Human Powered
A podcast from Wisconsin Humanities, because being human is a shared experience, and we are here to explore it together. In season three, we are celebrating the people who make Wisconsin home. For ten years, our 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. In this series, Love Wisconsin producer Jen Rubin reconnects with some of these people who generously shared their stories to offer nuance, delight, and complexity to our understanding of what it means to be a Wisconsinite.
In our first season, we went out to communities around the state to learn more about how our neighborhoods and lives are impacted by small but meaningful local projects — like getting hands dirty at community gardens in Green Bay, revitalizing history around a cooking fire on the Red Cliff Reservation, and collecting stories in small towns impacted by historic floods. Hosted by Jimmy Gutierrez and produced by Field Noise Soundworks.
Humanity Unlocked, the second season of Human Powered, is a series of six episodes about the power of the humanities in Wisconsin prisons. From a storytelling workshop at Oak Hill Correctional Facility to a poetry workshop with people who were formerly incarcerated to a conversation with writers and editors of prison newspapers, we explored the importance of finding tools for deeper understanding. Hosted by Dasha Kelly Hamilton and Adam Carr; produced by Field Noise Soundworks.
Human Powered
Human Powered Presents: The People's Recorder
For this special edition of Human Powered, we are sharing an episode of The People’s Recorder, a podcast series from Spark Media and funded in part with a grant from Wisconsin Humanities.
The People’s Recorder tells stories about the Federal Writers’ Project, which was created by the Federal government as part of the New Deal during the Great Depression to provide jobs to out-of-work writers. The podcast traverses the country to explore the Project’s legacy — what it achieved, where it fell short, and what it means for Americans today.
This episode is called “A Voice for the Land.” It features Nationally influential UW-Madison professor and wildlife expert Aldo Leopold, who brought a new way of thinking about how people engage with nature during the Dust Bowl era. When the Federal Writers’ Project recruited him to write for the WPA Guide to Wisconsin, he described a path toward the modern environmental movement in a section called 'Conservation.'
In this episode, you’ll hear some clips from the first season of Human Powered, when we spoke with Leopold’s biographer, Curt Meine. Be sure to check out that episode, called “Stories from the Flood,” after you listen!
The People’s Recorder is produced by Spark Media with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Florida Humanities, Virginia Humanities, California Humanities, Humanities Nebraska, and Wisconsin Humanities.
