Punk Scholars Podcast

Hi all! Before we launch into some new conversations and a few changes for the season ahead, my co-host, Paul Hollins, and I, Jessica Schwartz, thought we'd return to where it all began. Originally released in June 2024, this inaugural episode features Mike Dines and Russ Bestley discussing the origins of the Punk Scholars Network, the importance of scholarly community, and the possibilities of pu...

How can punk style become a framework that elucidates the multiply expressive aesthetics and sensibilities—the feel, the attitude, the gestures and choreographies of a ‘core community’? Monica Sklar (University of Georgia) joins Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley to unpack the layered answers to this and many other questions concerning punk fashion, authenticity, identity, and graphic expressivity....

"...The singles titles say it all. “Orgasm Addict” promises fiction, romance. “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn'tve?)” And of course, “What Do I Get?” so perfectly expressing the primal cry of youth? There was also a celebration of androgyny within punk, which further amplified glam rock’s earlier bisexual and sexually ambivalent posturing. As a tomboy and non-traditional girl, I knew...

Do you hear the dice rolling, the cards shuffling, and the slot machines chiming their contrapuntal cacophony? No? Well, we don’t either. That’s because, although we are back in and coming live to you from Las Vegas, Nevada on this episode, we’re hearing the din of punk scholarship amplified by sound examples–be it hardcore, pop-punk, or grindcore–that are contoured by theoretical frameworks. We m...

Who is remembered in Singaporean punk history, who has been erased in the commemorative process, and how? On this episode, co-hosts Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley speak with  Ginette Chittick about her research efforts and digital archive practices that amplify "the voices that are rarely consulted in the already sparse research on Singaporean punk history." Ginette walks us through the si...

Happy 2026, punk scholars and other interested parties! Your Punk Scholars Podcast co-hosts, Jessica Schwartz and Paul Hollins, are back in action with a recursively engaging interview of Prof. Martin James . Let us let you in on a couple of fun facts about our guest...." Martin has been punched by Goldie, pissed on by Iggy Pop and kidnapped by an unknown DJ in Italy. He also once swam across croc...

Here we go again …the second Punk Scholars Podcast live taping…this time, we’re LIVE AT LEEDS from the 12th Annual Punk Scholars Network Conference 2025 at the University of Leeds. In a roundtable format, punk scholars from your familiar PSP co-hosting crew– Jessica Schwartz, Paul Hollins, Mike Dines, and Russ Bestley–spotlight conference organizer, Stan Erraught, and speak on the importance of th...

This week, we have something quite different for you. We have the absolute pleasure of introducing you to Caroline Collet. Caroline would not describe herself as a ‘Punk Scholar’, though she did work with me and Martin James on the ‘Four Old Lags’ paper presented at the PSN conference in Buckingham a couple of years ago. Where do we start with the force of nature that is Caroline Collett? Listen t...

Where to begin with a guest such as Dr. Russ Bestley, who has done so much for the punk scholarly community, not to mention all the graphic design work, exhibits, publications--including his newest publication, Turning Revolt Into Style (2025), and network organizing...Where to begin...or really, where and how to end?! As you'll hear, in this episode, co-hosts Paul Hollins and Jessica Schwartz fac...

Straight outta Jakarta, Indonesia, across all kinds of time zones, we at the Punk Scholars Podcast (PSP) are proud to bring you Indonesian "punk for life" and scholarship leader, organizer, and musician, Fakhran Ramadhan. Interviewed by the PSP co-host team, Jessica Schwartz and Mike Dines, Fahkran's interview bursts with knowledge and a love for his punk community and the political milieu that ne...

From record collecting to radio, from art history to punk, pin-ups, and disciplinary-breaking work in the field of design, we bring you none other than Dr. Maria Elena Buszek. Interviewed by Punk Scholars Podcast (PSP) co-host team Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bustley, Dr. Buszek traces her love of and engagement with punk, as well as hip-hop, from a generative, albeit de-industrializing, Detroit, MI...

You heard him on the first episode alongside Russ Bestley in a discussion about co-founding and sustaining the PSN and its significant role in growing the field of punk scholarship globally. You heard him as co-host, helping shape the form and direction of this podcast. In this episode, co-hosts Jessica Schwartz and Paul Hollins take a deep dive into the work of prolific punk scholar, Mike Dines,...

