Sustainin' Conversation Episode 1: Choosing Your Medium
Amplified is an audio blog series about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. This month, we'll be sharing a series of three episodes we're calling Sustainin' Conversation from a round-table conversation we had with members of our first Sustain stream: Sally Chivers (Wrinkle Radio), Charisse L'Pree (Critical and Curious), M.E. Luke (Critical Technology Podcast) and Megan Goodwin (Keeping it 101: A Killjoy's Guide to Religion). In this first episode, “Choosing Your Medium”, we meet heard about what drew them to podcasting as their medium.
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Natalie Dusek 00:00
Hello and welcome to a special three-part series of the Amplified Audioblog that we’re calling “Sustaining Conversation.” I’m Natalie Dusek, Amplify’s project assistant and a current graduate student in Simon Fraser university’s school of communications.
For this miniseries, we gathered the hosts of the Amplify Podcast Network’s first cohort of Sustain podcasters to answer three questions about scholarly podcasting. In this first episode, “Choosing Your Medium”, we’re going to meet the podcasters and hear about what drew them to podcasting. We ask the question: what brought you to podcasting and why specifically did you choose this medium as opposed to other mediums? Before we hear their answers, let’s first get some introductions.
[transition music]
Sally Chivers 01:02
I am Sally Chivers. I'm a professor at Trent University. My podcast is called Wrinkle Radio. The tagline is, “don't panic. It's just aging”. So that kind of encapsulates what it's about. First of all, I talk about all the ways that we're invited and encouraged to fear aging, some of them are justified, and some of them aren't. So we work through those. The second part, “it's just aging,” is trying to talk about aging as a social justice issue. Who gets to worry about some of the more trivial aspects of aging like gray hair, and who doesn't even really get to survive to ages that other people would consider old?
Charisse L'Pree 01:46
Hello, I am Charisse L'Pree. And I am the host of Critical and Curious with Robert Thompson, coming from Syracuse University at the Newhouse School. It's Critical and Curious, a pop trash podcast. And our tagline is, “we'll give you language for the stuff you love”. We were hoping to do a class on Fast and Furious, a diversity class on Fast and Furious and use the Fast and Furious movies as the reading material and the source material for the discussions and concepts and diversity and media class. And then of course, we couldn't get our ish together. So we still wanted to have these conversations. So we kind of turned it into a lecture series that we then podcasted our conversations that would invite students to participate in effectively a Fast and Furious class and the wider public. We had such a wonderful time that we have since continued into other seasons. Our second season looked particularly at Keanu Reeves, which was a star study of Keanu Reeves, which was inspired by a colleague who said outright, I can't think of any other bad actor that's been in so many great movies [laughs]. Really understanding the way that critics kind of see Keanu as trash. And then our third season was on Romeo and Juliet and the kind of the remakes of that. And those are always just craptastic and awful and awesome. If it's Romeo Must Die, if it's Gnomeo and Juliet, if it's Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. So it's really just an opportunity for us to get super critical and super academic about things that academics have discarded, which makes it really accessible to students and listeners. Because yeah, it's the movies you love that academics never take seriously.
M.E. Luka 03:52
So my name is Mary Elizabeth Luka. I'm at the University of Toronto, and I am the director at the Knowledge Media Design Institute where we have a podcast that is called TheCritical Technology Podcast and it's in now moving into its third season. TheCritical Technology Podcast is really about thinking about what are the social, cultural and political implications of technological developments. So where human and more than human intersect with technology. The person who was the host for the first two years was the previous director of the Institute, Sarah Grimes, who did a fantastic job. So if you haven't listened to them, listen to them. And, and her approach in that project was to really think about what is a recent book or publication piece of research that that she believed would be a game changer in the field and so she would she approach that project in that way one on one interviews about 10,12,14 episodes depending on how much capacity there was in the system. This year, our podcast, the third year is going to be a combination. So we're going to have a combination of talks from one of our labs, which will focus on a similar approach critical literature. And then I will be hosting and that will sorry, that will be a series of talks that are in U of T that are recorded and used and kind of modified after the fact for podcast episodes. The other part of the series that I'm I am doing that I will be the host for is called the dirty methods podcast. And here, we're gonna look at a whole series of different ways of thinking about how methods work in the academy, and particularly when we're trying to get out of the academy and engage in real ways, with the with the community, and all the other players in the world. So so the kind of thematics that we're looking at are kind of think about what do we mean by transgressive methods, by dirty methods. Methods are dirty, and messy and incomplete and unresolved and sometimes damaging and how do we deal with that? Thinking about compassionate methods and ways of– creative methods, all of the things that from the point of view of how work gets done, where are the points of entry for people who are involved in the process?
