Human Powered

Katie Waddell believes that the work we call the humanities is like a bunch of love letters being written to other humans. She is the director of C21, the Center for 21st Century Studies, one of the first humanities research centers in the United States and a part of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. C21 was awarded a grant from Wisconsin Humanities in support of public programs exploring the...

Jim Winship is an oldster with a mic and a camera. His latest project combines his background as a social worker, retired professor, storyteller, and filmmaker to create his second film, Growing Older in Rural Wisconsin . In this episode, co-hosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin talk with Winship about what he’s learning in a state that projects that 1 in 5 people will be over age 65 within the next...

What is it about reading and talking about a text like Plato's Allegory of the Cave that changes a person? “There's something magical about the humanities that allows adults, especially, to stop, reflect, think, and connect,” says Kevin Mullen, Assistant Professor of Continuing Studies and the Director of Adult Education for the UW Odyssey Project. His work focuses on expanding access to...

“History is an argument we have about the past and what it means for us in the present,” says Sergio González. He is an assistant professor of Latinx Studies at Marquette University and was the founding editor of Wisconsin101, a collaborative history project using objects as the centerpiece of understanding. Currently one of the hosts of “The Look Back” for Wisconsin Public Television, he collabor...

Garrett Bucks is a writer and community organizer based in Milwaukee. In 2016, he launched the Barnraisers Project, which he calls a movement of neighbors, everywhere. It includes trainings described as "an outstretched hand and a rolled-up sleeve." Co-hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker learned about Bucks’ newsletter, The White Pages , and invited him into a conversation about why we sh...

Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings has dedicated his life to educating others about Native people. Through his work in language preservation, in making and performing music, and in natural resource management, Jennings connects cultural history and traditions with relevance for this moment. In this episode of Human Powered podcast, co-hosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin talk with Jennings about growing up w...

Yia Lor is a storyteller, social worker, educator, Reiki master, and yoga teacher who believes that “we are all nature.” Nature is not someplace we go to but instead nature is what we are made of and how we heal. In this episode of Human Powered, co-hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker learn what drew Lor to train as a forest therapy guide and what happens when her clients take time to explore their...

In this episode of Human Powered, co-hosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin talk with longtime collaborator and award-winning Wisconsin Life producer, Maureen McCollum. They get to the heart of what makes WPR's Wisconsin Life radio segments so unique and why that matters today. McCollum addresses listeners’ love for Wisconsin food stories, including the “polarizing” but wildly popular deep dive i...

We are kicking off 2026 with a special conversation with our neighbor in Illinois, Jane Beachy. Co-hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker talk with Beachy about a program called Envisioning Justice from Illinois Humanities and her work convening people from other state and territorial organizations funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities with a commitment to programming in prisons, working...

This season of Human Powered podcast launched in June of 2025 with a conversation with the Executive Director of Wisconsin Humanities, Dena Wortzel, just after the nonprofit reduced staff and paused programming due to federal funding cuts. Co-hosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin shifted from behind-the-scenes producers for Human Powered to pick up the mics themselves. In that first conversation, the...

Jay Salinas moved to a farm in the Driftless Region of southwest Wisconsin with his partner, fellow artist Donna Neuwirth, and learned to grow vegetables. Before long, they started inviting friends from Chicago to come out and get their hands dirty. Intrigued by what they were learning from their rural neighbors and in conversations with city dwellers, they formed Wormfarm Institute and formalized...

We hear a lot about the ways nonprofits are preparing to cope with both new and perpetual challenges under the current Trump administration. Mary Beth Collins is the director of the Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in this episode, she shares her birds-eye-view of the state. She brings her deep roots as a Wisconsinite, along with her personal ex...

Recent years have seen a startling rise in hate crimes and hate-motivated violence across the country. Wisconsin, too, has felt this pain. In this episode, special guest Benny Witkovsky talks about his work as a public humanities fellow through the Center for Humanities and Wisconsin Humanities to address these challenges from the ground up. His ongoing research points to the ways communities can...

