Alix Olson is In Bed with Evan
Alix Olson is an assistant professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University's Oxford College. Prior to her academic life, she toured internationally as a spoken word artist for over a decade.
Cripping Up Sex:
So, on this episode of In Bed with Evan, we have the pleasure of talking with Alix Olson. Tell us your name, pronouns, and a little about yourself.
Alix:
I'm Alix Olson, I use she/her pronouns (for now). I'm now an assistant professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University's Oxford campus. I teach first and second year students. But, prior to this chapter of my life, I was a touring spoken word artist who blabbed my mouth about all kinds of political issues- around the country and sometimes the world.
Cripping Up Sex:
That's awesome.
Cripping Up Sex:
You were an out queer feminist spoken word artist in the early 2000s. Talk to me about how you got started doing spoken word.
Alix:
Ha, that's a question I don't entirely know the answer to myself. The beginning of that phase of my life was like a dream. But, I moved to NYC after college with no plans except to get to know big city queer life. I got a job as a restaurant server and also worked at Oscar Wilde, a gay bookstore in the West Village. I knew I wanted to check out the poetry clubs because my college poetry professor (Kate Rushin- who wrote the Bridge Poem from This Bridge Called My Back) had told me I'd love spoken word. I found my kin there, immediately. And, after doing a bunch of slams, made it on the Nuyorican Poets Cafe's national team. We won the national competition, and I kind of started touring from there. It was a fully grassroots endeavor- making cassette tapes in my living room with a bunch of friends, paper mailing lists... it was easily the most alive time of my life.
Alix:
I sort of copied what I imagined was the touring life of indie artists, like Ani Difranco. There were not that many touring spoken word artists, and I really wasn't sure what I was doing. This was all around 1998. But, the feminist and LGBT groups at colleges would hire me to come and treated me so warmly..
Cripping Up Sex:
That's so cool, and how a lot of bad ass revolutionaries get started. Did you have any pushback about your scary queer and feminist topics?
Alix:
Definitely! It's hard to explain to my students that just uttering certain words or concepts or ideas felt dangerous and revolutionary. And, of course now- some (or many!) of my poems are so dated... But, there were often times when a group didn't really know what they were getting when they booked me. I remember one time I did a big folk festival (I think it was Falcon Ridge?) and they had booked me on the "family stage." They asked me to do my "family-friendly" material, and I was like... "Uhhhhh, I don't have a back-up plan here.."
Cripping Up Sex:
Lol, so what did you do?
Alix:
I cried.
Alix:
Ha. Well, I probably did. But, I think I just changed certain words and sort of muddled through....
Cripping Up Sex:
Oy! That's so annoying
Cripping Up Sex:
What was the message you wanted to portray back then? Do you think that message would be different now?
Alix:
People sometimes accused me of "preaching to the converted" - which I always think is sort of a tired phrase. But, that never bothered me- to have an all queer or feminist audience. For me, part of what I felt like I was trying to do was give us time together, to breathe, and rage, and celebrate. A liberation zone.
Alix:
Would the message be different now? That's such a good question.
Cripping Up Sex:
I get that. It is like when I give my Sex and Disability classes, when only disabled people are there it feels so different than when it's a class with able bodied people there too.
Alix:
And would you say that your intention moving into the space is really different too?
Cripping Up Sex:
Yes, definitely.
Alix:
Right. I mean, I always saw the beauty in all of it. But, I never wanted to be just a "gay" poet because part of what I was trying to work out was all of the intersections - including a critique of assimilationist politics, U.S. empire, and so on. I know much more now just because I have read so much incredible scholarship within the past decades. In some ways, it would make writing political poetry a bit harder now- I think.
Cripping Up Sex:
That's so interesting.
Cripping Up Sex:
Spoken word is a diverse community. Where do you think disabled voices fit in?
Alix:
Spoken word will always be the love of my life because it is the most open art I've encountered. I've heard almost every voice- including disabled voices- I can imagine at slams, spoken word venues, protests, rallies, and so on. So, I don't think about it so much as disabled voices "fitting in" so much as we are all working to co-create the genre as a living art form. Fundamentally, I see it as about making a more livable world for everybody.
Cripping Up Sex:
You are now a gender studies professor. Talk to me about that switch.
Alix:
Well, I stopped touring in 2008 when I decided to go back to graduate school. I felt the ache of needing to know more and read more and just huddle down with the written word for a while. I didn't really have a plan for the "after" of graduate school. But, I got my PhD in Political Science- with a concentration in political theory and feminist studies. And, I was really lucky to get my job at Emory right out of my PhD program. My PhD took a long time because I had to figure out a lot of life things along the way. I got sober, I had two babies, I had to learn how to live in one place and be grounded in the present.
