logo
episode-header-image
About this episode

In this episode on the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liutalks with Tao Leigh Goffe about her new, magisterial Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis. Spanning many fields and disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, the humanities, and the arts, Professor Goffe weaves together a historically rich and geographically complex picture of how capitalism and racism undergird the climate crisis in ways made invisible or benign via the work of the west’s “dark laboratory.” Writing back through accounts of indigenous bird watching and Black provisional grounds, we talk about things as seemingly different as the massive guano industry built on Chinese and Indian labor in the 19th century to Malcolm X’s boyhood vegetable garden in Michigan. We talk in particular about one of the key passages of Dark Laboratory, where Tao writes:

“Still, we manage to create a poetics out of that which wishes to destroy us and the planet.  How else will we be able to live in ‘the after’? We must reassess what a problem is.  Living is not a problem, as Audrey Lorde reminds us. I would add that dying is not a problem either. Decomposing is essential to the natural order and cycle of life. Living at the expense of others is a problem.”

Tao Leigh Goffe is a writer, theorist, and interdisciplinary artist who grew up between the UK and New York City. For the past fifteen years she has specialized in colonial histories of race, geology, climate, and media technologies. Dr. Goffe lives and works in Manhattan where she is an Associate Professor at CUNY in Black Studies. She teaches classes on literary theory and cultural history. Dr. Goffe’s book on how the climate crisis is a racial crisis is called DARK LABORATORY (Doubleday and Hamish Hamilton (Penguin UK, 2025). Her second book BLACK CAPITAL, CHINESE DEBT, under contract with Duke University Press, presents a long history of racialization, modern finance, and indebtedness. It brings together subjects of the Atlantic and Pacific markets from 1806 to the present under European colonialism. Dr. Goffe is a fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School in racial justice. Her research explores Black diasporic intellectual histories, political, and ecological life. She studied English literature at Princeton University before earning her PhD at Yale University. 

Dr. Goffe’s research and curatorial work is rooted in literatures and theories of labor that center Black feminist engagements with Indigeneity and Asian diasporic racial formations. Committed to building intellectual communities beyond institutions, she is the founder of the Dark Laboratory, an engine for the study of race, technology, and ecology through digital storytelling. Dr. Goffe is also the Executive Director of the Afro-Asia Group, an organization that centers the intersections of African and Asian diasporas, futurity, and radical coalition towards sovereignty. 

www.palumbo-liu.com
https://speakingoutofplace.com
Bluesky @
palumboliu.bsky.social
Instagram @speaking_out_of_place

Up next
Jun 24
AI, Universities & Student Surveillance in the Digital Age - LINDSAY WEINBERG & ROBERT OVETZ
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Lindsay Weinberg and Robert Ovetz about the use of Artificial Intelligence in higher education. Under the guise of “personalizing” education and increasing efficiency, universities are in ... Show More
50m 59s
Jun 22
THE DREAM HOTEL with LAILA LALAMI
What happens when the state, with the pretext of protecting public safety, can detain indefinitely certain individuals whose dreams seem to indicate they may be capable of committing a crime? Set in a precarious world where sleep-enhancing devices and algorithms provide the tools ... Show More
41m 38s
Jun 19
Examining Monuments, Memory & The History of White Supremacy IRVIN WEATHERSBY JR. - Highlights
“I'm hopeful for revolution. I'm optimistic. I want radical change. I think there's such a disinterest in education in America that it is sickening. I think we are repeating history. We are going through a cycle of fascism and greed, and I think we're going to see a lot of states ... Show More
12m 18s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2024
104: Donna Tartt - The Secret History
Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History is a loveletter to Greek tragedy, that begins with a dedication from Nietzsche and Plato. Central to the story is the concept of the Dionysian, and the attempt of the main characters to experience the Dionysian. Richard Papen's fatal flaw is ... Show More
2h 5m
May 2024
The Myth of Resilience (Soraya Chemaly)
“This is the richness of the traditional wife explosion, right? There's this simple idea that you get to choose. Now you're choosing to emulate a situation that's a fiction in that those women didn't choose anything. They had to dress like that. They had to live like that. They h ... Show More
58m 1s
May 2024
Amy Schiller, "The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong—And How to Fix It" (Melville House, 2023)
Amy Schiller's The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong—And How to Fix It (Melville House, 2023) makes an attempt to rescue philanthropy from its progressive decline into vanity projects that drive wealth inequality, so that it may support human flourishing as originall ... Show More
38m 36s
Sep 2024
Ep481 - Mary Pilon | Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game
Author Mary Pilon visits Google to discuss her book, "The Monopolists". The book reveals the unknown story of how the classic board game Monopoly came into existence, the reinvention of its history by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the g ... Show More
44m 27s
Sep 2023
Kathryn J. Edin et al., "The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America" (Mariner Books, 2023)
A sweeping and surprising new understanding of extreme poverty in America from the authors of the acclaimed $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. Three of the nation’s top scholars – known for tackling key mysteries about poverty in America – turn their attention from ... Show More
33m 58s
Jul 8
News To Know: The novel explores an alternate history: What if the South had won the Civil War?
Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald, interviewed Attorney Ken Harris: Former NBA and NFL agent, attorney based in Charlotte, NC, and author of the novel Dark Trades. The novel explores an alternate history: What i ... Show More
21m 28s
Mar 2025
A Jewel Worth Dying For
The Hope Diamond is one of the most famous jewels in the world, but its beauty hides a chilling past. From its origins in India to its journey through the hands of kings, queens, and the wealthy elite, this mysterious blue gem has been followed by a legacy of misfortune. Some say ... Show More
23m 49s
Jul 2024
Mary Vincent, l'adolescente auto-stoppeuse qui a perdu ses deux bras
Débloquez des épisodes Bonus ici -> https://lecoinducrime.com/bonus/ Mary Vincent, un nom qui évoque à la fois talent, mystère et résilience. Connue pour ses œuvres captivantes, elle est aussi la survivante d'une terrifiante agression qui a bouleversé sa vie et choqué le monde en ... Show More
41m 26s
Jun 2024
La véritable histoire d'Arthur Miller, légende de la littérature américaine
Stéphane Bern raconte un auteur de pièces de théâtre américain resté célèbre autant pour ses Sorcières de Salem que sa relation avec le sex-symbol Marilyn Monroe, qui, à travers les angoisses des Américains ordinaires ou en dénonçant la société dans laquelle il a évolué, a porté ... Show More
42m 32s
Aug 2024
Bridging Worlds with Brushstrokes with Suhad Khatib
Today, we have the honor of speaking with Suhad Khatib, an artist, filmmaker, and designer, and the daughter of Palestinian massacre survivors. Born in Oman, raised in Jordan, and having lived in the US for over 14 years, Suhad has numerously navigated the complexities of identit ... Show More
1s