This instalment of Unbox the Soap has emerged from an rMA tutorial on Queer Ecologies. In those sessions, we explored how queerness, ecology and negativity intersect and interact, sometimes in complimentary and contradictory ways. This episode features Franek Dziduch, Richard-Josephine Weichert and Nia Daskalova, who introduce, discuss and analyse three objects: Zuzanna Ginczanka’s poem “Explanation in the Margins”, p.Wrecks’ feature on Menes the Pharoah's track “Impest”, and Daisy Lafarge’s poem “dog rose duende”. Together, they open portals to reading for "queer ecologies" by addressing these objects in the voices of new materialism, object-oriented ecology, psychoanalysis, decolonial theory, and more.
Works mentioned:
Araszkiewicz, Agata, and Bożena Keff. “Ginczanka Jako Pole Walki (O Znaczenia).” Krytyka Polityczna, 2023, https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kultura/czytaj-dalej/agata-araszkiewicz-bozena-keff-ginczanka-jako-pole-walki-polskosc-antysemityzm/.
Bruce, La Marr Jurelle. How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity. Duke University Press, 2021.
Bryant, Levi R. The Democracy of Objects. Open Humanitites Press, 2011.
Dean, Tim. “Lacan and Queer Theory.” The Cambridge Companion to Lacan, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 238–52.
Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Duke University Press, 2004.
—. Bad Education: Why Queer Theory Teaches Us Nothing. Duke University Press, 2022.
Ginczanka, Zuzanna. Zuzanna Ginczanka. Poezje Zebrane. Edited by Izolda Kiec, Marginesy, 2019.
Ginczanka, Zuzanna. On Centaurs & Other Poems. Originally published in 1936. Translated by Alex Breslavsky. World Poetry Books, 2023.
Goodman, Steve. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. MIT Press, 2012.
Halberstam, Jack. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York University Press, 2005.
Kiec, Izolda. Ginczanka. Nie Upilnije Mnie Nikt. Marginesy, 2020.
Lafarge, Daisy. “dog rose duende.” Life Without Air, Granta Publications Ltd, 2020, pp. 70-71.
Morton, Timothy. “Guest Column: Queer Ecology.” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 125, no. 2, Mar. 2010, pp. 273–82, https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2010.125.2.273.
---. Humankind: Solidarity with Non-Human People. Verso Books, 2017.
---. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. U of Minnesota Press, 2013.
---. Spacecraft. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2021.
—. Subscendence. https://youtu.be/vZ99i760djU. Sonic Acts Festival – the Geologic Imagination.
---. “Subscendence.” E-Flux, vol. 85, no. 1, Oct. 2017, pp. 55–63.
---. The Stuff of Life. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.
---. “Timothy Morton: On Ecotrauma.” The MIT Press Reader, MIT, 5 Dec. 2024, https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/timothy-morton-on-ecotrauma/.
Olszewska, Małgorzata. “Zuzanna Ginczanka.” Culture.pl, 2007, culture.pl/en/artist/zuzanna-ginczanka. Accessed 26 May 2025.
Ortega, Mariana. Carnalities: The Art of Living in Latinidad. Duke University Press, 2024.
Povinelli, Elizabeth A. “The World Is Flat: And Other Super Weird Ideas.” Object-Oriented Feminism, U of Minnesota Press, 2016, pp. 107–21.
Seymour, Nicole. Strange Natures : Futurity, Empathy, and the Queer Ecological Imagination. University Of Illinois Press, 2013.
Swarbrick, Steven. The Environmental Unconscious. U of Minnesota Press, 2023.
The newest episode of (Un)Box the Soap Podcast features five performative readings loosely connected to the theme of flixbus poetry, or, more broadly, exploring the topic of contemporary travel.
The works submitted unfold across two episodes. You can listen to the first one here. In the second episode, we invite you to listen to ‘Internationale Bussy’ by Luke Worthy, ‘Munster to Trento, March 4th, 2024’ by Annalisa Volcan, ‘A Bus Ride into the Night’ by Susanna Olmi, ‘We Flixbuse’ by Franek Dziduch, and ‘Who is Driving this Bus’ by Emily Marie Passos Duffy.
You can also read along while listening to the episode, as all texts are available on our website.
The newest episode of (Un)Box the Soap Podcast features four performative readings loosely connected to the theme of flixbus poetry, or, more broadly, exploring the topic of contemporary travel.