In this episode, special guest Danielle Hairston Green breaks down the basics of how university extension programs combine advocacy, research, and academia in response to real community needs. Hairston Green directs the Institute for Human Development and Relationships with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, where she encourages her staff to tell stories so we can better un...

When Ben Grignon walks into a classroom on the first day of school, he starts with a good story. He is a Traditional Menominee Arts instructor at the Menominee Nation High School and has received numerous awards for his work, including ​​receiving the 2022 First Peoples Fund Education Fellow for the We the Peoples Before Education initiative at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. He was also o...

Food traditions are core to who we are and how we build community. In this episode, cohosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin talk with Qwantese Winters, the founder of A Bowl of Soul. Winter’s has been dubbed the Food Doula and was the host of Wisconsin PBS’s show, “Let’s Grow Stuff.”  Her Love Wisconsin story about learning to farm and cook by connecting with her family heritage was wildly popular, s...

It is August of 2025 and record rainfall has caused catastrophic flash flooding in Milwaukee. Hosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin sit down with Milwaukee journalist and former Human Powered host Jimmy Gutierrez to talk about the crucial role of the humanities in moments like these. Gutierrez, who joined the Wisconsin Humanities board earlier this year, as the organization planned for survival after...

Each of us is experiencing a million things on any given day. Alexandria Delcourt believes that how we move from the chaos and overwhelm of life to understand ourselves, and each other, comes down to telling a good story. Alexandria helped to produce some of readers’ favorite Love Wisconsin stories for Wisconsin Humanities, is the current editor of Our Lives magazine, and leads the Isthmus Writing...

Adam Carr is a Milwaukee alchemist. He is an evangelist for his home and an urban explorer who uses storytelling, city walking tours, radio productions, film, journalism, and art to build connections between people and place. Hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker invited former Human Powered co-host into a friendly conversation that got deep, fast. Join us for a discussion about the mystery and magic...

“Stories are told for connection,” says Brendon Panke, who has found ways to use stories to build community, entertain audiences, train medical professionals, and help veterans and people who are incarcerated craft their understanding of their place in the world. Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker sit down with Panke to learn more about how the tool of storytelling has applications for breaking through...

These days the national news is full of stories about deportations and ICE raids, and the latest legislation that will vastly increase the ICE budget. In Wisconsin, studies by the University of Wisconsin–Madison School for Workers have documented the large portion of farm labor -- estimated at 70% -- done by immigrants, many of whom are undocumented. Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker sat down two weeks...

BJ Hollars' energy for making connections in sometimes unexpected places is infectious. He is a writer, a professor, a documentary filmmaker, and a proud resident of Eau Claire. His anthology, "Hope is the Thing: Wisconsinites on Perseverance in a Pandemic" from Wisconsin Historical Society Press inspired a series of Wisconsin Humanities' Love Wisconsin stories. And a film he c...

Wisconsin Humanities is going into hibernation. What does that mean? And what will happen to Human Powered podcast? Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker have been behind the scenes for past seasons of Human Powered. In this strange moment, after DOGE eliminated federal funding to support humanities councils all over the country, Jen and Jessica are taking the mics to talk with people about what this means...

An important update about Wisconsin Humanities and its programs, including Human Powered podcast and Love Wisconsin digital stories:   As a result of the defunding of Wisconsin Humanities and all state councils' operational grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this will be the last episode of Human Powered. The news of the cut to the WH was abrupt, and so we are still figuri...

For ten years, Love Wisconsin producers have been excavating beneath the surface of our state by talking with people and sharing what we learn, one story at a time . Over this anniversary year, we are excited to reconnect with some of the people who shared stories that our readers loved most. This episode of Human Powered features Scott Schultz.  Scott is a farm boy from Wisconsin, a Marine Corps...