Scholarly Podcasting

Exploring what academic podcasting is and what it could be, this book is the first to consider the why, what, and how academics engage with this insurgent, curious craft. Featuring interviews with 101 podcasting academics, including scholars and teachers of podcasting, this book explores the motivations of scholarly podcasters, interrogates what podcasting does to academic knowledge, and leads potential podcasters through the creation process from beginning to end. With scholarship often trapped inside expensive journals, wrapped in opaque language, and laced with a standoffish tone, this book analyses the implications of moving towards a more open and accessible form. This book will also inform, inspire, and equip scholars of any discipline, rank, or affiliation who are considering making a podcast or who make podcasts with the background knowledge and technical and conceptual skills needed to produce high-quality podcasts through a reflexive critique of current practices.

Digital audio technologies have expanded the methodological possibilities for anthropological research. This article explores some of the implications of using podcasting as an anthropological method, specifically an experiment in which interlocutor interviews were regularly published as part of an exploration into digital politics in India. The article uses the reflexive insights garnered from making the series to interrogate the possibilities of interlocutor interview podcasting for anthropology. Further to this, it exploits the interlocutors’ expertise on digital practices to reverse the analytical gaze, asking what their experiences of the digitalising Indian public sphere can teach us about changing academic/anthropological practices, especially regarding the enabling (or not) of new ways of speaking, vocal performances, the possibility for immediate publishing, and celebrations of newness. Building from these critical appraisals, it is suggested that the latent promise of interlocutor interview podcasting lies in the potential to create ‘aural intimacy' and a ‘circulating copresence'.

Podcasting in academia has the potential to be radically open. Open because it enables those unable to attend classes the chance to sample higher education remotely, because ideas explored in conversation are often expressed in more accessible language than in articles or books and because it allows students to expand their learning, giving a public voice to the type of questions that those immersed in academia might fail to ask.