We’re back….with Season 2 marking the beginning of the SECOND YEAR of the Punk Scholars Podcast. And, who better to ring in the new PSP year than OG (or, OP/original punk) co-host, Paul Hollins, to help break down all things punk scholarship with our special guest, an original member of the PSN US crew–Daniel Makagon. In this episode, we–Jessica Schwartz and Paul Hollins–take turns asking Daniel a...

“Philosophers theorize about changing the world. The point is to change it. And we have changed the world… hopefully [we] inspire people to not feel so isolated in these looming institutions like the academy, rather than feeling I'm not worthy, you know, putting a PSN shirt on and going, yeah, we got this. We did this.” - Alastair ‘Gords’ Gordon - One year ago, we began the PSP as an extension of...

Keeping the momentum of “Live in Las Vegas,” this week we bring you Nuit Hansgen of the Punk Rock Museum and Punk Foundation. What does it mean to curate a “punk rock” museum and organize a “punk” non-profit that strives to preserve, promote, educate, and advance punk in its genealogical ties to historical social justice movements? As we punk scholars know, it takes a lot of passion, dedication, a...

Live from Las Vegas, it’s the Punk Scholars Podcast! What happens at the Punk Scholars Network conference in Vegas is now available for your listening (dis)pleasure as Jessica Schwartz interviews Fat Mike (NOFX, Punk Rock Museum) and Jennifer Precious Finch (L7, Sh!t My Rockstar Says!) with a never before heard musical collaboration to close this one of a kind interview out. Thank you to the Punk...

For PSP's 9th episode, we have not one…but two guests for your monthly dose of punk scholarly knowledge. Listen to co-hosts Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley speak with the Dublin Hope Collective’s Michael Murphy and Niall McGuirk about the history of the Hope Collective and the story of its uplifting ‘four letter word’ namesake, as well as the importance of DIY/DIT complementarity from those who...

It’s 2025, and the PSP team will not sugarcoat it; we know it has already been quite a mixed bag for many of us. And yet, we can say that our first PSP episode of the New Year offers some critical respite and contemplative hope through much-needed insight into the historical narratives, systematized barriers, and problematic feedback loops that echo loudly in the process of punk’s institutionaliza...

On behalf of the Punk Scholars Network/PSN, the Punk Scholars Podcast/PSP team wanted to wish all you punks out there (and all you non-punks, too) the very best for the holiday season and an even better start to the New Year. On this episode filled with seasonal good cheer, your co-hosts, Paul Hollins and Jessica Schwartz, keep the punk tunes ringing and insights coming right along with the laughs...

Many are familiar with the commonplace narrative that punk is a “youth subculture” or mainstreamed media representations that center juvenile male figures as embodying punk’s defiant attitude and irreverent spirit across the subculture’s historical epochs. In this episode, be prepared to take all that gendered, sexist and ageist conditioning that comes with advanced capitalism’s values and have it...

It all began with Crass… at least, it did for our guest for our fifth episode, Matt Grimes. Going to great lengths to get Crass’ album Feeding of the 5000 (1978), Grimes explains his introduction to punk and his immersion into punk through anarcho-punk, which became a critical prism opening up ways of framing the world and making sense of its systemic processes. These critical and creative process...

Wow, all. Can you believe that we’re already four episodes into the Punk Scholars Podcast?! And do we have an episode for you… Introducing Ellen Bernhard - she’s the current President of the Punk Scholars Network US, and she has done compelling work on contemporary US punk scenes and has a knack for critical interrogations of punk humor. Her entry point into punk and its scholarly endeavors offers...

In this episode, co-hosts and producers, Jessica Schwartz (UCLA) and Paul Hollins (Bolton), are immersed in the world of British punk history as it unfolds as a creative, complex, critical, and artistically heterogeneous way of experimenting with identity and/as culture. And, we were kept in suspense with the Sham 69 question…  You won’t want to miss the breakdown of this question and our ove...

We're back with the second PSP episode, and to say this is a must-listen is an understatement... From the Marquis de Sade to Yoko Ono, from Jordan in London 1976 to Bertolt Brecht’s Pirate Jenny in Berlin 1928, from the art of smashing an instrument to play vs. work—Jessica Schwartz and Paul Hollins met up with Marie Arleth Skov to talk all things punk and art history. We talked about the rejectio...

It’s here… the Punk Scholars Podcast!  Co-hosts and producers, Jessica Schwartz (UCLA) and Paul Hollins (Bolton), set out to explore the seemingly paradoxical role of punk (and punks) in the academy and break with oft-generalized dismissals by highlighting the pivotal contributions and necessary interventions made by punk scholarship. And, who better to kick off the first episode than Punk Sc...