Inner States

Series produced by WFIU

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Inner States is a weekly podcast and public radio show about art, culture, and how it all feels, in the Midwest and beyond.

Inner States is a weekly podcast and public radio show about art, culture, and how it all feels, in the Midwest and beyond.

The show uses conversations with unconventional artists, thinkers, and doers from the Midwest and beyond as jumping-off points to explore big ideas about place, politics, work, ecology, and memory, among others. We dig into the art, culture, stories, and sounds of the southern Midwest, from the rolling hills to Reddit, from comedians to country dances, getting to know the people, the ideas, and the landscapes that make us who we are. We ask big questions, get caught up in stories, and slow down for sounds.

Inner States is produced and hosted by Alex Chambers, a writer, cultural studies scholar, and long-time bread baker. Alex is the producer of How to Survive the Future, a podcast with Indiana Humanities. He produced the Hoosier Young Farmer Podcast and is a former associate producer on WFIU’s Earth Eats.

Web page: https://indianapublicmedia.org/innerstates/index.php

Questions or Comments?
We love hearing from our listeners. If you have a question, comment, or suggestion for a future program please don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know what’s on your mind.
https://indianapublicmedia.org/about/contact.php Hide full description

Inner States is a weekly podcast and public radio show about art, culture, and how it all feels, in the Midwest and beyond.The show uses conversations with unconventional artists, thinkers, and doers from the Midwest and beyond as jumping-off points to explore big ideas about place, politics, work, ecology, and memory, among others. We dig into the art, culture, stories, and sounds of the southern Midwest, from the rolling hills to Reddit, from comedians to country dances, getting to know the people, the ideas, and the landscapes that make us who we are. We ask big questions, get caught up in stories, and slow down for sounds.Inner States is produced and hosted by Alex Chambers, a writer, cultural studies scholar, and long-time bread baker. Alex is the producer of How to Survive the... Show full description


32 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
NPR TV Critic Eric Deggans and Comedian Sara Schaefer Say What Needs to Be Said
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: NPR TV Critic and Media Analyst Eric Deggans (Courtesy of Eric Deggans)
Critic Eric Deggans says TV offers him a wide canvas for engaging with culture, and comedian Sara Schaefer decides Twitter isn’t the best place to ...

  • Added: Sep 26, 2023
  • Length: 51:59
Replay: Love and Citizenship in the Heartland
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Salil and Yousuf, from the Just Married podcast (Yousuf Ali)
It was a summer day when Nancy and Kim found out they could get married. They both had other plans for lunch, so they waited till 3. Stories of lov...

  • Added: Sep 19, 2023
  • Length: 52:32
Who Makes Decisions at Work
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Anthropologist Ilana Gershon (Courtesy of Ilana Gershon)
A lot of people who’ve quit jobs lately thought they were sticking it to the man. But their employers - and coworkers - apparently didn’t realize. ...

  • Added: Sep 19, 2023
  • Length: 52:31
Indiana's Oil and Gas Boom Still Echoes Today
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Indiana Dunes looking east to Michigan City (Ava Tomasula y Garcia)
Scholar and writer Ava Tomasula y Garcia tells the story of the Calumet Region, how the gas boom started with a bang, brought major industry and ne...

  • Added: Sep 14, 2023
  • Length: 52:29
Mothering on Two Sides of the Atlantic
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Novelist Jacinda Townsend (Courtesy of the author)
A conversation with novelist Jacinda Townsend about her new novel, which tackles the subject of motherhood from two perspectives on different sides...

  • Added: Sep 14, 2023
  • Length: 52:00
Censorship and Freedom
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Ms. Flinora Frazier (nee Meyers) meeting Langston Hughes (Courtesy of Flinora Frazier)
Three stories. One about the challenges of accessing books in prison. One about how overlooking a neighborhood’s history has affected the place. On...

  • Added: Sep 12, 2023
  • Length: 52:00
Fiction Without Narrative, Teaching Without Grades, Indiana Beyond Sugar Cream Pie
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Writer Michael Martone outside the Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (Jeremy Butler)
Writer and teacher Michael Martone on fiction without narrative, teaching without grades, and writing about Indiana beyond corn, basketball, and su...

