255: A Weighty Discussion with April Herndon

This week’s guest is April Herndon, an English professor and author (and many other things). She joins Brett to talk about fat advocacy, her Appalachian roots, and the joys of punching bags.

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Show Links

• April Herndon at WSU
• Fat Blame: How the War on Obesity Victimizes Women and Children

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Transcript

April

[00:00:00] April: [00:00:00] Okay,

[00:00:00] Brett: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Brett Terpstra and you’re listening to systematic. My guest this week is April Herndon, a professor of English. How’s it going April?

[00:00:10] April: [00:00:10] good. I mean, as well as it can be in a pandemic. Thanks for asking.

[00:00:13] Brett: [00:00:13] I feel like there’s a lot more to your introduction. You are in my mind a lot more than just a professor of English, but I wasn’t sure where to go with it after that.

[00:00:22]April: [00:00:22] It could go a lot of different places. I appreciate you sort of letting me be all of the different. Things I am. You know, in addition to teaching English, I have an interdisciplinary degree. So I’ve taught science and technology studies. I was a director of a non-profit organization called the intersex society of North America, where I did medical advocacy.

[00:00:42] For children who are born with mixed reproductive and or sexual anatomy I’ve been on a steering committee, started a union at Michigan state, or help start that union. That certainly wasn’t a solo effort. So yeah, I’ve done a lot of different things and have finally settled here in Winona as a professor of English.

[00:01:00] [00:00:59] Brett: [00:00:59] Did you go to Michigan state?

[00:01:01] April: [00:01:01] I did.

[00:01:02] Brett: [00:01:02] And why did I assume you had gone to school in the South?

[00:01:05]April: [00:01:05] Well, because I’ve still got a really, really strong accent, even though I haven’t lived in Appalachia since I was 18. So I was a Michigan. Let’s see, how long was I in Michigan? I was in Michigan for seven years and then came to Minnesota and I’ve been at Winona state for 15 years and still the accent lingers.

[00:01:25] So yeah, you think if I’d gone to school in the Midwest a little bit more of this would have faded, but, uh, it’s got some pretty good sticking quality.

[00:01:31] Brett: [00:01:31] So you are, we’re going to talk a lot about how I know you through Facebook, because that is where I, I learned the most about you and you are a, you. Frequently use colloquialisms, but you never use the same one twice. Are the colloquialisms you use? Are they real or are you just really good at making up Southern sounding colloquialisms?

[00:01:56]April: [00:01:56] A mix of both. Um, I do have my own phone [00:02:00] for things. There’s no doubt about that. That’s a fam