional violence or violence toward oneself in terms of denying and suppressing your desires, or violence towards others, which is the worst outcome, which we see manifest in our societies, in so many different ways.

AB:

So Minna, you put forward this term sensuous knowledge, I guess, offering a more holistic idea of what knowledge could be, that's not so one dimensional, as Europatriarchal knowledge is. Tell me a bit about that, and how that came about.

MS:

Sensuous knowledge is an approach to knowledge in which I synthesize rational thinking with emotional intelligence. And the way that I figure one can do that - because, of course, it's not as straightforward as it sounds, when you when you put it that way- it is by combining what I labeled the mystical and the aesthetic. So things like art, personal narrative, and spirituality, and poetry also, you could add to that with things that are deemed to be strictly political. So you know, your activism, your analyses, theory and so on. So bringing this kind of interweaving approach. The reason that I do that is, so that whatever kind of liberation and empowerment that knowledge can provide us is coming from a genuinely holistic place, which means that it will be more lasting than anything, which is a kind of cosmetic effort and a patchy effort towards liberation and empowerment.

AB:

And so just to clarify, I guess sensuous knowledge, we're talking about a form of knowledge, which also incorporates the bodily, the sensuous not the sensual, and ideas beyond the intellectual and cerebral alone, I suppose. Give me an example of this. So what would happen if we applied sensuous knowledge to say, economic exchanges? I think you're talking about ideas of reciprocity, exchange, eroticism, even but not as we know it in the sexual sense.

MS:

As you said, the word sensuous is not quite the same as the word sensual. So it's sensual, obviously has to do with the senses. And furthermore, it has to do with the bodily pleasures that we can get from our senses. Whereas the word sensuous, it means an integration of the mind, body and soul. But all that said, I'm not denying the bodily pleasures, or any kind of erotic side to sensuousness. Because since the word sensuous is an integration of the whole of the body, as well as the mind, as well as the spirit, it also includes the erotic, by which I mean, the word erotic as connected to Eros, which in ancient Greek means love, which speaks to this kind of relational element of humanity. I'm quite fascinated in my book in looking at what it would mean and what it does to our institutions and our conceptualizations when we eroticized them. So you asked, if we were to look at the economy more erotically, more sensuously, more relationally, what would it look like and and I think it would be shaped more by values like reciprocity and connectedness. Whereas at the moment, our economies are obviously very much shaped by division and competition, which creates more suffering.

AB:

In championing sensuous knowledge, you uphold the value of that which we might typically label as feminine. So the instinctive, the bodily associations with nature, rivers, all of these kind of things. How do you tread the line between doing that whilst also being careful at the same time, to not essentialise womanhood, to say there are qualities that are essentially female and feminine. And I think for example, you do quote Simone de Beauvoir, on a person not being born a woman, but becoming one, yet at the same time, you uphold feminine values. Tell me about that striking that balance?

MS:

So, because we have lived in systems and because we've received educations that devalue what we could call the feminine, you know, it becomes important to look at what those values can contribute to our world today. But you know, that these are ultimately just words, that they construct the idea of the feminine, the idea of womanhood or construct, but they are constructs that are also real. So, when you are born female, when you are deemed to be born female, then you are going to, in all likelihood, receive a cultural education that is centering around the idea of you being feminine. But that is simultaneously also devaluing whatever is imbued in the idea of you being feminine. So, yes, sensuous knowledge is certainly not about essentialising femininity or sensuousness even or anything like that. But rather, it is refusing to be silent about, you know, the devaluing of these things, and also to just look at all of the different elements of what shapes collective consciousness and knowledge.

AB:

You're listening to With Reason from New Humanist magazine and the Rationalist Association with me Alice Bloch -

SS:

And me Samira Shackle. And today we're joined by Minna Salami, who's talking about her book Sensuous Knowledge. If you're enjoying this episode, please take 20 seconds now to pause it and tweet about it tagging in @newhumanist, or share a link on Facebook. The more listeners we have, the more episodes we can make. Thanks for your support.

AB:

So far, we've talked about why Europatriarchal knowledge needs to be called out. And we've heard about how what Minna calls sensuous knowledge, if applied to the economy, for example, could reap all sorts of rewards, nurturing a culture of reciprocity. Coming up, we'll talk about sisterhood, decolonization, and Minna takes a look at a New Humanist article on the African American thinker, W. E. B. Du Bois. But first, back to Minna, describing the biography behind her writing.

