Fluency in Fear - with author Amie Souza Reilly
Breaking Down Patriarchy
Amy McPhie Allebest
4.9 • 654 Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy is joined by Amie Souza Reilly, author of Human/Animal, for an eye-opening discussion about stalking and safety, about how patriarchy thrives on women's fears and about what we actually have to be afraid of.
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Amie Souza Reilly is a visual artist and multigenre writer from Connecticut. Her work has appeared in various journals, including Wigleaf, HAD, The Chestnut Review, The Atticus Review, Catapult, SmokeLong Quarterly, Barren, Pidgeonholes and elsewhere. She holds an MA in English Literature from Fordham University and an MFA from Fairfield University, and is the Writer-in-Residence and Director of Writing Studies at Sacred Heart University. She is the author of Human/Animal and works as the Director of Writing Studies at Sacred Heart University.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, all the best. Have you ever felt stared at? Have you ever been followed? Have you ever felt unsafe in your own neighborhood or even in your own home? Today we're talking about fear and specifically about stalking. As the feminist scholar Pumla Gicola once wrote, |
| 0:23.3 | patriarchy runs on fear, fear of being an outsider, fear of being brutalized, fear of being |
| 0:30.4 | too much, too inadequate, too vocal, or too different. I'd be willing to bet that many of you |
| 0:37.4 | listening right now have felt these |
| 0:39.3 | types of fear and the social control that flows from them. I know I have. So to help us explore |
| 0:45.5 | this relationship between patriarchy and fear, as well as violence, colonialism, white supremacy, |
| 0:51.8 | and war, we're going to turn to the work of a fabulous essayist |
| 0:55.8 | Amy Sousa Riley, who wrote a book about her experience living through 943 days of stalking |
| 1:03.2 | and aggression, all taking place in and around her own house. The book is titled Human Animal, |
| 1:10.6 | a Beastiary in Essays. It's a beautifully crafted |
| 1:14.3 | haunting account of living through years of harassment, of constant pressure, and routines of |
| 1:19.9 | violation. But it's also a book of reflections, a dissection of language, a beautifully illustrated |
| 1:26.4 | questioning of our culture, and ultimately |
| 1:29.1 | an indictment of the fear which patriarchy thrives on. And I'm so excited to be discussing |
| 1:35.3 | this book today with the author Amy Susa Riley. Welcome, Amy. Amy, thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:41.8 | Amy Susa Riley is a visual artist and multi-genre writer from Connecticut. |
| 1:46.3 | Her work has appeared in various journals including Whigleaf, Had, The Chestnut Review, |
| 1:52.2 | the Atticus Review, Catapult, Smoke Long Quarterly, Barren, Pigeon Holes, and elsewhere. |
| 1:57.7 | She holds an MA in English Literature from Fordham University and an MFA from |
| 2:02.6 | Fairfield University and is the writer in residence and director of writing studies at Sacred |
| 2:07.9 | Heart University. So again, Amy, thanks for being here. Welcome. And I'm wondering if you can |
| 2:13.3 | start us off by introducing yourself to us a little bit more personally. Tell us where you're from, |
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