“What We’re Reading: How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell”

What if “doing nothing” isn’t being lazy or apathetic, but an intentional political practice? In this episode, we unpack Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing and place it in conversation with Black feminist thinkers like Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and bell hooks. We explore attention as a site of extraction and what it means to resist productivity, visibility, and constant availability in a world that profits from all three. We ask how care, slowness, and most importantly, unavailability can be tools for survival and imagining something more sustainable and authentic. For “The Truth in 10,” Olivia walks us through Black, queer, and POC independent booksellers around the country that you must visit.

Resources:

https://www.standwithminnesota.com

https://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org

http://www.ilrc.org/community-resources/

https://nipnlg.org

Co-producers: Brittany Friedman and Olivia Aminatta Jobe