a future podcast
Exploring the humanities on campus and in the broader world in conversation with writers, artists, scholars, and educators
A hosted and scripted, story-based podcast -- Human Matters explores the pressing questions around human culture, education, expression, and thought with episodes featuring interviews from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and around the world.
This podcast is part of an IRB-approved research study: "Humanities Podcasting as an Intervention in the Perceptions of Liberal Studies Students" which involves the scripting, interviewing, editing, broadcasting and research study on the impact of a six-episode audio podcast series entitled "Human Matters: Conversations with writers, artists, scholars, and educators about the humanities on campus and in the broader world." The project aims to promote the richness and significance of work in the humanities and art through the production of an audio podcast while investigating how exposure to this information impacts student perceptions. The project exploits the rise in audiences for audio podcasts ("28% of [Americans] 12 and older said they have listened to a podcast in the last week" Pew 2021) while addressing the decrease in enthusiasm for the humanities among the young (42% skeptical, age 18-29; compared with 44% fans, age 60+; Bradburn and Townsend, The Humanities in American Life, 2019). In addition, the project assists PhD students in English with their development of non-traditional scholarly capabilities by creating and assessing digital humanistic scholarship. This reflects the NEH's call for Public Humanities and the urging of the founders of the Humanities Podcast Network, whose recent Inside Higher Education editorial insists it is time to "support faculty and student podcast creators at the institutional level" (Adams et al, 2021). This proposal is a revision with reduced equipment budget,* revised budget justification, and enhanced description of research methodology per USRC feedback.