The works submitted unfold across two episodes. In the first episode, we invite you to listen to ‘Familial Landscape’ by Haoran Zhi, ’Flixbus Chronicles’ by Elis Lipinski, and ‘Lake’ by Elia Meregalli. Finally, the episode closes with ‘EUSEXUA & The State of Being on a Flixbus Ride’ by Petra Parčetić in collaboration with producer Thomas Hell.
You can also read along while listening to the episode, as all texts are available on our website.
In this episode of (Un)box the Soap Podcast, we voyage into the obscure territories of the Eastern European folk horror genre. We discuss three films from countries that no longer exist: the Soviet Viy (1967), the Yugoslavian Leptirica (1973), and the Czechoslovak Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970).
Continuing our witchy fascinations from the last episode, we explore how feminine representation lies at the core of these films, analyzing how witchcraft and vampirism are used to either punish women for their sexuality or liberate them from patriarchal constraints. We also examine themes of rurality, spirituality, and propaganda, questioning how they shape our reading of these stories. Finally, we tackle the ethics of filmmaking and how to engage with older films that may now seem problematic.
So, hop on your broom and join us in these enchanted explorations!
Trigger Warning: This episode discusses scenes from the films that depict rape and pedophilia.
Call for poems: If you’re interested in contributing to our next episode, focused on poetry/texts created in the surroundings of Flixbuses, email us at soapboxpodcast2024@gmail.com.
Films discussed in this episode:
Leptirica (1973), dir. Đorđe Kadijević
Morgiana (1972), dir. Juraj Herz
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), dir. Jaromil Jireš
Viy (1967), dir. Konstantin Yershov, Georgi Kropachyov
Other sources:
Edgar, Robert, and Wayne Johnson. The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror. Routledge, 2023.
Scovell, Adam. Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Liverpool University Press, 2017.
Cinema Infernal - Folk Horror: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18JMJLDAjZ/.
In this episode of (Un)Box the Soap Podcast we will take you on a journey through magic, herbal medicine, tarot cards, and other witchy things! We had the pleasure to talk with Lara Senske (@cosmia.absurd), a professional tarot card reader and a drag performer, and Fedora Boonaert, art historian and designer who specializes in herbs and scents.
Witches have been, and still are, everywhere, but for this episode we wanted to look at their practice in Amsterdam - how did they get enchanted by witchcraft? Are they part of a bigger community? What are their areas of interest and expertise? And how does a witch navigate the modern world?
Fedora will discuss her research on herbal medicine, witch hunts, women's knowledge, institutions, modern healthcare, while Lara will share her insight into the history of tarot cards, their designs, and how they circulate within modern cultures.
We invite you to get immersed in this fascinating conversation, and delve deeper into the world of witches and magic!
You can find our guests on Instagram:
Lara Senske: @cosmia.absurd
Fedora Boonaert: @fedorabonaert
And read Fedora’s amazing article which we discuss in the episode:
https://thecouch.hethem.nl/are-tiktok-healers-contemporary-quacks-or-re-risen-witches/.
In our second episode of (Un)box the Soap Podcast, we continue our journey through the swamps and examine how this porous ecosystem manifests in culture.
Whether it's through watching the film La Ciénaga, listening to swamp-pop, walking through the streets of London, or examining the history of the Great Dismal Swamp Maroons, we explore the swamp’s potentiality of creating new meanings, seeing ordinary things anew, and reclaiming one’s independence.
Why do we associate swamps with something negative and why is it Shrek that helps us free ourselves from these presuppositions?
Join us in our boggy ruminations and let’s submerge in the swampy realms!
Works we referenced and cited in this episode:
Hello and welcome to the first episode of the (Un)Box the Soap Podcast!
Anticipating the release of the fifth edition of our journal, we would like to invite you to the realm of swamps. How does the swamp speak? What can we hear when we tune in to its sounds? What are the things we can learn about and from the swamp, and how can it inform ourselves, as well as the world we inhabit? Can our engagement with the often-neglected wetlands provide an alternative to the city spatio-temporalities and offer an antidote to our own sense of feeling ‘swamped’?
These and many more questions we explore in an interview with Dominika and Iulia, who are the founders of the fieldfictions collective. Accompanied by their soundpiece project “ecotonal tones; eventually everything is swamp”, we hope to take you on the journey through the zones of transition: the world-making processes of forested wetlands.
