podcast recommendations
I never thought I’d be a podcast person. But alas, after six months of quarantine, I definitely am. When my senior year ended abruptly due to coronavirus, I started going running while listening to podcasts, as a way to escape the house and breathe some fresh air. Now I podcast not only while running but also while baking and organizing my closet—or just staring at the blank walls of my room. Over this period of time, I’ve found a few podcasts series and episodes that have been indispensable and entertaining companions for the strangeness of the world we now live in. Below are my six recommendations, all available on Spotify and other streaming services.
Race Traitor
This season of the podcast The Heart was eye-opening for me. For any white people who are looking to learn about how whiteness has shaped them and how to reject its oppressiveness, I would recommend this podcast. Over the four episodes, host Phoebe Unter learns “that even she, an angry Jewish dyke, still participates in upholding white supremacy culture.” Phoebe investigates everything from personal reparations to interracial friendship to her white parents, taking you with her on the journey of examining her own whiteness. This podcast left me with many new ideas and lots to chew on, especially against the backdrop of the continuing Black Lives Matter uprisings.
Literary Friction
On the Literary Friction podcast, literature enthusiasts Carrie Plitt and Octavia Bright interview authors once a month, then discuss a related theme. Between their longer episodes, they often have a “minisode” where they chat about everything from the books they hate the most to their reading guilty pleasures. Listening in to Octavia and Carrie bicker, make puns, analyze literature, and trade advice is truly like stepping into a ray of sunshine. Or at least like sitting in on a book club with two extremely personable and intelligent women. Their rapport is perfect (they play off of each other like two detectives on a TV show!) and all the authors they interview are fabulous. I couldn’t recommend this podcast more highly! Here are some of my favorite episodes:
Intimacy with Garth Greenwell
In Therapy with Ben Lerner
City of Voices with Zadie Smith
Conversations with Sally Rooney
Any podcast with Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong, author of the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, is my hero. He’s a genius. Almost every podcast I’ve listened to with him has made me cry. Here are a few of my favorites.
“Literary Friction Special - Ocean Vuong,” Literary Friction.
“Ocean Vuong—A Life Worthy of our Breath,” On Being.
“Night Sky with Exit Wounds: Ocean Vuong and Max Porter,” London Review Bookshop Podcast.
“Ocean Vuong and the new Great American Novel,” The Guardian Books Podcast.
Still Processing
In this much-loved podcast, New York Times culture writers Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris dig deep into pop culture, offering humor, new perspectives, and lots of great media recommendations. Like Carrie and Octavia from Literary Friction, Jenna and Wesley have a great rapport that makes this podcast especially entertaining to listen to. Expect lots of bad jokes and banter, along with intelligent arguments linking multiple movies, books, music, or TV shows together. I always end an episode of Still Processing feeling enlightened and uplifted. Some of my favorite episodes are:
Ziwe May Destroy Hamilton
Reparations for Aunt Jemima!
Yeehaw
We Got Goop’d
We Watch Whiteness
We Get Biracial
Song Exploder
On Song Exploder, songwriters and bands pick apart one of their songs and show you their inspiration and creative processes. It’s delightful to hear these writers talking about how word choices and “happy mistakes” form the songs we love.
Julien Baker - Appointments
Soccer Mommy - Circle the Drain
100 gecs - Money Machine
The Ezra Klein Show
Part of me didn’t want to include Ezra Klein on this list. It’s true, he’s a white man who talks a lot. But in his episodes he often chats with truly fascinating people about fascinating topics, and many of his episodes have changed my thinking about lots of things. Like UFOs. And innate human goodness. Instead of dwelling on the fact that he’s Ezra Klein, I’ll just recommend some of his best episodes, ones that shifted my view on something.
The transformative power of restorative justice
Are humans fundamentally good? With Rutger Bregman
Jenny Odell on nature, art, and burnout in quarantine
An epic conversation with Madeline Miller
A serious conversation about UFOs
A master class in organizing