Inner States

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 policing.

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. And an investigation into love.

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 every tree. Then Seigen asked Jack to drive him to an execution.

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-and-coming musicians in the twenty-first century.

Malcolm Mobutu Smith on comic books, collecting, and the exhibit he just put together based on that collection. Then, Bill Carroll uses the quantitative skills he developed as a chemist to analyze the billboard charts of the 1960s and 70s.

Writer and teacher Michael Martone on fiction without narrative, teaching without grades, and writing about Indiana beyond corn, basketball, and sugar cream pie.

First, a conversation with artist Honey Hodges about collages, immigrating to the U.S., and the opportunity to care for someone who has always taken care of you. Then, naturalist Jim Eagleman reminds us why we should go outside in the winter, and at night.

Three stories. One about the challenges of accessing books in prison. One about how overlooking a neighborhood’s history has affected the place. One about a comic book artist who has yet to experience writers’ block.

The graphic novel Headland is about a woman in a hospital, the wilderness she visits in her mind, and the tortoise she meets there. It’s also about the medicalization of death and dying. This week, we talk with the author, Kate Schneider. Plus, Midwestern Movies, with Alicia Kozma.

A conversation with novelist Jacinda Townsend about her new novel, which tackles the subject of motherhood from two perspectives on different sides of the world.

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 new racial dynamics, and why “the Rust Belt” is a bit of a misnomer.

In 1980, the Indonesian fiction writer Budi Darma published a book of short stories called People from Bloomington. The English translation came out this month. This week on Inner States, translator Tiffany Tsao on Indonesian literature, Budi Darma, and Twitter.

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. This week, anthropologist Ilana Gershon on power in the workplace and what it means for democracy. Plus, a conversation with singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams.

Graham Reynolds has composed for film, ballet, theater. He also leads a band that puts on great live concerts. And he wrote a rock opera about Pancho Villa. This week, we talk about all that with Graham. Plus, poet Ross Gay, delighted.

Two performances: the trials of Oscar Wilde on stage, and a puppet wedding. And more.

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 love and citizenship, this week on Inner States.

Historian Emiliano Aguilar on Latinx politics in East Chicago, how political representation isn’t necessarily a panacea for historic discrimination, and why we should keep paying attention to local politics.

Indiana doesn’t touch the Mississippi River, but it’s still bound up with it. This week, we talk with Monique Verdin, Liz Brownlee, and others, about those connections. Plus, a review of Ian Woollen’s Sister City.

Ross Gay’s new book of essays, Inciting Joy, comes out this week. On this episode, we talk about his new book, about masculinity and grief, teaching and survival, and how joy and sorrow are completely, inevitably, intertwined.

A walk among memorials and public art pieces in the fall of 2021. We talk with creators, participants, and passers-by about the meaning of public art, about Native presence in a state named for Indians, about immigration, Christopher Columbus, Columbus, Indiana, who we choose to remember, and how.

Fiber artist Fafnir Adamites about textiles, repetitive processes, and making space for intergenerational trauma. The closing of a TaB. And producer Anna Grimes’ grandmother’s memory.

This week on Inner States, episodes 4 and 5 of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about today, from the perspective of tomorrow.

The work of women in film has been overlooked since the beginning of movies. Alicia Kozma, incoming director of the IU Cinema, is working to change that.

Even after doing the March Trilogy with Congressman John Lewis, artist Nate Powell thought social progress was inevitable. Then came the 2016 election. His new book of graphic essays reckons with what that meant as a parent and citizen.

Henry Gray has been alive for a century. This week, he reflects on the 70 years he had with his wife, Alice, on growing up in Indiana, and on getting old. And Kaity Radde visits the Bloomington Catholic Worker.