In our second episode of (Un)box the Soap Podcast, we continue our journey through the swamps and examine how this porous ecosystem manifests in culture. 

Whether it's through watching the film La Ciénaga, listening to swamp-pop, walking through the streets of London, or examining the history of the Great Dismal Swamp Maroons, we explore the swamp’s potentiality of creating new meanings, seeing ordinary things anew, and reclaiming one’s independence.

Why do we associate swamps with something negative and why is it Shrek that helps us free ourselves from these presuppositions? 

Join us in our boggy ruminations and let’s submerge in the swampy realms!

Works we referenced and cited in this episode:

• Avidad, Andrea. “Deadly Barks: Acousmaticity and Post-Animality in Lucrecia Martel’s La Ciénaga.” Film-Philosophy, vol. 24, no. 2, June 2020, pp. 222–40, https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2020.0140.


• Bernard, Shane. “State of the Genre: Swamp Pop Music in the 21st Century.” Bayou Teche Dispatches, 2022, http://bayoutechedispatches.blogspot.com/2022/05/state-of-genre-swamp-pop-in-21st-century.html.


• Błoto. “Błoto - Szlam (Official Video).” YouTube, uploaded by Astigmatic Records, 26 Feb. 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1LFxsaq_0g. 


• Giblett, Rod. “Introduction: Looking Back, Looking Forward.” Cities and Wetlands. The Return of the Repressed in Nature and Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016, pp. 3–14. 


• Giblett, Rod. “London: The “Nether World” of “the City of Dreadful Night.” Cities and Wetlands. The Return of the Repressed in Nature and Culture, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016, pp. 69–91


• Greene, Liz. “Swamped in Sound: The Sound Image in Lucrecia Martel’s La Cienaga/the  Swamp.” Printed Project – Physical Stuff Made Strange, no. 15, 2012, pp. 52–60.


• Martell, Lucrecia, director. La Ciénaga. Lider Films, 2001.


• Long, Jake. “Ideological Rubble.” City Swamp, New Soil, 2024. Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/track/5W1NctXJprxy4oc99q0AEI?si=cc81d1ea5ac24a34. 


• “Refuge in the Great Dismal Swamp.” YouTube, uploaded by Southern Gothic The Podcast, 19 Mar. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBs8ITobjW4.


• Stewart, Katy. “Establishing the Female Gaze: Narrative Subversion in Lucrecia Martel’s ‘La Niña Santa’ (2004) and ‘La Ciénaga’ (2001).” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 205–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/14701847.2015.1179850.


• Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues. University Press of Mississippi, 1996.


• “Twisting at the Fais Do-Do: Swamp Pop in South Louisiana.” Folklife in Louisiana, https://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/creole_art_swamp_pop.html.


• “USA: The Great Dismal Swamp - BBC Travel Show.” YouTube, uploaded by BBC Travel Show, 1 Feb. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_zaVMNsD7c. 


• Youssef, Sharif. “The Great Dismal Swamp.” 99% Invisible, 15 May 2017, 99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-dismal-swamp/.