Across the Margin: The Podcast

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with award-winning journalist and photographer currently focused on migration, conflict, and humanitarian crises, Sally Hayden. Hayden has worked with VICE News, CNN International, TIME, BBC, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, NBC News, Newsweek, the Independent, the Telegraph, the National, t...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with independent underground rapper Sage Francis, widely considered one of our generation’s greatest lyricists. His career derives mainly from gifted wordplay which creates vivid narratives to instigate as well as inspire. Dubbed as the “forefather of indie-hop,” Francis originally earned acclaim in the early 2000s by winning the...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with organ, keyboard, and synth extraordinaire Robert Walter, a founder member of the Greyboy Allstars. Walter is a dynamic and prolific musician who splits his time between his own 20th Congress, The Greyboy Allstars, and a robust film soundtrack career in Los Angeles. Initially formed as the backing band for rare groove luminar...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with the author of Fight Like Hell : The Untold History of American Labor , Kim Kelly. Kelly is an independent journalist, author, and organizer. She has been a regular labor columnist for Teen Vogue since 2018, and her writing on labor, class, politics, and culture has appeared in The New Republic , The Washington Post , The New...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and music producer Stuart Bogie. Bogie has toured and recorded extensively with groups such as Antibalas, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, and Iron and Wine, to name a few, and he performed as the featured soloist in the original Broadway production of Fela! . As a composer/arranger, h...

In this episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast host Michael Shields interviews Elijah Anderson, the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies at Yale University. Anderson is one of the leading urban ethnographers in the United States and his publications include Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (1999); Streetwise: Race, Class, an...

In this episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast host Michael Shields interviews Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University where she is also the principal investigator for the Democratic Knowledge Project. In 2020, she won the Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, administered by the Library of Congress, that recognizes work in disciplines not...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Phil Freeman , a renowned music journalist specializing in jazz and metal. He is the former managing editor of the world music magazine Global Rhythm, the former editor-in-chief of the metal magazine Metal Edge, the founder of MSN Entertainment's Headbäng daily metal blog, and currently writes a monthly jazz column, Ugly Bea...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with guitarist Scott Metzger, a musician who has spent the past decade earning a reputation as one of the most adventurous improvisers in live music. When he wasn’t sharing the stage with the likes of Phil Lesh, John Scofield or Nels Cline, he was playing to massive crowds with Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. His musical interests, howe...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Ian Tyrrell, emeritus professor of history at the University of New South Wales. He is the author of numerous books, including True Gardens of the Gods: Californian-Australian Environmental Reform, 1860 –1930 and Historians in Public . His latest book, American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea , is the focus of t...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast looks back on the distressing events of January 6th, 2021 with an examination of the documentary Day of Rage , a film that culls thousands of hours of videos and audio from rioters and police body cams to tell the story of the Capitol insurrection. The product of a six-month New York Times investigation, Day of Rage provides the most complete picture...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Lina Zeldovich, a writer and editor specializing in the journalism of solutions. Her work has appeared in the New York Times , Reader’s Digest , Smithsonian , Popular Science , Scientific American , Atlantic , and Newsweek , among many other popular outlets, and she has won awards from the Newswomen’s Club of New York, the S...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast introduces you to American Gadlfy , a documentary that tells the story of how, a decade since his last campaign, 89-year-old former senator and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Gravel came out of retirement when a group of teenagers convinces him to run for president one last time. Through the senator’s official Twitter account, the four “Gravel teens...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Jake Poller, the author of Aldous Huxley, which is the focus of this episode, and also Aldous Huxley and Alternative Spirituality. Poller edited the essay collection Altered Consciousness in the Twentieth Century and his articles have appeared in the Aldous Huxley Annual, the D.H. Lawrence Review, Aries, Literature and Theol...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Keith Wailoo, Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. His books include Dying in the City of the Blues , How Cancer Crossed the Color Line , and Pain: A Political History . Along with Dr. Anthony Fauci and others, Wailoo won the prestigious 2021 Dan David Prize which supports...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with best-selling author Gloria Feldt , an acclaimed expert on women, power, and leadership. Feldt is co-founder and president of Take The Lead , whose mission reflects her life’s passion: to prepare, develop, inspire, and propel women to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors. She is the autho...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Amitav Ghosh, a novelist and essayist whose many books include the acclaimed Ibis Trilogy ( Sea of Poppies , River of Smoke , and Flood of Fire), Gun Island, Jungle Nama: A Story of the Sundarban, and The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable . His latest book, The Nutmeg’s Curse (Parables For a Planet in Cri...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Stuart Blume, a professor emeritus of science and technology studies at the University of Amsterdam. Blume’s latest book, entitled Immunization: How Vaccines Became Controversial , is an important and extremely relevant-to-the-moment work that is the focus of this episode. At a time when vaccines are a vital tool in the figh...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Chris Gibson and Andrew Warren. Chris is a professor of geography at the University of Wollongong, Australia while Andrew is a senior lecturer in economic geography at the same university. They are also the co-authors of The Guitar: Tracing The Grain Back To The Tree , a deeply insightful book which lies at the center of thi...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Lizzie Johnson, a staff writer for the Washington Post . Previously, Johnson worked at the San Francisco Chronicle , where she reported on fifteen of the deadliest, largest, and most destructive blazes in modern California history, and covered over thirty communities impacted by wildfires. Recently she released a book e...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker Yael Bridge. Bridge is the producer behind Left on Purpose , winner of the Audience Award at DOC NYC, and also Saving Capitalism , starring former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in Business and Economics. Her latest documentary, The Big Scary “S” Wo...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Dr. Fabian Holt, associate professor in the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University. He is the author of Genre in Popular Music and of Everyone Loves Live Music: A Theory of Performance Institutions , the focus of this episode. For decades, millions of music fans have gathered every summer in parks and fi...

In this episode host Michael Shields interviews Sally Weintrobe, a Fellow of The British Psychoanalytical Society and a founder member of the Climate Psychology Alliance who Chairs the International Psychoanalytic Association’s (IPA’s) Committee on Climate. In 2021 she won an award from the IPA for her climate work. Her past publications include, as editor and contributor, Engaging with Climate Ch...

In this episode host Michael Shields interviews Ben Proudfoot, the Oscar nominated creative force behind Breakwater Studios . Dedicated to the art of the short documentary, the studio’s work has been recognized by the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, The Emmys, The Webbys, James Beard Foundation, and Telluride Film Festival among others. His film A Concerto is a Conversation , co-dir...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Patrick Burke, associate professor of music at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Burke is the author of Come In and Hear the Truth: Jazz and Race on 52nd Street and also the recently released Tear Down The Walls: White Radicalism and Black Power in 1960s Rock — the focus of this episode. From the earliest days of...