The Feminist Present

by The Clayman Institute for Gender Research

Welcome to The Feminist Present, the first podcast from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Hosts Adrian Daub and Laura Goode welcome a range of feminist scholars, journalists, creators, activists, and more. Please join us as we use the gift of feminism to figure out what’s going on right now.

Podcast episodes

  • Season 5

  • Episode 54: Alexis Pauline Gumbs and The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

    Episode 54: Alexis Pauline Gumbs and The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

    This week, we have the incredible Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs on the show. Her newest work Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde is a biography that offers a new understanding of the life and work of Audre Lorde. Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives and this work illuminates a new perspective on the enduring impact of Lorde and her work. Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist. She is a poet, writer, scholar and activist based in Durham, North Carolina. Her writings have appeared in key movement periodicals like Make/Shift, Left Turn, The Abolitionist, Ms. Magazine, and the collections Pleasure Activism, Abolition Now, The Revolution Starts at Home, Dear Sister and the Transformative Justice Reader.

  • Episode 53: Samhita Mukhopadhyay & What Comes After the Death of the Girlboss?

    Episode 53: Samhita Mukhopadhyay & What Comes After the Death of the Girlboss?

    Join Laura for a discussion with Samhita Mukhopadhyay exploring her newest book, The Myth of Making It. The former executive editor of Teen Vogue brings to this conversation her experiences of workplace reckoning to help us reimagine what work can be when we are tired, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of hustle culture. Samhita Mukhopadhyay is is the former executive editor of Teen Vogue and Feministing and the current editorial director at the Meteor. Her writing has appeared in The Cut, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The Atlantic, and The Nation.

  • Episode 52 - Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

    Explicit

    Episode 52 - Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

    Explicit

    Join Laura and Adrian as they talk with Vanessa Angélica Villarreal about her newest book, Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders. In this conversation, the crew discusses topics like the queered pop culture icons of the 90's, exploring gender expression as a racialized teenager, and the work of remembering after erasure. Come join Vanessa Angélica Villarreal and our very own Laura Goode for an event on August 7th, 7:00pm at 9th Ave Green Apple Books! Vanessa Angélica Villarreal is a is a poet, essayist, and first-generation Mexican immigrant born in the Rio Grande Valley and raised in Houston, Texas. An accoladed writer, Vanessa is a recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award and winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters.

  • Episode 49 - Lyz Lenz RETURNS!

    Episode 49 - Lyz Lenz RETURNS!

    Author and self-described "soccer mom Simone de Beauvoir" Lyz Lenz makes a triumphant return to the pod to discuss her new book THIS AMERICAN EX-WIFE with Laura and Adrian. (Please refer to TFP Episode 7 from December 2020 for Lyz's first mid-derecho podcast appearance!) Her third book in five years, THIS AMERICAN EX-WIFE brings Lenz's characteristic blend of incisive sociological research and searing personal commentary to a highly relevant post-pandemic issue: divorce. Discussion topics include how Laura and Lyz just missed each other in the early-2000s Twin Cities, why the movie Fargo is the Beetlejuice of the Midwest, and what we really talk about when we talk about women and divorce. 

  • Episode 48 - Nicole Chung

    Episode 48 - Nicole Chung

    After a stunning revelation about a life-changing moment THE Dr. Roxane Gay offered Laura, Adrian and Laura join acclaimed memoirist Nicole Chung to discuss her second book, A Living Remedy. Following the contours of A Living Remedy, this discussion travels through the national tragedy of American healthcare, what an elite education and successful writing career can and can't do for class mobility, and much more.