What can sports tell us about our relationship to power and resistance? In this audio short, I reflect upon my experience at the Final between Spain and England at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Sydney, Australia and explore how women athletes confront and challenge deeply entrenched gender inequities on and off the playing field.

El chupacabra is an urban legend sourced from Puerto Rico that has been rumored to roam the island since the 1970s. But upon further inspection of these legends, where does el chupacabra actually come from? When was he first conceived in the Puerto Rican cultural imaginary? This audio short examines the lore of el chupacabra and interprets its symbolism amidst a fraught historical narrative.

Written & edited by May Santiago
Audio recordings & sound design by May Santiago

Opening audio is “Goatsucker” by The Killers, courtesy of Gordy, The Victims Fanclub & Island Records.
Bomba audio in Loíza, Puerto Rico from April 27, 2021 courtesy of Taino Vision LLC.
Archival audio of Madelyne Tolentino’s interview with Carmen Jovet courtesy of Borinken TV.

Environmental Design, House Music, and Queer Kinship defines environmental design then defines kinship as a familial relationship that is outside of the traditional family structure. Queer kinship is a practice and formation that is primarily a survival and care work framework. The short discusses the many Black LGBTQ owned bars and lounges that have been shuttered over the years and the implications of legislation on Black LGBTQ public culture.

The house music was a generous gift from DJ Boomer’s playlist, “Keep This Fire Burning.”

This episode summarizes and reflects on the presence of gay populations in postsocialist Chinese society, especially in the two well-known films Lan Yu and East Palace, West Palace.

Combining a review of Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters and a reflection on personal history, this episode attempts to introduce the presence of lesbianism in socialist and postsocialist Chinese society.

Gentrification and Queer Time was written as a response to the senseless murder of O’Shae Sibley, a Black gay dancer who was fatally stabbed in Brooklyn, New York’s Midwood neighborhood. This short introduces gentrification as a shift in the land costs and a shift in demographics. Queer time is introduced as a non-traditional time-system that is realized and appropriated by queer people for their survival at time.

Gentrification and Queer Time uses sounds from The Shrine, which is a music venue in Harlem, New York.

American folklore is full of stories drawn from settler-colonial histories. Within that broad arena, tales of paranormal violence, battles with Indigenous ghosts, and “demonic” Natives continue to be popular story devices even today. These stories thus serve as effective tools for promoting certain ideas about Indigenous peoples, their resistance to colonial conquest, and their place in modern life. This episode takes a look at some of the first instances of authors using the trope of the “Native Burial Ground” in their fictional horror stories. Unsurprisingly, these tales of woe have real-life origins, collaborators, and consequences.

Music:
Holizna Radio, “I Love Myself More Than Anyone Else”

Sound Bites:
Horror Studio 1, episode: “3 TRUE SCARY Native American/Indian Burial Ground Ghost Stories”
Exploring With Cody, episode: “HAUNTED INDIAN BURIAL GROUNDS SWAMP AT NIGHT!”
Moe Sargi, “SOMETHING GRABBED ME IN THE HAUNTED NATIVE BURIAL GROUND ft OMARGOSHTV”

Special thank you to Horror Studio, Exploring with Cody, and Moe Sargi for allowing me to include some of their audio in this episode. Thank you, too, to Holizna Radio for graciously letting me use some of his wonderful music for this episode.

This entire project is in collaboration with The Pedagogy Lab. I wish to specially thank The Pedagogy Lab for the opportunity to work with them and my wonderful cohort. Lastly, I would also like to thank Ronald Young for his sound and technical expertise putting these episodes together.

Prosthetic memories are a form of public memory built in public sites. In this audio short, the old abandoned cinemas and their histories & ghosts are explored through the idea of prosthetic memories. What stories have been told in these abandoned buildings? What stories do they tell now?

Written & edited by May Santiago
Audio recordings & sound design by May Santiago

Archival audio of Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894) courtesy of Edision Film Archive via Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Archival audio of Jack’s Joke (1913) courtesy of Edison Film Archive via Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Archival audio of “Aloma” from Aloma of the South Seas (1926) courtesy of Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Archival audio of Universal Newsreel Volume 27, Release 550 (1954) courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
Archival audio of Atom for the Americas (1967) courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
Archival audio of Universal Newsreel Volume 40, Release 59 (1967) courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
Archival audio of La revolución nacionalista (1950) courtesy of Edgardo Huertas.
Archival audio of “Sara” performed by Quinteto Borinquen from August 3, 1916 courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings & Arhoolie Records.

What does it mean to run while Black? Writers such as Mitchell S. Jackson and Alison Mariella Désir encourage us to reflect upon the intersection between race, running, and embodiment. As a Black runner and Sport Studies scholar, I am also deeply interested in this relationship. In this audio short, I bring listeners with me to a 5K race held on Juneteenth and examine the relationship between running, historical memory, racial trauma, and social action.