Cultural Mixtapes Podcast
1) Poetic Evolution & Media Technologies with Writer Ryan Ruby
Throughout conversations on Cultural Mixtapes, Ryan’s work came up several times as I examined the zeitgeist of creative and cultural production with several writers. I first came across his work as h...Show More
2) Crystallizing and Unraveling The Now with Novelist Paul Lynch
Sometimes I find myself in the throes of writing agony. I don’t like the term writers’ block because it implies a certain impermanence. But what is vernacularly referred to as writers’ block, is part ...Show More
3) The Convergence of Food, Memory and Language, with writer Rachel Khong
I came across a novel that used food as tool for reflection into the life and mind of a few characters. Rachel Khong’s first novel Goodbye Vitamin, is about a woman who moves back home to care for her...Show More
4) The Future of the Humanities with Professor and Critic Merve Emre
In August, West Virginia University announced that it would be dissolving its Department of World Languages, Literature and Linguistics. And a couple months after that, my school Middlebury College, c...Show More
5) Finding Grace in Politics with Former White House Speechwriter Cody Keenan
I read Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land when it first came out in November of 2020. That time was filled with rampant polarization, multiple quaratines, alternative realities, an insurrection, an...Show More
Finding Grace in Politics with Former White House Speechwriter Cody Keenan
46:33 | Oct 24th, 2023
6) AI, Dystopia, and Creativity in the Future, with Novelist Vauhini Vara
Last November, I had Alexander Chee on the show. And in preparation for his interview, I read The Best American Essays 2022. I came across an essay titled “Ghosts.” This essay stood out from the rest ...Show More
7) Decoding Suburban Vibes, with Writer Jason Diamond
About 6 months into my first year of college, I found myself soliloquizing to some friends about the beauties of suburban life. It struck me immediately that I was longing for a world that I found pro...Show More
8) Redefining Genre and the Music Business with Jazz Pianist Ethan Iverson
As part of this mini series on the past and future of the music industry, I wanted to speak to another person who’s been a force in the industry for years. I came across an article in The Nation that ...Show More
9) A Life in Music, with Pianist Jerome Lowenthal
In 2019, I went to New York City for 24 hours. I told my high school teachers I was sick, postponed two tests, and asked for an extension on a project; all because Jerome Lowenthal had agreed to give ...Show More
10) The Future of Literary Criticism, with Book Critic Christian Lorentzen
If you keep up with academic chatter in English literature, there’s a debate going around about the versatility of English degrees, and of the fairly insular nature of literary criticism that comes ou...Show More