Feminisms in the Caribbean. Writing in Hiatuses

  The second episode of the series "Feminisms in the Caribbean", Writing in Hiatuses, is the result of an epistolary conversation through audio notes and emails with writer Marta Aponte Alsina. A storyteller, novelist and literary critic, Marta Aponte wrote her novel “La muerte feliz de William Carlos Williams” (The Happy Death of William Carlos Williams) out of a desire to write a book that she herself wanted to read. This novel, published in 2015, brings up fundamental issues in Marta Aponte's writing, such as the gaze of the foreigner, the extended ties of Puerto Rican culture, the rewriting of canonical texts, and womxn's voices.   Her first novel “Angélica Furiosa”, published in 1994, revives the figure of the witch and spiritism to explore Puerto Rican history from the margins and anti-colonial narratives. As an author of several novels and short stories, Marta Aponte is also prolific in essay writing, with titles such as “Somos Somos islas: ensayos de camino” (We Are Islands: Essays on the Road), published also 2015. As she herself wonders with her latest novel “PR3 Aguirre” (2018) in relation to the gaze of the one who writes: “Or do we write to map, to explore tributaries, to invade archives, to steal knowledge, to cannibalize the literature of the lords, to snatch the privilege of authorship from the one who wrote us in his own way, the better to cross us out?” This podcast is part of the public program of the past show, “one month after being known in this island” curated by @yinajimenezs and @paguardiola by @caribbeanartinitiative, thanks to the support of @kbhg, Basel.

Om Podcasten

Promise No Promises is a podcasts series produced by the Center for Gender and Equality, a research project of the Institute Art Gender Nature FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel, conceived as a think tank tasked to assess, develop, and propose new social languages and methods to understand the role of gender in the arts, culture, science, and technology, as well as in all knowledge areas that are interconnected with the field of culture today. The podcast series originates from a series of symposia initiated in October 2018 in Basel and moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer. Part of the Gender’s Center for Excellency, the symposia and the podcasts are the public side of this research project aimed to develop different teaching tools, materials and ideas to challenge the curricula, while creating a sphere where to meet, discuss, and foster a new imagination of what is still possible in our fields.