Join us for this embodied and moving conversation with Harrison Guy and Dr. Brianna Suslovic. Our guests teach us how to harness the reconstructive power of the abolitionist movement in order to reimagine a thriving black and queer life. Anchored both in their spirited optimism and capacity to face the brutal realities of injustice, our guests inspire listeners to engage with the yet to be realized possibilities for meaningful action and transformative living.
Episode References
- Kelley, R. D. G. (2003). Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Penguin Books.
- Du Bois, W. E. B. (1935). Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. Harcourt, Brace and Company.
- No New Prisons Illinois
- Sedgwick, E. K. (1997). Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction Is About You. In E. K. Sedgwick (Ed.), Novel Gazing: Queer Readings on Fiction (pp. 1–38). Duke University Press.
- Boggs, N. (2025). Baldwin: A Love Story. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- El-Kurd, M. (2025). Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal. Haymarket Books.
About Our Guests
Harrison Guy (he/him) is a nationally recognized choreographer, cultural architect, and Black LGBTQ community leader whose work lives at the intersection of art, culture, and liberation. For more than two decades, he has used dance, storytelling, and community engagement to preserve Black cultural memory, celebrate queer identity, and create spaces where people can be fully seen and affirmed. He is the founder and artistic director of Urban Souls Dance Company, a Houston-based professional dance company known for centering Black voices and experiences through bold, movement-driven work. A Dance/USA Fellow and Dance Source Houston Artistic Honoree, Guy’s choreography has been presented on stages ranging from Rice University to Carnegie Hall, where his acclaimed work Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness was performed with students from The Ailey School. Beyond the stage, Guy serves as Director of Arts and Culture for the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation, leading arts-based strategies that preserve Black heritage and strengthen community in Houston’s State-designated African American Heritage District. He is also the founder of Black Arts Movement Houston, the African American Dance Festival, and the Charles Law Community Archive, which preserves the history and contributions of Houston’s Black LGBTQ community. A trailblazer in civic and cultural leadership, Guy serves as National President of Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity, Inc., the nation’s first Greek-letter organization for gay men. He is a former Chair of Houston’s Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Board and made history as the first Black man named Houston Pride Grand Marshal. At his core, Harrison Guy is a student of the city, using art and culture to remember, empower, and amplify the stories of Black and LGBTQ communities while imagining more just and joyful futures.
Dr. Brianna Suslovic holds a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School. She is an incoming assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare. She is also a 2018 graduate of Smith’s M.S.W. program and received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College. Suslovic studies carcerality, punishment, prisons, jails, courts, and policing. She also organizes with the Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work. Prior to starting her Ph.D., Suslovic worked in New York City as a mitigation specialist and clinician for a public defender’s office and a forensic mental health clinic. Her Smith internship experiences exposed her to adult inpatient and outpatient psychiatry. She is on the board of the APA’s Division 39 and Section IX, and she continues to teach and consult with psychoanalytic institutes across the country. In her spare time, she teaches in Illinois jails and prisons, facilitates yoga classes in her neighborhood, and teaches social work students at UChicago.