Author: The BodPod

Episode Ten: Dr. Neville Hoad

The BodPod

In this tenth episode of The BodPod, I talk with Professor Neville Hoad. Neville is an associate professor of English and affiliated faculty with the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the Center for African and African American Studies, and the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas at Austin. He authored African Intimacies: Race, Homosexuality and Globalization (Minnesota, 2007) and co-edits (with Karen Martin and Graeme Reid) Sex & Politics in South Africa (Double Storey, 2005). Areas of research include African and Victorian literature, queer theory, and the history of sexuality.

We talk: growing up in apartheid South Africa, sexuality, gender, drag, exercise, the “truth” of the body, the aging body, the “butchiness” of Texas women.

 

African Intimacies: Race, Homosexuality and Globalization

Sex & Politics in South Africa

Episode Nine: Stacy Zoern

The BodPod

In Episode Nine, I talk to Stacy Zoern. We discuss bodily insecurities, accessibility, dependence upon other people, how the institutional model fails people with disabilities, losing all modesty, and how her company, Kenguru, seeks to change the way wheelchair-bound people get around by starting production of its wheelchair-friendly, autonomy-supporting electric cars sometime this year.

Here is her short bio:

Stacy has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a form of Muscular Dystrophy, and has never walked.

She graduated from the University of Texas with a B.A. in philosophy and psychology with highest honors and went on to attend the University of Texas School of Law.

Stacy practiced patent litigation at Daffer McDaniel for six years and also had the privilege of clerking for a federal judge in Austin, The Honorable Robert Pitman.

A published author, at the age of twenty years she wrote a memoir entitled “I Like to Run Too: Two Decades of Sitting.” She is also a public speaker and is well connected to the disability community.

In 2010, Stacy founded Kenguru, Inc. and currently works full-time for Kenguru as President. Kenguru designs, markets, and sells a 100% electric vehicle that is purpose built for people in wheelchairs. With the KENGURU, a wheelchair user is no longer trapped on his street or dependent on others. He can now travel up to 60 miles a day at 25 mph, accessing his community independently. The KENGURU is also popular for its ease of use, allowing drivers to enter by the push of a button, and to drive while seated in their own wheelchair. The KENGURU is a game changer for the wheelchair community.

Stacy meets President Obama about Kenguru // Youtube link

Episode Eight: Amy Gentry

The BodPod

For the eighth episode of The BodPod, Amy Gentry and I conducted a mutual interview. Amy writes The Good Eye, a column on style, culture, and feminism that appears every week in the Austin Chronicle. The BodPod was featured in her January 9th column. Amy holds a PhD in English from the University of Chicago and reviews fiction for the Chicago Tribune. She writes her own fiction as well, and is currently working on a novel that she describes as a “Houston mother-daughter noir.” We covered a lot of ground in Part One: parental body policing; exercise in high school and beyond; changing fashion creating new insecurities, mainly for women; dance. In Part Two, Amy discusses her experience as an advocate for SafePlace, an organization that provides safety for individuals and families affected by sexual and domestic violence. We also discussed other issues, including Amy’s horror fiction inspired by her SafePlace experience, and our feelings about Texas and post-Wendy Davis filibuster. Both parts are solid!

Amy’s Website

Amy’s Twitter

SafePlace

 

Episode Six: Susan Elizabeth Shepard

The BodPod

In this episode, I talk to journalist and sex worker, Susan Shepard. We discuss many topics, including: writing about sex, strip club audiences, the nature of performance in the sex work context, body image, boobs, and vaginas. Fun talk with lots of interesting tidbits.

Susan’s website

Susan’s twitter

Tits and Sass

Susan and Charlotte Shane’s piece: Abolish 69

Episode Five: Dr. Ann Cvetkovich

The BodPod

For the 5th episode, I interviewed Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at UT Austin, Ann Cvetkovich. Many topics are discussed: Ann’s research, including her book, “Depression: A Public Feeling;”  conceptions of embodiment, including bridging the gap between academia and real world experience; and reconciling the idea of depression as something both private and public.

Ann’s website

Ann’s book, Depression: A Public Feeling