MS:

I was actually born in Finland, but moved to Nigeria as a baby. And then to Sweden as a teenager. From Sweden, I moved to New York and then to London, where I now still am, for the most part. And yes, I think that having so many different backgrounds and the identities that come along with such backgrounds, it hasn't always been easy to to unite these different elements of my of my unique experience. But ultimately, you know, certainly now it feels like an advantage because I'm able to look at issues with multiple lenses.

AB:

And Minna, you use the term "writer's grievance". What do you mean by that? I think you draw on the African American thinker and activist W. E. B. Du Bois and his ideas about double consciousness.

MS:

W. E. B. Du Bois, when he coined double consciousness, what he meant is that you that you other yourself, because you're constantly looking at yourself with perceptions that have been formulated by another group of people. And furthermore, they have formulated these perceptions with a contempt and a pity towards you. And so I compare writer's grievance to double consciousness and basically what I mean by writer's grievance is this sense that I have when I'm writing, in which I am aware of an almost howling rage, with the oppressive, dominant stories about women, about people of colour and so on. And then a simultaneous frustration that you can't just write about something mundane and trivial in the way that a white male author might be able to. And so that's what I mean by writer's grievance, which is something that I experience to a far greater extent than, you know, than writer's block, for instance, which is what writers allegedly experience.

SS:

And another thing that you talk about is the importance of decolonizing the mind. Could you explain that a little bit?

MS:

Yeah, so we typically think of decolonizing the mind as though the prefix "de", like to decolonize is almost thought of as if we could amputate thoughts and just remove whatever patterns of thinking are no longer working in our societies. But decolonizing the mind doesn't work like that at all. And if anything, that just makes us paranoid and almost neurotic, because, you know, it's almost like we start to think that we can just swallow a decolonization pill and wake up the next day with decolonized minds, and then we start to compete with others and think, "Oh, is this person more decolonized than I am", and so on and so forth. And rather, decolonizing the mind is something that speaks to coming to see, and consciousness as a whole. I compare decolonizing the mind to a garden, where we might think of it, or today, the way we think of it is to do away with any plants that we find ugly. Whereas decolonizing, the mind is actually seeing if some kind of hybrid plant grows out of what already exists in the garden, it is planting new seeds that can then flourish.

SS:

And how do those ideas around decolonization relate to something like removing statues, which we've seen this year in the UK as part of Black Lives Matter protests? So do you think physical change, like the removing of a physical monument, like a statue is useful if it's not accompanied by this kind of mental process or an educational one, perhaps?

MS:

So I think that I certainly see the symbolic value in in some of the statue removals that took place this year. But yes, I think without a change of mindset, I'm concerned that it just becomes a symbolic exercise with little lasting effect.

AB:

Minna, I want to jump forward to this subject of sisterhood that you talk about. Also, I think you mentioned it's a bit of an unfashionable concept at the moment, I feel that's something instinctively I would agree with, but what do you mean by that? And why is sisterhood nonetheless important to you? In talking about this, I think you mentioned the feminist theorists, bell hooks, but you also mentioned an uncomfortable exchange you had with a woman in a London bookshop at an event.

MS:

Yeah, so the first thing to say is that I'm speaking about political sisterhood, rather than a kind of sisterhood, where, you know, everybody's holding hands and getting along, that is not the case, and doesn't have to be the case at all. So, you know, we think of feminism as a fight against patriarchy, which it is, but it is also a fight for this type of political sisterhood. Because, you know, put it this way, if acid rain falls over forests, it might not kill every tree, but it affects every tree, negatively. And patriarchy affects every woman negatively, even if it does so in varying degrees. And so if we're not looking to do away with the acid, or with patriarchy, in this case, then you know, we're all going to be impacted adversely.

AB:

And so this this bookshop incident, it was where a woman suggested to you that she thought personally, it wasn't best practice to collaborate or cooperate with white feminists and you disagreed with her.

MS:

I did a talk at a bookshop in London, during which I mentioned that I thought we should have political sisterhood between women. And afterwards an audience member said to me that she disagreed, and she thought that as a black woman, we shouldn't collaborate with white women because white women don't have black women's interests at heart. And, you know, it's hard to summarize, because this is a very complex conversation between two black women that come from different backgrounds. But, you know, I thought about this a lot. And I mean, I thought about this conversation between her and I, and I ultimately disagree, because, you know, we have to figure out ways of coexisting. Even if we as black women were to do away with racism, we would still as women be severely detrimentally impacted by patriarchy. And just like we need to fight against racism together with black men, we also need to fight against sexism together with white women.

AB:

Minna, there are vast inequalities within that sisterhood. You write about how black women's contribution to the feminist movement throughout history, in fact, throughout all the different waves has been under appreciated, there's been little return on investment is how you put it.