Cripping Up Sex:
Wow, that's awesome.
Alix:
But it was really in graduate school that I encountered disability studies. It hadn't been present in my undergraduate work. There was a scholar named Lezlie Frye who was working in the gender studies department, and I just felt like my world opened up with the discovery of disability scholarship.
Cripping Up Sex:
Talk to me more about that
Alix:
Well, the politics of disability had always been something that was in my life- because of the political communities I was a part of. But the language of bodyminds, for example, or of crip kinship- I felt like it provided a way to speak about disability not as a marginal identity but as a universalizing and radical one. I think what I mean is that crip politics felt like some of the most queer and liberatory scholarship and writing and art.
Cripping Up Sex:
Absolutely. I did my undergrad thesis on why people are so scared of disabled sex
Cripping Up Sex:
What voices are missing from the gender studies discourse?
Alix:
And what were some of your conclusions?
Alix:
I have learned so much from discussions of disabled sex, so much about the limitations of how we think about bodies and body parts.
Cripping Up Sex:
My conclusions were that people are scared mostly because sex gives us power, and the general population wants us compliant and "easy to take care of"
Cripping Up Sex:
That's so true.
Alix:
Ah, so interesting! Yes, so it challenges the idea of "docile bodies" in Foucault's terms. I agree with that, fully. It's all part of a biopolitical and eugenic legacy. I don't know enough about how other gender studies courses are taught but I know that I weave disability politics throughout all of my courses. And, students are often a little confused, I think, about why I c it to the extent that I do. Until we're in the thick of the semester and they see the connections between sex/uality as an exercise of power. And of course also a force for resistance- which I'm thinking is a big part of the work that you do. This semester, I brought Eli Clare to my class to discuss their book Brilliant Imperfections. And, I also brought Shayda Kafai to discuss Crip Kinship, her new book on the dance troupe Sins Invalid- and her concepts of crip beauty and crip sexuality.
Cripping Up Sex:
Do you feel there are enough disabled voices in gender studies?
Alix:
I'd love to have you join us sometime, as well.
Cripping Up Sex:
I would LOVE to!
Alix:
No, I don't. I think it's still a very under-represented domain in Gender Studies- and in all fields. But part of that is also due to the limitations of the academy. When we start bringing artists and activists into the university, and treating their knowledge production as viable and sacred, a whole world of thinkers opens up.
Cripping Up Sex:
Yes!
Cripping Up Sex:
How does your background in spoken word affect your teaching?
Alix:
I also think that when we begin to think about disability studies as offering concepts that are of use to all of those interested in resistance, it becomes less of a marginalized "field." This is what I meant by making disability studies a "universalizing" field of thought. So, when I teach "crip time," I try to show how it's relevant not only to those of us who are disabled but as a way to practice resistance against neoliberal logics that prioritize efficiency, normate bodies able to produce for the capitalist economy, and so on.
Cripping Up Sex:
Wow, I wish my gender studies course had that, I had to DIY it!
Alix:
My life as a spoken word artist is present in everything I do in the university. In the classroom, this means that I don't feel loyalty to "scholarship" as knowledge production; I often use spoken word poetry to demonstrate an idea- or I bring artists to my classes and to campus, I even hosted a poetry slam last year. I also teach Art-Activism classes, where we look at the history of social movements through art. But, more broadly, I think it helps me to connect with students (at least, that's my feeling!) because I spent so much time on hundreds of college campuses (over a decade).
Cripping Up Sex:
Absolutely
Cripping Up Sex:
Do you have any cool projects in the works?
Alix:
Sorry, I just saw your last comment. DIY is almost always the best way:)
Alix:
I have a book coming out in January- it's called The End of Resistance: Making and Unmaking Democracy. And, I just signed a contract for another book project- it's a critique of the concept of resilience, and is based on my dissertation research.
Cripping Up Sex:
That's amazing! Congratulations
Alix:
Thanks! I'm pretty excited about the second project- resilience seemed to be everywhere when I started the dissertation, and it's even more ubiquitous now. I also have a new poem coming out in a journal called Sinister Wisdom in the spring.
Cripping Up Sex:
Very cool!
Cripping Up Sex:
This was soo awesome!! Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
Alix:
If you were going to add any content to gender studies, what would you suggest?
Cripping Up Sex:
That's a good question, can I get back to you on that one?
Alix:
Absolutely! And, thank you. It's been really great getting to know about you and your work. I would love to take one of your classes.
Cripping Up Sex:
Thank you!
Alix:
I would just add that my Marxist Feminist professor from college- Christina Crosby- wrote a memoir called Body Undone. It's a beautiful book about her disability journey, and about becoming a scholar of disability politics. She died recently, and I will always want to promote her political legacy.
https://www.facebook.com/alixolson100/
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