New Podcast

Professor Lauren Miller Griffith, on a Zoom call / Podcast with me

I sincerely hope you are doing well during this very strange period. In our house, we've been in isolation followed by enforced lockdown since mid-March, and I can't really say it's getting any easier or any more enjoyable.

But at least one good thing has happened: I seem to have accidentally started a martial arts studies podcast.

This happened quite by chance - thanks to having to use Skype and Zoom for so many things. I was becoming frustrated by lecturing alone, to an empty room, looking at my computer screen, with no kind of feedback or human interaction. So I decided it might be better to have conversations with experts on given subjects, rather than monotonous, monologue types of lecture.

So, to complete my BA module, 'Body/Image', I began inviting people to have discussions with me that we could record for the benefit of students who are now on radically different time zones (back 'BC' (Before Coronavirus), the classroom was full of students from all over the world).

Some of these speakers and the topics struck me as having wider potential appeal in the martial arts studies community, so I began posting them on our YouTube Channel.

And now I am having way too much fun to stop. So, there you have it: a podcast is born. Whether it will last or not after the lockdown is not something I can predict. But here's what we have so far:

I first invited Professor Benjamin Arditi, a political theorist from UNAM in Mexico to come and talk about the body in political theory. This conversation does not have much to do with martial arts, but we do discuss the body.

Then I invited our very own Ben Judkins to talk about invented traditions and East/West binaries. This conversation is all about martial arts, as well as sport and yoga.

Third was Professor Sam Chambers, a political theorist from Johns Hopkins  who is an expert on the work of of Jacques Rancière. We discussed many aspects of his work, before the conversation rounded in the end on questions of embodied knowledge and martial arts.

By this point, I made the decision to record some conversations that were not connected to my undergrad teaching, and I organised some more conversations.

First, I had a conversation with Luke White about his imminently forthcoming book, Legacies of the Drunken Master: Politics of the Body in Hong Kong Kung Fu Films (which is due out at the end of this month from University of Hawaii Press).

Then I spoke with Lauren Miller Griffith  This was initially meant to be a conversation about her research and writing on capoeira, but we also discussed a lot of other martial arts, especially BJJ.

Tomorrow, to conclude the 'formal teaching' on my 'Body/Image' module, I am discussing Derrida, Kristeva and deconstruction with Richard Stamp from Bath Spa University. This is unlikely to have much of a connection with martial arts, but definitely with the body and technology.

And finally, as far as the module goes, next week I will be talking with Ben Spatz, author of the hugely influential What A Body Can Do. This will have everything to do with the body, embodied knowledge, skill and technique, and - I anticipate - theatre, dance, and martial arts.

After that, I have a few more conversations planned with several other prominent and emergent thinkers in and around martial arts studies. As these occur, I will post the films on the Martial Arts Studies YouTube Channel  and also link to them on my personal/intermittent/unreliable blog, Martial Arts Studies.

It's funny, you know. Not three weeks ago, as part of a fun Facebook game, I listed 'podcasts' as my number one thing on a list of things everyone else seems to like that I really dislike… And now, here I am, loving them - well, loving at least one of them.

I hope these conversations can help some of you pass a little bit more time in an enjoyable and intellectually stimulating manner.

All the very best,

Paul