Megan Goodwin 06:29
Hi, hello, I am Megan Goodwin, I am the co-host and co-producer of Keeping It 101: A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion podcast, where we dare to ask the question, do you have to care about religion? Even if you are not yourselves religious? Spoilers? The answer is yes. So we just turned in our revised manuscript with Beacon. So the book version of the podcast should be out in the fall. It's called Religion Is Not Done With You. So we are now in our yikes sixth season, and fourth year of production. We have done seasons on just religion broadly, we did a season on race, religion and sexuality and how they overlap with religion. We did a huge season on world religions. And now we're in a space of mostly just answering folks’ random questions about, Hey, what's up with this? So coming attractions include conversations about like religion and adoption and how we would just really love for religious organizations to stop trafficking, brown and black babies, please and thank you. Oh, I'll introduce Ilyse, this is great. Hi. Hello. I'm Ilyse's best friend. Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst is an associate professor at the University of Vermont's department of religion. She is also the director of the University of Vermont's Humanity Center. And she's awesome and cannot apparently be contained on the airwaves.
Natalie: You’ll also hear the voices of the Amplify Podcast Network’s co-directors, Stacey Copeland–
Stacey: Hi, I’m Stacey Copeland, co-director here at Amplify and Assistant Professor of cultural heritage and identity at the University of Groningen.
Natalie: –and Hannah McGregor.
Hannah: That’s me! Hi, I’m Hannah McGregor, the other co-director of the Amplify Podcast Network, and Associate Professor and Director of Publishing at Simon Fraser University.
Natalie: Now that we’ve heard from the Sustain podcasters who could be contained on the airwaves, it’s time to get into our first question.
[transition music]
Natalie Dusek 07:57
Okay, everyone. So, I would love for you to answer this question. What brought you to podcasting? Why specifically, did you choose this medium as opposed to other mediums?
M.E. Luka 08:10
Oh, yeah. So you're gonna start with the person who's like I was brought kicking and screaming to podcasting. This is not my medium. My medium is video. And however, I have been told I have a very good radio/podcast voice. And so this is what actually attracts me to podcasting.
Hannah McGregor 08:31
Your own mellifluous voice?
M.E. Luka 08:32
My own mellifluous voice, correct [laughs] . That, that it provides an it, there's a really interesting thing that happens between video and audio. And that when you when you work with video, that picture becomes an overwhelming part of what people see and think about on the screen. If you're focusing on audio, and that oddly includes, how does how does a straight up talking head that you get in podcasting kind of wash out what the impact of video is, and allow for the voice part of it to come through. This is what attracts me to podcasting is kind of like the ability to move into thinking about what people are saying rather than looking at what they're doing or observing that they have something wrong with their face or any of those kinds of critical things that happen when we're trying to process video content. It also I will say, what I like about podcasting is it gives you time and space, right? With a lot of video material, you have to keep it really tight. It has to be planned out in some way even if it's documentary. And so time and space. Makes it you know, podcasting allows you to kind of let it breathe with how much time you need. So those are the things that have brought me to podcasting.
Sally Chivers 09:51
So I was attracted to podcasting. I'd been thinking of doing one for a long time I had in the back of my mind a talk I saw by Kim Sawchuk from Concordia, about audio as a low bandwidth medium that could reach corners of the world where there isn't as great internet. During the early days of COVID, when I was teaching, I found out my students did not have great internet. So I switched to audio lecturing, and I loved it. I loved it so much more than the video work I'd been doing. And then I had a physical and mental meltdown. And I had to completely shift my career. And I thought, I have to do my podcast now. Right? Like, I, I'm kind of done with this profession, and maybe this profession is done with me. And so maybe I'll do this thing I want to do. So I put down tools I had to for a long time. And then yeah, as I came back, I thought, I'm gonna do this. And, yeah, I think that that's a pretty good explanation of it. I also always wanted to be a news anchor person, like, I am still jealous of every news anchor person. So I don't know, that's TV. But there is that that world, that journalistic world that I was envious of that this felt like a taste of.
Charisse L'Pree 11:20
So I feel, I feel like my, what brought me to podcasting is less exciting than what my colleagues have offered regarding the access, the technology, the engagement. Honestly, I just like talking, I also like my own voice. And, you know, it became an opportunity to have long academic conversations in a manner that didn't require us to write, rewrite, and edit and then find someone who's willing to publish, like, I have become so disenchanted with the academic gatekeeping that and I'm privileged enough now that I have tenure, I'm like, like, I did it. I don't want to do it anymore. And podcasting, it was, it was an opportunity. It was a space, it was engagement, it was talking about big ideas without having to, you know, do whatever song and dance to get published in some academic outlet. Having said that, we have been doing our best to synthesize our work. Congratulations on the book, Megan, and Ilyse, you know, really thinking about how podcasting can be accepted, integrated and disrupt academic values, big air quotes around that for our listeners. So, all of those things. Having said that, my number one hobby is media production. Like I love making movies. I love making pictures. I love making our annual end of year card. I love making books on Shutterfly. So I also do most of the production and editing and it's just a joy because I can call my media production work when I'm not actually a media production professor. So I love it. I love it. And I will say my first book looks at different mediums and I've become a fan of audio and radio and audio books. I'm really an audio book listener for the the ability to multitask, and it's just been such a game changer especially for years we were so visually oriented once TV surpassed radio, you know, radio was some other like old medium that was kind of seen as antiquated. And so I appreciate podcast for the opportunity to reignite our what I would argue very intimate relationship through audio.
