Universalists like to say art transcends identity, but today’s guests insist it illuminates it.
We speak with Sarah Schulman, whose new novel, The Cosmopolitans, is an updating of Balzac’s classic Cousin Bette. Schulman sets the story in the Greenwich Village of the 1950s, using the story to look at intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia and rootedness.
And hard-core punk shows are not necessarily where you expect to find women of color, bu the outsider lyrics and aggressive sound can speak to marginalized people. Michelle Cruz Gonzales is one such person. The former drummer for the all girl band Spitboy talks with Robynn Takayama (punk name nonogirl!) about confronting hecklers, how her Chicana heritage could be lost to a punk name, and the Bay Area punk scene in the mid-90s.