MS:

Yes, when we look at feminism in waves, so that is like the first wave, second wave, third wave and so on, each of these waves has been largely, if not designed, then, you know, shaped by black feminists - from the first wave where you had women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton who popularized the movement was actually very much impacted by black women like Ida B wells. And then you have the second wave in the 1960s, which was a direct result of the civil rights movement. And very much borrowed ideas from the civil rights movement as well as Third World liberation movements. Third wave of feminism was actually coined by Rebecca Walker, a black woman, and shaped by notions such as intersectionality, coined by a black woman, and the fourth wave that we're now in, we have movements like #MeToo which was started by Tarana Burke, a black woman. You have some of the most influential feminist icons like Beyonce, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. So yes, despite the contributions of black women to feminism for over a century, it is still, for some reason seen as a white women's movement predominantly. And that's a problem.

SS:

You quote, Audre Lorde, on white feminist appropriation of black feminist thinking. Could you remind us of that?

MS:

Audre Lorde, I don't want to make it seem like that was her main argument by any means. Because Audre Lorde's focus was actually on building political solidarity and sisterhood between women. The thing is that because of Europatriarchal knowledge and the racism that that has created in our world, we have to grapple with that also, when building political sisterhood between between women, and so this was one of the things that that Lorde had to had to raise.

AB:

You quote a letter that she wrote to Mary Daly, the feminist Mary Daly saying something like, "how many white feminists truly read my words? Or did you merely finger through them for quotations, which he thought might valuably support an already conceived idea?" I guess reading that quote, Minna, led me to thinking about the risk of black feminism and indeed, sensuous knowledge being appropriated or taken up in a piecemeal fashion. Just to finish, how do you think moving forward that sensuous knowledge can be fully appreciated, can be fully acted upon, rather than just appropriated, quoted, co-opted? What kind of discussions should we be having?

MS:

So the whole point in sensuous knowledge is, you know, it's written in a kind of psychoactive way, you could say. So my hope is that it kind of plants the gestalt in the readers mind, of how we can approach knowledge. And if that gestalt is planted successfully, it means that whatever issue a person is looking at, if they apply sensuous knowledge, then they will look at it from multiple angles, they will look at it from political, but also more embodied, and more soulful - just different kinds of ways. And so it's not really something that can be appropriated, if it is understood, because that means that you can't piecemeal lift ideas. I mean, that's Europatriarchal knowledge. That's what that does. With sensuous knowledge, you have to genuinely engage. And so if you are seeking to work with black women, with women from any part of the world, it's really doing that and not just using hashtags or posting banners on Instagram or whatever superficial deed that you could compare to what Mary Daly was accused of by Audre Lorde.

AB:

That's great. Minna Salami, thank you very much for joining us, although I say thank you, but before we go, this is where we just have a quick look at the New Humanist archive to find something that resonates with our guests' work or ideas, or maybe that contradicts and clashes entirely. Minna, you've been reading a recent piece by Lola Okolosie. that talks about an exhibition held earlier this year in the UK in London of charts and diagrams by the African American sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, designed to counter racist thinking at the turn of the century. He gets a few mentions in your book, and I know we spoke about him briefly earlier. Tell us a bit more about him and what he means to you.

MS:

Yeah, I really enjoyed Lola's piece. I thought it brings out Du Bois's character well, and in terms of him being somebody who was a product of his time, and so he did work that is continues to resonate to me and to to many black scholars and activists, but he also contributed to what I label as Europatriarchal knowledge. He kind of was a victim of the same double consciousness that he so aptly coined and and fought against.

SS:

The charts that Dubois made. This was for the 1900 Paris exposition. They were really early infographics, there are brightly colored designs that were used to challenge the pseudoscience of racism. And so one, for instance, was called "the assessed value of household kitchen furniture owned by Georgia Negros", which showed that the black population was, against the odds, growing in economic strength. And so I wondered, with such graphics, do you think that Du Bois was drawing attention to the limits of Europatriarchal knowledge, or perhaps the harm done by it?

MS:

This is actually why I meant that he was both protesting and revolting against Europatriarchal knowledge, but also, in some ways, strengthening it because it's almost like Europatriarchal knowledge forced him to try to prove the humanity of black people by showing that they too, could be wealthy and could exist in the system where we rank each other and create hierarchies, rather than just because they're human beings. And so he had to refer to statistics about black wealth, in order to prove the humanity of black people.