Megan Goodwin 14:14
Yeah, I guess I will give my Ilyse answer first and then I will give my answer because Ilyse's is more respectable I think. So Ilyse got excited about podcasting. I like mine's a little cringe, to be honest, but whatever. So Ilyse's entree into podcasting is that she is a chronic insomniac and just listens to podcasts all day every day. So she's very familiar with the medium. And there was a confluence of being really excited about this medium, and also coming up on being tenured, I think like Charisse. She was looking for new ways to do this work and really in search of ways to do this work that felt more accessible to other folks but also ways that felt more joyful and fun to her. And so we had been talking about trying to find some way to kind of hang out and call it work for a while. And she also, I think, wanted to cultivate a less formal and more playful, but still scholarly voice. And podcasting really allowed her to do that. So that was awesome. I was not I was not at all the podcasting person I was listening to Welcome to Night Vale. And then I had a friend say, Hey, there's this Harry Potter podcast, you should maybe check out I think you'll like it its lady professors.
Stacey Copeland 15:38
[Laughs] I think I know who that is.
Hannah McGregor
[Laughs]
Megan Goodwin 15:41
So I told you it was cringe. I think you might. I like I have this very vivid memory of painting my bedroom in the house that I don't live in anymore. And hearing Hannah say something in relation to Harry Potter, Harry Potter that was just like, I don't know, I just want to burn it all down. I was like, Girl, same, same, hard. Same. So I was excited about this space for both serious critique but informal voice. And then hearing particularly so I'm just gonna fangirl but like hearing Hannah, talk about how there's not enough women in podcasting. When Ilyse came to me with this project, and said, Hey, do you want to try this? I was like, I need to do this for my people. So also, the ADHD of my brain was very excited about an opportunity to play with new software. I did not think about audience, I did not think about doing this, frankly, more than once I thought we were we both I think that we were going to do two to five episodes, and then just kind of quit, but got to podcasting because friends. And yeah, wanting to incorporate like play and joy into our work.
Hannah McGregor 16:50
Making things is fun. I think that's a real through line of like, there's a great deal of pleasure in making things. And I think for a lot of I remember when I first got into digital humanities as a as a grad student, I was like, it's just really fun to make something when the predominant thing that I've been trained to do so forth, take things apart.
Natalie Dusek: Thanks for listening to “Sustaining Conversation,” a special three-part series of the Amplified audioblog. You heard from Sustain podcasters Charisse L'Pree, Megan Goodwin, M.E. Luka, and Sally Chivers, from the Amplify Podcast Network’s co-directors, Stacey Copeland and Hannah McGregor, and from me, Natalie Dusek. In our next episode we’ll be hearing more about how scholarly podcasters embed their podcasting work into their research and teaching. In the meantime, make sure to follow us on Twitter aka X, on Instagram, or subscribe to our email newsletter on the website for updates and to keep in touch. Thanks for listening!
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Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay, Ph.D., examines how media affects identity, attitudes and behaviors, and how we use different media to express ourselves and connect with others. Prof. L’Pree has authored two books: “20th Century Media and the American Psyche: A Strange Love” (Routledge, 2021) bridges media theory, psychology and interpersonal communication to describe how our relationships with media emulate the relationships we develop with friends and romantic partners through their ability to replicate intimacy, regularity and reciprocity. “Diversity and Satire: Laughing at Processes of Marginalization” (Wiley, 2023) is the first textbook to explore diversity by demonstrating how satirical content can advance the discussion and change attitudes.
Dr. MaryElizabeth (“M.E.”) Luka is Assistant Professor, Arts & Media Management at University of Toronto, where she examines modes and meanings of co-creative production, distribution and dissemination in the digital age for the arts, media and civic sectors. Dr. Luka is a founding member of the Critical Digital Methods Institute at University of Toronto Scarborough, of research-creation group Narratives in Space + Time Society, and of the technoculture research group, the Fourchettes.
Dr. Megan Goodwin is a scholar of gender, race, sexuality, politics, and American religions. She is the author of Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions (Rutgers 2020). Her next book is tentatively entitled Cults Incorporated: The Business of Bad Religion. She is the founder and co-director of the Bardo Institute for Religion and Public Policy, and the media and tech consultant on the Crossroads Project.
Dr. Sally Chivers is Full Professor of Gender & Social Justice and English at Trent University, where she is a Founding Executive Member and Past Director of the Trent Centre for Aging & Society and recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Research Award. A prolific and sought-after speaker and collaborator, Dr. Chivers writes, speaks, and makes short films about the social and cultural politics of health, aging, and disability. Her monthly podcast Wrinkle Radio fights ageism one story at a time. She has published two books that draw on film and literary analysis to emphasize connections between aging and disability in the public imagination. Her two co-edited collections show that cultural representations influence how we think about aging, long-term care, and disability, and vice versa.
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Links and Resources:
Keeping it 101: A Killjoy’s Guide to Religion
Intro + Outro Theme Music: Pxl Cray – Blue Dot Studios (2016)
Written by Stacey Copeland, Hannah McGregor and Natalie Dusek & produced by Natalie Dusek