  • Added: Sep 12, 2023
  • Length: 52:02
The 21st-Century Conservatory Needs to Challenge Itself
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Jacobs School of Music Dean Abra Bush (Courtesy of the Jacobs School of Music)
Abra Bush, the new dean of the Jacobs School of Music, says conservatories are going to have to go beyond the Western canon to stay relevant to up-...

  • Added: Sep 12, 2023
  • Length: 52:30
Jack and Seigen
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Seigen taught Jack about the variety of sassafras leaves (Kit Boulding)
Jack was studying vocal performance when he met Seigen at the local Zen center. They became good friends. They took walks, stopping to look at ever...

  • Added: Sep 11, 2023
  • Length: 52:31
Family Policing
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Activist and scholar Micol Seigel (Micol Seigel)
We think of the foster care system as being about care. Micol Seigel says within the system people do care for each other. But it’s primarily about...

  • Added: Sep 11, 2023
  • Length: 52:00
Left is Not Woke with Susan Nieman
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Susan Neiman (Courtesy of the Indiana University Patten Foundation)
Philosopher Susan Neiman on why the left should be wary of wokeness, how Germany’s reckoning with its past has become more complicated, and why the...

  • Added: Sep 11, 2023
  • Length: 52:30
3 Music Stories
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: The Wells Metz Carillon at night (Alex Chambers)
What it took to turn Anne Frank’s diary into a mainstage opera; a new album from Witness Protection; and mysterious music coming into the radio sta...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:00
Can art about the 20th century help us change the 21st?
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abraham Smith (detail), August 7, 1930, Marion, Indiana (Lawrence Beitler)
Two stories about people using art to remember the past and, ideally, change something in the present.

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:31
Hector Loves Water Treatment
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Hector Ortiz Sanchez at the Dillman Wastewater Treatment Plant (Alex Chambers)
Hector wants to run the best wastewater treatment plant in the country. He seems to be inspiring the people he works with in that direction, too. T...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:28
Conspiracy becomes comedy on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: The Haunting of Night Vale stars (from left) Symphony Sanders and Cecil Baldwin, and features music by Jon Bernstein (Disparition). Welcome to Night Vale was created by Jeffrey Cranor (right) and Joseph Fink (not shown). (Courtesy of Welcome to Night Vale
This week, producer Avraham Forrest finds Welcome to Night Vale co-creator Jeffrey Cranor in a radio, and ascends to another plane of existence. Bu...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:31
Leah Johnson's new book is about middle school, superpowers, and queerness
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Leah Johnson's latest book, Ellie Engle Saves Herself, came out on May 2 (Courtesy of Disney Publishing Worldwide)
Leah Johnson writes romance novels. But not THAT kind. She writes award-winning YA books for queer Black kids and others. We talked about drag show...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:30
Thinking with Freud
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Parapraxis, a new magazine that examines the psychic dimenions of our social lives (Alex Chambers)
Parapraxis is a new magazine that examines the psychic mechanisms of our social lives. This week, a conversation with its founding editor, Hannah Z...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:00
The Prison They Didn't Build
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: A particular field in Letcher County, Kentucky (Jill Frank)
There's a meadow in eastern Kentucky where people sometimes hunt mushrooms, get married, attend a music festival. Something that's not happening? T...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:33
Veterans Doing Art
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Mask by Todd Burkhardt, Interior and Exterior (image support from Sam Schemenauer) (Todd Burkhardt)
Todd Burkhardt is a veteran, and he’s started asking other veterans to do needle felting with him. And drawing. And making masks. This week, what h...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:00
Mixtape
From: WFIU
Series: Inner States
Caption: Ready to be a mixtape (Alex Chambers)
It’s a mixtape! Five songs (okay, stories), by five different producers. Three are about being behind the scenes. One’s about your dad retiring. An...

  • Added: Sep 07, 2023
  • Length: 52:30