The Fire These Times: Voices from the Periphery

This is a compilation of 4 episodes of our new podcast Politically Depressed, a weekly podcast by Lebanese writer and organizer Ayman Makarem.

These are episodes 5-8 compiled into one long episode (with time codes below)...

For episode 151, Joey Ayoub and Daniel Voskoboynik host Tory Stephens, Climate Fiction Creative Manager at Grist.org, to talk about Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors and why narrative work is an integral part of any climate solution. Why does Imagine 2200 choose hope over dystopia? What are effective narrative shifting tactics and strategies? Stephens is also on the Hollywood Climate Summit Board so Joey talked to him about moving beyond post/apocalyptic films...

For episode 150, Lebanese journalist Justin Salhani guest hosts Lebanese researchers Michelle Eid and Karim Safieddine to talk about the under-reported and overlooked war in southern Lebanon...

The Fire These Times is expanding into a network of autonomous, decentralized projects and podcasts from the periphery.

The first new addition to this media ecosystem is Politically Depressed, a new weekly, blog-style podcast by Lebanese writer and organizer Ayman Makarem.

We've compiled the first 4 episodes of Politically Depressed into this compilation (with time codes below)...

For episode 149, Joey sat down with Karena Avedissian and Anna, TFTT returnees and co-hosts of Obscuristan, a podcast which is soon joining the broader network (whaaat? - We talk about that at the beginning of the episode).

We talked about Azerbaijan hosting COP29 next year, the global climate conference, and why it might be a problem for a petro-dictatorship to host a climate conference...

For episode 148, Dana El Kurd and Joey Ayoub are joined by Diana Greenwald and Alexei Abrahams to talk about seen and unseen violence in Israel-Palestine. They explore the many forms of violence of the Israeli occupation that led to the October 7 massacre and the brutal Israeli response in Gaza. What is kinetic violence? What is structural violence? And how do these two differ?

Diana is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at The City University of New York...

This is an episode that Joey recorded a few months ago. We're releasing it now to take a bit of a break from our exploration of Israel-Palestine and because Solarpunk is how at least one of us, Joey, tries to create hope where none exists. 

This episode was recorded after the four of us - Joey, Ariel Kroon, Luka Dowell and Andre aka @HydroponicTrash took part in the Solarpunk conference...

In this remastered release, Joey Ayoub is joined by Sumaya Awad and Shireen Akram-Boshar. Awad is a co-editor of the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, and Akram-Boshar is a contributor to the same book. Originally released on May 20th 2021, this episode has been remastered and re-released...

In episode 146, Joey Ayoub and Dana El-Kurd talk to Sally Abed, Orly Noy and Amjad Iraqi. Abed is a member of the national leadership of Standing Together (עומדים ביחד نقف معًا), a grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality, and social and climate justice. Orly Noy is the chair of B'Tselem, arguably Israel's most well-known human rights NGO, and editor of the Hebrew-language news magazine Local Call...

Daniel and Joey host a conversation between Hadar Cohen and Dahab Kashi, exploring the radical power of Arab Jewish perspectives. Often seen as mutually exclusive identities, the existence and experience of Arab Jews transcends the narrow, and violent, confines of both Zionism and Arab Nationalism...