We're thrilled that this episode is guest-hosted by Rinaldo Walcott [@blacklikewho], a professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto (and a member of The Leap’s board). 

Rinaldo speaks with Nairobi-based scholar Keguro Macharia [@keguro_], author of the new book Frottage: Frictions of Intimacy across the Black Diaspora (2019). As Rinaldo explains in the opening, he “wanted to have this conversation at this time because Black queers and Black queer life is so central to our contemporary political moment in the Movement for Black Lives. But Black queer life remains still largely silent in Black studies and politics generally.” Macharia’s work, he adds, “has much to offer our contemporary understanding of the cross-national Black politics in the Movement for Black Lives right now.”

Rinaldo and Keguro talk about the African diaspora, gender, Black feminism, intimacy, gardening, extreme weather, Afropessimism, and more.

Check out Keguro's book here, and his blog, Gukira With(out) Predicates, here.

Special thanks to Aluma Sound for our theme music. Please support this podcast by contributing to our Patreon account, and read more about The Leap.