Queer Lit is a podcast about LGBTQIA+* literature and culture. In each episode, literary studies researcher Lena Mattheis talks to an expert in the field of queer studies. Topics include lesbian literature, inclusive pronouns and language, gay history, trans and non-binary novels, intersectionality and favourite queer films, series or poems.
New episode every other week!
Recent transcripts here: https://lenamattheis.wordpress.com/queer-lit-transcripts/
queerlitpodcast@gmail.com
https://lenamattheis.wordpress.com/queerlit (https://lenamattheis.wordpress.com/queerlit/)
Twitter and Instagram: @queerlitpodcast
Music by geovanebruny from Pixabay
Have you ever thought about your age as being assigned at birth? In this episode, Simon(e) van Saarloos and I explore how queer thought might allow us to move beyond preconceptions of age, but also about the manifold and intersectional consequences of ageism. Simon(e) reflects on how trans narratives might work without reliance on linearity and why age is such a powerful category when it comes to agency.
CW: Around minutes 11 to 13, there is a nongraphic mention of sexual violence.
References:
Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto (2023)
Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Playing Monogamy (2019)
Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Take ‘Em Down: Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021)
Simon(e) van Saarloos’ Give Piss A Chance: A Willing Suspension of Consequences
Trans Despair (2027)
Samantha Nye
MU Hybrid Art House in Eindhoven
Mona Eltahawy
Ira Kip
KIP Republic
Denise Ferreira Da Silva
Roe vs Wade
Crip time
Mel Y. Chen
Chrononormativity (Elizabeth Freeman)
Alison Kafer
JJJJJerome Ellis
Fred Moten
Fumi Okiji
@svansaarloos
Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn
Saketopoulou, A. (2026). Exigent Sadism. Social Text, 44(1), 25–51. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-12195785
Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
What does Simon(e) mean by ‘change-phobic’?
I really love when Simon(e) explains that “linear time is mapped onto the body and we call that age.” – How could we understand age in other ways? What might a queer approach to age be?
Simon(e) mentions age-segregated institutions. What are examples of these and how does age shape institutions?
How do race and colonialism play into age?
How often do you think about age? Do you perceive age differently in and outside of queer and trans community?
21 Sept 2026
“Queering Prehistory” with S. K. Marley
We all know that trans people have existed throughout history, but what about before that? S.K. Marley does fascinating research on queerness and transness that predates written history and joins me to speak about what antler headdresses and wooden dolls might teach us about transness. We also discuss how transness, walking and wellbeing are entangled, which landscapes are the most nonbinary, and why ‘prehistory’ is a contested term in itself. Since we’re chatting in a beautiful park in York, this episode has some bonus bird song and squirrel mischief.
References:
Out and Wild
https://www.outandwild.co.uk/ (https://www.outandwild.co.uk/)
Our Transcapes
https://skmarley.co.uk/our-transcapes/ (https://skmarley.co.uk/our-transcapes/)
Ballachulish Goddess
Braak Bog Figures
The Wittemoor Figures
Shigir Idol
https://skmarley.co.uk/
@sk____marley
Our Flag Means Death
Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
What does ‘prehistory’ mean?
Why does S.K. speak about being trans and being in nature? What does this have to do with wellbeing?
S.K. speaks about notions of truth in contemporary trans debates and about colonial perspectives in academia. Why is their focus on British prehistory important in both of these contexts?
Why are the antler headdresses S.K. talks about a turning point in their research and their thinking about duality?
Why are bogs trans? What is the most trans or nonbinary landscape you have ever encountered?
7 Sept 2026
“Hyperpop and Queer Noise” with C. Jade MacDonald
What does sound have to do with sexuality? C. Jade MacDonald has some fascinating insights on the queerness of noise, on trans voices in hyperpop, and on sound in literature. Learn about the queer kinship created by remixes and covers in contemporary music, but also about which sound technologies are historically entangled with sexology. My favourite bit: hearing about how Gertrude Stein resonates with SOPHIE.
References:
C. Jade MacDonald (2024) “The Alien Resonances and Queer Obscurities of Hyperpop’s 100 gecs” Journal of Popular Music Studies, 36.2, pp. 76-98.
C. Jade MacDonald (2025) "' (https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomsburycollections.com%2Fmonograph-detail%3Fdocid%3Db-9798881897543%26pdfid%3D9798881897543.0012.pdf%26tocid%3Db-9798881897543-chapter7&data=05%7C02%7Cl.mattheis%40surrey.ac.uk%7C464f8f3ee1c14bae0bd908dedd14fee8%7C6b902693107440aa9e21d89446a2ebb5%7C0%7C1%7C639191279408114163%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=aiCW1Mo1zxe9gkcJazKbfMOZR8fYELwqMvgKxVAp7jY%3D&reserved=0)A Story that Wasn’t in the Words’: Music, Mothering, and Minor Figures (https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomsburycollections.com%2Fmonograph-detail%3Fdocid%3Db-9798881897543%26pdfid%3D9798881897543.0012.pdf%26tocid%3Db-9798881897543-chapter7&data=05%7C02%7Cl.mattheis%40surrey.ac.uk%7C464f8f3ee1c14bae0bd908dedd14fee8%7C6b902693107440aa9e21d89446a2ebb5%7C0%7C1%7C639191279408139285%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=8Agl65Bi%2B5dVt%2FG%2F%2BIt6CZTV1SjItH65KabhxniDBmk%3D&reserved=0)" in The Crossroads of Music and Literature: New Essays on the Muse of Song, edited by Kelly Baron and Andrew DuBois, pp. 113-28.
C. Jade MacDonald (2027) "Their Lover's Noise: Modernism's Queer Phonographies" in Routledge Companion to Literature and Sound, edited by Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen and Maria Engberg.
Foucault’s The History of Sexuality
Saidiya Hartman
Julie Beth Napolin’s "Unrecordable Sound: Media History, Technology and the Racial Unconscious" in Anna Snaith, ed. Sound and Literature (Cambridge UP, 2020)
Jonathan Sterne’s The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Duke UP, 2003)
Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology
Althusser
Gertrude Stein
SOPHIE
100 gecs’ “money machine”
Wendy Carlos
Dorian Electra
Charli xcx
A.G. Cook
Kodwo Eshun’s More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (Quartet Books, 1998)
alien sonorities
Alice B. Toklas
Edmund Husserl
Alexander G. Weheliye’s Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity (Duke UP, 2005) Grace E. Lavery’s Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques (Princeton UP, 2023)
Perverse sincerity
Simon & Garfunkel
Shakira
Gorillaz “Feel Good Inc”
@C.jademacdonald
cameronjade.macdonald@utoronto.ca
Aoife Josie Clements’ Persona (Little Puss Press, 2026)
Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
Why might noise be queer?
How is voice usually perceived in music? What might the distortion and non-human quality that hyperpop can lend voices signify in relation to transness?
What does Jade say about remixes and covers? Do you see them as queer kinship?
Why does Jade speak about 100 gecs? What is this example illustrating?
Please listen to at least one musician that you heard about on this episode and think about whether you...
Who has been a guest on Queer Lit
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Leilah Jane King
Alison Bechdel
Perry Zurn
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.6 / 5
11 ratings
Spotify
4.9 / 5
65 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100
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