Sparks In-Between, with Scott Branson

Grounded Futures Show

The Grounded Futures Show, Ep 21: Sparks In-Between, with Scott Branson

“thinking alone is not as exciting as thinking together”

Scott Branson, a Jewish transfemme anarchist writer, and artist, joined carla and Uli for an inspiring virtual walk to think (and feel) together. They go deep into Trans worlding and talk pathways to gender abolition, discovering voice, embracing not knowing, sampling ideas, learning through play and making mistakes, practical anarchism, and more! This joyful conversation covers a lot of ground, including a poetry reading!

TRANSCRIPTS

Show Notes:

Scott’s webpage

Scott on IG:

Scott on Twitter

Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide

Gay Liberation after May 68

The Abolition of Prison

How I Became a Genre Bender and Found a Voice

Women on the Edge of Time

The Dispossessed

The Earthsea Trilogy

Witch Hat Atelier

“We study with any person who can teach us.” -- Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time

Favourite quote by Ursula K, Le Guin:

“But he had not brought anything. His hands were empty, as they had always been.” -- the Dispossessed

Recommendations:

• I, Tituba Black Witch of Salem, by Maryse Condé
• Akata Witch
• Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Trilogy

Scott’s Poem:

where had we left you?

a long necked white creature

bobbing in the distance

on the lake

it was clear we had overlooked

the mysteries of the world

so white i wondered how it kept clean

in polluted waters

i can’t wear white pants without staining

the sun doesn’t cause waves but lets us see them

and the lake ripples into this white protuberance

a child’s drawing of a sea dinosaur smiling

so happy to be here

where had we left you?

but that’s the best we could have done

on the pier no one sees

she swims unnoticed

except by me, in my quick glance,

and i decide to avert my eyes

and let her be

*

​​Scott Branson is a Jewish transfemme anarchist writer, teacher, organizer, musician and artist. Scott is also a co-host on the anarchist radio show/podcast The Final Straw Radio. Their book, Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide, just published by Pluto Press, offers ways to infuse everyday life with ideas of mutual responsibility and collective liberation, combining anarchist and queer/feminist approaches to relationships, work, and living. Their translation of the queer theorist and gay liberation militant Guy Hocquenghem’s second book, Gay Liberation after May 68, was published in April 2022 through Duke University Press’s Theory Q Series. Scott wrote a critical introduction that situates Hocquenghem’s queer anarchism in relation to current liberation movements. Scott translated longtime prison abolitionist, anarchist, ex-prisoner, and psychologist, Jacques Lesage De La Haye’s The Abolition of Prison (AK Press, 2021). Their edited volume, Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies will be published by PM Press in January 2023.

Music for our show by: Sour Gout

The GF Show art by Robin Carrico

Thanks for listening!