AB:

Finally, Minna, that's something I suppose you talk about in your book, since you acknowledged this idea of the so-called minority group or the oppressed group having to orientate themselves, around the oppressor, to speak the language of the oppressor to develop a kind of protest identity, rather than being allowed to simply be. Does that idea fit in with what we're talking about here?

MS:

Absolutely. And that's why I declare that Sensuous Knowledge is a progress book, rather than a protest book. You know, when you protest against something, you automatically centre that thing. Whereas by progress, I'm referring to the three meanings of the word progress, so to to move forward to progress, and to raise consciousness higher, and ultimately to progress means to continue something that is unfinished. And so yes, I think it's a progress book in that sense.

SS:

MS: there, Alice, that was such a fascinating conversation. What do you think will stick with you from what Minna had to say?

AB:

Loads, I think, actually, I mean, the book's quite small, but it holds quite a lot of big ideas within it. And I have to say, actually, I think reading it was quite a challenge to my own way of thinking or my own prejudice, really, about ideas of kind of sensuality, eroticism, even these ideas that really we do often dismiss intellectually, I suppose they don't tend to be taken seriously. And talking to Minna got me thinking about why we don't take those seriously and what value might come from doing so. I think I was especially convinced when she gave that example, talking about the economy, and the idea that if we were to apply censorious knowledge to that, we could have an economy that was maybe more about ideas of exchange and reciprocity, rather than extraction and competition, and so on. I thought that was really interesting. And I also liked her answer, about this quite tricky issue of championing the supposedly feminine without, at the same time, essentializing women and womanhood, I thought she gave a really decent defense of that. What else struck you Samira?

SS:

Yeah, I agree. That was something quite challenging. I think about this idea of questioning forms of knowledge production and the whole way we value knowledge, and so on, I think that was really, really interesting. To hear her elaborate on the practical ways that this very theoretical discussion could be applied, and what that could look like, and what that could mean. And the idea of different cultures, when she talked about the Yoruba culture and this idea of different conceptions of how we form and hold and value knowledge. I think there's something really interesting like that; it isn't necessarily just one way as we often think.

AB:

Andalso she rather generously some people might say, reflects on the damage done by Europatriarchal knowledge to men in particular, I think she suggests even that they might be even more harmed by that kind of knowledge system than even women are at times. I think she says man is socialized to repress and neglect the emotional and embodied side of life. When I first read her book it reminded me very much of a novel actually, which is James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. And that's about desire and sexuality and shame. It's an incredibly moving book, another short but powerful book about the harm done when society just doesn't make space for multiple ways of being and desiring and knowing. Somehow, that that's a work of fiction that I would pair with, with this book Sensuous Knowledge, I suppose, finally, I also was interested in this idea of hers that minority groups are rarely allowed to simply be, in the way that the most powerful groups in society are - you know, those who set the agenda. And she talks about the risk of orientating yourself around the oppressor, or around the person who's constructing you. who is situating you, because that can kind of lessen you, I suppose, or force you into being quite one dimensional, which is something that those who have the privilege of being empowered don't have to suffer. I suppose that could be a lesson for people looking for change and campaigning for change going into 2021.

SS:

Yeah, I think that's such an important point. And that reminded me of an essay that Riz Ahmed wrote for the book, the anthology, The Good Immigrant. He talked about being typecast and how first he was typecast as a terrorist. Then he was typecast in movies that were lampooning the idea of terrorism. And then you finally get to a stage where you can just be a guy and just be an actor, playing some person who doesn't have anything to do with all these other kind of stereotypes and so on. I think there's something really valuable in that.

AB:

Absolutely. the privilege of "just being" is an interesting idea.

SS:

Absolutely. Well, that's all for now. Next time, we'll be talking to Mareile Pfannebecker, someone who's also interested in looking askance at the taken for granted. She's the co-author of a book called Work Want Work, all about work and desire in late capitalism

AB:

Head to newhumanist.org.uk to read more about that. You'll also find reading lists and transcripts for all of the episodes in this series, With Reason was produced and presented by me Alice Bloch and by Samira Shackle. See you here again soon. Bye.

Further reading:

- Minna Salami (2020) ‘Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone’

- Audre Lorde (1984) ‘The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House’

- Audre Lorde (1979) ‘An Open Letter to Mary Daly’

- Mary Daly (1978) ‘Gyn/Ecology’

- W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) ‘The Souls of Black Folk’

- James Baldwin (1956) ‘Giovanni’s Room’

- Nikesh Shukla (ed) (2016) ‘The Good Immigrant’

- Lola Okolosie in New Humanist magazine (2020) Charting Black Lives in the Fin de Siecle