Liberating Histories

About Liberating Histories

Liberating Histories explores the last 50 years of feminism through the lens of feminist magazines. We talk to the women making waves today with magazines including gal-dem, Sweet Thang, Burnt Roti, Bad Form and Diva, as well as the makers of magazines from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, from Spare Rib, Red Rag and Women’s Report to Outwrite, FOWAAD, Shocking Pink and Harpies and Quines. Remembering the Women’s Liberation Movement with candour and humour, and reflecting on the challenges of feminist activism in the age of the algorithm, these exchanges between feminists across the generational and digital divide spark exciting new insights into debates about reproductive justice, racism, class, sexuality, fashion, queer politics and popular culture, while also evaluating what has changed for women in the last 50 years and what has stayed the same. Presenters: Dr Victoria Bazin, Dr Melanie Waters, and Dr Eleanor Careless. A Pixiu production. ‘Liberating Histories: Women’s Movement Magazines, Media Activism and Periodical Pedagogies’ is an AHRC-funded project based at Northumbria University and partnered with the Women’s Library, LSE.

Publisher

Liberating Histories

Category

arts · history · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

7 Mar 2024

Latest episode

29 Mar 2024

Latest episodes

7 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   29 Mar 2024

   Black Zine Culture

   This bonus episode features an interview with Zoe Thompson, founding editor of sweet-thang (2017-), a zine for black women and girls and non-binary people of colour. sweet-thang zine mixes the punk aesthetic of the riot girrrl movement with the vibe of teen zines such as Shocking Pink and the more recent Rookie magazine to create alternative media spaces for black artists and writers. But as Zoe reminds us, sweet-thang zine is also connected to a long history of black print activism in the UK that reaches back to the work of theRace Today Collective as well as the black feminism of the 1970s and 1980s. The conversation explores a range of topics from the importance of representing uncensored bodies, to the value of the printed object in the digital age to creative intimacy, but we begin with the essential question: What is a zine? Links: https://www.sweetthangzine.com/ https://archive.leftove.rs/documents/grid/title/title=Race_Today https://www.rookiemag.com/

2. 

   22 Mar 2024

   Feminist Print Revival!

   How do magazines create vibes? How do they stimulate feelings of community and belonging? What is the role of the contemporary magazine in mobilising activism? In this final episode, Sharan Dhaliwal, editor of the South Asian lifestyle magazine, Burnt Roti (2015-), and Amy Mae Baxter, editor of Bad Form (2019-), a literary magazine by and for people of colour, take us behind the scenes of their respective publications, discussing the curatorial role of the editor, the challenges of being the ‘brand’ and the role of print media in the digital age. Links: https://www.burntroti.com/ https://www.badformreview.com/ https://blogs.bl.uk/socialscience/2019/10/past-is-now.html

3. 

   22 Mar 2024

   DIVA Now And Then

   In this episode, we bring DIVA’s founding editor Frances Williams into conversation with DIVA’s current editor Roxy Bourdillon to explore the continuities and differences between DIVA now (2024) and DIVA then (1994). The history of lesbian feminist print media in the UK stretches at least as far back as 1964, and DIVA continues this legacy right up into the current day. Spanning the pre- and post-internet eras, Frances and Roxy discuss the queer periodical scene of the 1990s, contemporary DIVA’s commitment to trans-inclusivity, and the pros and cons of lesbian visibility. Links: https://diva-magazine.com/ https://diva-magazine.com/2021/03/30/l-with-the-t-then-and-now/amp/ https://www.polyesterzine.com/features/dressing-dykes-the-fashion-of-the-lesbian-sex-wars

4. 

   15 Mar 2024

   Campaigns!

   How do feminist magazines promote women’s activism? In this episode we talk campaigns, cartels, cartoons, and court cases with two periodical pioneers: Lesley Riddoch, a founding member of Scottish feminist magazine Harpies and Quines (1992-1994) and Gail Chester of Women’s Report (1972-1979), the UK’s first national news magazine ‘for women, by women, about women’. We begin, however, with a question about the fiendishness of feminist crossword puzzles… Links: https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/podcast-series/episode-4/ https://lesleyriddoch.com/about

5. 

   15 Mar 2024

   Black British Feminism

   This episode brings together Stella Dadzie from the newsletter FOWAAD (1979-1980) with Kemi Alemoru of gal-dem magazine (2015-2023). In a wide-ranging and thoughtful discussion, Stella and Kemi trace the histories of black women’s activism in the UK, exploring the influence of anti-colonial and African liberation struggles on black feminism in the seventies as well as the impact of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Drawing on their experiences of frontline media activism, they also reflect on the pros and cons of visibility, the enabling and constraining effects of anger, and the joy of collective creativity. Links: https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/podcast-series/episode-3/ https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/periodicals-guide/shocking-pink/ https://gal-dem.com/ https://www.kemialemoru.com/ https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/civil-rights-movement/empowering-women-of-colour-the-legacy-of-the-organisation-of-women-of-african-and-asian-descent-owaad/ The question of purpose and profit in feminist publishing is a topic that has been explored in depth by one of our sister projects, The Business of Women's Words: Purpose and Profit in Feminist Publishing.

6. 

   8 Mar 2024

   For Girls, By Girls

   What happens when girls make magazines? In this episode Sally Orson-Jones of cult girls’ magazine Shocking Pink (1979-1982) and Ione Gamble of zine-zeitgeist Polyester (2015-) discuss the pleasures and pitfalls of creating magazines as young women. How does content created by girls reveal and interrogate the biases of mainstream media? What is the role of girls’ magazines in generating a sense of feminist community? And why is there a photograph of a vulva in the second issue of Shocking Pink? Links: https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/podcast-series/episode-2/ https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/periodicals-guide/shocking-pink/ https://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/node/165 https://www.polyesterzine.com/

7. 

   7 Mar 2024

   A Reawakening of Internationalist Feminism

   The internationalism of the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) tends to be overlooked and underplayed. In our first episode, we bring together Sue O’Sullivan of Spare Rib (1972-1993) and Red Rag (1972-1980) and Shaila Shah of Outwrite (1982-1988) and WIRES (1975-1985) to discuss feminism’s ‘international turn’ in the early 1980s. With a focus on the feminist internationalist newspaper Outwrite and WLM’s magazine of record, Spare Rib, Sue and Shaila talk candidly about diversifying editorial collectives, plenty of mixed feelings, and burning the midnight oil to ‘get the mag out’. Finally, they reflect on the role of media activism during a time of real reconfiguration and change. Links: https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/podcast-series/episode-1/ https://banmarchive.org.uk/red-rag/ https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/periodicals-guide/red-rag/ https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/periodicals-guide/spare-rib/ https://liberatinghistories.org/resources/periodicals-guide/outwrite/

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

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