Quir-fantastic

How space sagas and anti-utopia become political statements by LGBT activists

In this episode of the English-language podcast The Naked Pravda, the editor of the international version of Medusa Khila Cohen finds out how the stories of supplemented reality, living plants and cosmic love reflect the real problems of quire activists in the post-Soviet space.

In this episode:

• 06:33 Associate Professor of the University of Copenhagen Mikhail Suslov explains why most of modern science fiction in Russian is actually about the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church.
• 14:29 Chairman of the Board of the Public Association "Labris" (Kyrgyzstan) Georgy Mammadov on how the social position of the authors correlates with the ideas of their works. Mammadov notes that most of the science fiction plots are about how the heroes are separated from the world, while the writers themselves, on the contrary, strongly interact with aggressive reality.
• 16:19 The writer, activist Syanat Sultanalieva, who conducts research at the University of Tsukubi (Japan), explains the geopolitical subtext of her story “Element 174”.

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Producers, installation - Hila Cohen, Kevin Rotrok

Music - Victor Davydov

The episode uses fragments of compositions Arcadia , Fast Talking and Marty Gots a Plan (Kevin Macleod), Creative Commons license.