Travel to Nashville, Tennessee, “the cradle of student protest,” to learn about Fisk University’s activist legacy–from the Jubilee Singers in the 1800s to the sit-ins of the 1960s to Black Lives Matter today.

Sankofa

Jun 1st, 2022 31m 55s

Travel to the Lowcountry of South Carolina to learn about the Mather School, founded after the Civil War to serve the newly freed, and the Gullah Geechee people, whose traditional way of life is threatened by gentrification.

By Actions and Not by Words

May 18th, 2022 34m 40s

Dive into Tuskegee University’s vast collections, from the notebooks of George Washington Carver to archival speeches from luminaries Myrlie Evers, Shirley Chisholm, Amelia Boynton Robinson, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali.

If Walls Could Talk

May 4th, 2022 30m 13s

Learn about Alcorn State University student life–and civil rights protests–in the 1960s, and how a community-centered approach to librarianship has made Alcorn indispensable to the people of Lorman, MS.

Walking on Sacred Ground

Apr 20th, 2022 32m 12s

Morgan State University archivist Ida E. Jones discusses the history of Maryland's largest HBCU and how it is deeply entwined with the history of Black politics, activism, and media, particularly in Baltimore.

Bonus

Cadence to the Rhythm of Life

Apr 13th, 2022 16m 43s

Kofi Amu Horne, who created the theme music for this season, started drumming with his Ghanaian mother before he was two. Here, he talks about drumming as a spiritual practice and its importance to the African diaspora.

There's Magic in Creating Something from Nothing

Apr 6th, 2022 32m 12s

Librarian and curator Erika Witt speaks about Southern University at New Orleans’s African art collection, a transformative trip to Egypt, and how GLAMs can and must make themselves more inviting and accessible to BIPOC.

Our Ancestors' Wildest Dreams

Mar 23rd, 2022 31m 44s

This season, we’re taking a tour of the treasures housed in HBCU libraries and archives. Meet two women instrumental to the HBCU Library Alliance: executive director Sandra Phoenix, and recent board chair Monika Rhue.

Trailer

Season 3 Trailer: HBCU Library Alliance Tour

Feb 28th, 2022 2m 43s

In this season of the Material Memory podcast, we're taking an audio road trip to explore the libraries, archives, and museums at six Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Hear briefly from our guests in this season's introducti

Crisis as Catalyst: Notes from DCDC

Jun 10th, 2021 54m 49s

Special episode! Three stories about crisis as catalyst: capturing NHS COVID-19 stories; rethinking anti-racism and anti-ableism at the Wellcome Collection; & toward a climate action plan at the National Library of Scotland.

What We've Learned and What We Can Do

Apr 29th, 2021 39m 34s

What did we learn? What can we do? In the season 2 finale, host Nicole Kang Ferraiolo and producer Lizzi Albert share their biggest takeaways, from climate change’s unequal impacts to the importance of finding your role.

Heritage Has a History

Mar 31st, 2021 27m 51s

Anthropologist Dr. Blessing Nonye Onyima discusses the effects of colonialism and climate change on Nigeria’s cultural heritage, from the changing migration patterns of Fulani nomads to the looting of African antiquities.

The Home of Memory

Mar 9th, 2021 25m 19s

Where do we house our memories? What does it mean to lose our records? Drawing on her experience as an archivist and as a hurricane evacuee, Itza Carbajal speaks about the impacts of the climate crisis on our recorded memory.

Living Heritage

Feb 12th, 2021 23m 3s

Intangible or “living” cultural heritage includes folk arts, food, and other traditions. Host Nicole Kang Ferraiolo talks to media scholar Saiful Alam Chowdhury about how climate change affects living heritage in Bangladesh and how to protect i

Climate Displacement and Cultural Resilience

Jan 21st, 2021 23m 56s

Victoria Herrmann, president of the Arctic Institute, discusses climate displacement in the United States, the risks it poses to communities and traditions, and how cultural memory builds resilience.

How We Tell the Story of Disaster

Dec 18th, 2020 20m 54s

Anthropologist and emergency management specialist Dr. Crystal Felima speaks about her work on climate hazards, disaster narratives in Haiti and Puerto Rico, and the role of libraries.

Archivists Against the Climate Crisis

Nov 10th, 2020 23m 27s

Archivists Eira Tansey and Ben Goldman discuss their research on the impact of climate change on U.S. archives. They share their approaches to climate activism and the superpowers librarians can bring to the fight for environmental justice, bo

Does it Matter? Cultural Memory and the Climate Crisis

Nov 10th, 2020 19m 53s

Climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity—but how does cultural heritage fit in? Hear from all seven of this season’s guests as they weigh in on why culture matters, what’s at stake, and where we'll be headed in the coming episode

Sound and Meaning: Preserving Native American Voice and Song

Apr 24th, 2020 1h 4m

In this episode of Material Memory, we return to the Autry Museum of the American West in southern California, where a project is underway to preserve audiovisual materials documenting Native American voice and song. We’ll learn about the vital

"Hello, Friends" The Story of the Indians for Indians Radio Hour

1 Mar 18th, 2020 57m 5s

In this episode of Material Memory, we talk with a staff member at the University of Oklahoma who has been working to preserve the recordings of the Indians for Indians Radio Hour program, a long-running broadcast that started in the 1940s at t

Not Even in the Dictionary

Feb 26th, 2020 1h 2m

Iñupiaq dialects—spoken by people in the northernmost parts of Alaska—are considered “severely endangered,” with about 2,000 native speakers of these dialects alive today. In this episode of Material Memory, we chat with the people who are pre

The Duty of Memory

Dec 19th, 2019 1h 1m

Radio Haiti, the nation’s first independent radio station, gave people a voice in speaking out against government oppression while speaking up for human rights and democracy. In this episode of Material Memory, we talk with the Duke University

Connected to the Legacy

Dec 9th, 2019 55m 34s

In this episode of Material Memory, we talk to experts at the Amistad Research Center who are working to digitize the audio field recordings of African-American academic and linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner. His work established a connection between

The Ethics of Access

Dec 9th, 2019 46m 57s

How can recordings of indigenous languages be made accessible to the communities they represent? In this episode of Material Memory, we talk to experts about the ethical considerations and complexities of providing broad access to recordings th

Keeping Cultural Memory Alive: What's at Stake?

Nov 16th, 2019 21m 34s

Kathlin Smith introduces the Material Memory podcast in a conversation with CLIR President Charles Henry about the threats to our cultural record and what is at stake if it's lost.

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