This week, Dr. Brett docks the conversation in the concept of home work — the ongoing labor of coming to feel at home in our body minds, relationships, and communities.

Brett introduces how home work was first shaped through conversations with survivors of violence and grounded in questions of community, justice, and belonging. Together with Nicole (and special guest Dr. Madison Borrelli!), they explore what it means to create a sense of home when it hasn’t always been given, and how that work shifts across place, time, and relationships.

From moving across cities and continents to maintaining connection through voice notes and routines, the episode traces how home is less about where you are and more about what you carry. This is a conversation about familiarity, instability, trauma, and the quiet practices that help us make it through, even when, or if, we never fully “arrive.”

Brett’s Notes

• Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin 

• Space, Place, and Violence: Violence and the Embodied Geographies of Race, Sex, and Gender - James Tyner

• The Office - Good Old Days - Andy Bernard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujJQyhB0dws 

Nicole’s Notes 

• Dr. Brett’s dissertation: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2672267159?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses  

• Practical Magic 2 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSWP2feb4rw 

🎓 Special Guest: Dr. Madison Borrelli, Ph.D.

Dr. Borrelli is a postdoctoral researcher in planetary geophysics at Georgia Tech. Her research focuses on Venus and icy satellites, with particular attention to surface processes. She studies impact craters and volcanism using remote sensing combined with numerical modeling. Find out more about what Madison is researching here: https://sites.gatech.edu/eas-solid-earth/03-28-2025-dr-madison-borrelli/ 

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.

This week, Nicole docks the conversation in the uneasy space where accusation becomes confession. Brett and Nicole start from the latest political flashpoints — from Trump’s AI Jesus post to Pete Hegseth’s accusations abroad — and ask why the people most loudly condemning others are so often describing themselves. From the Trump administration to the state of Israel, they trace how hypocrisy works as a public script, and why naming it rarely seems to be enough.

Brett and Nicole also move into religious and cultural logics that shape these patterns, including Nicole’s evangelical upbringing. Along the way, they talk about shame, propaganda, gender, power, and the limits of “gotcha” politics. The episode asks a harder question than whether someone is lying: what does a confession reveal about the culture that made the lie possible?

Nicole’s Notes

• West Wing Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CPjWd4MUXs 

• Hollow Land by Eyal Weisman 

• The Dark Knight (Film)

Brett’s Notes

• The Dark Knight Rises (Film)

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.

This week, Brett docks the conversation in the uneasy space between celebrity culture, liberation politics, and the question of what we do when the heroes we admire turn out to be deeply compromised. Brett and Nicole start from the familiar tension of loving the work while wrestling with the artist, then push further into a harder question: if we’re serious about liberation, do we have to kill our heroes?

From Timothy Busfield to César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, they think through what happens when public figures tied to justice and movement work are revealed to have caused harm. They ask how to hold accountability without flattening history, why movements often get reduced to figureheads, and what it means to remember collective struggle without deifying the people at the top.

CW: sexual violence, child abuse, abuse, accountability.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C., and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann, and Tongva lands.

This week, Nicole docks the conversation in a situationship with work (specifically academia), where the red flags are LinkedIn, Google Scholar, and the constant pressure to prove you’re worth committing to. Brett and Nicole unpack what it means to stay in a relationship that gives you just enough to keep you hooked: the love of thinking, teaching, and creating, alongside the precarity, delayed validation, and endless need to perform.

They talk through networking as emotional labor, visibility as survival, and the politics of being “legible” in a system that doesn’t always recognize you. From mentorship and power to burnout and ambition, this is a conversation about staying in a relationship where the thing you love doesn’t love you back—why some might leave, and why so many of us don’t.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

This week Brett docks the conversation at the 2026 Oscars. Brett and Nicole talk about their relationship to film, from childhood theater rituals to solo movie dates, and how movies function as comfort, escape, and emotional memory.

They trade takes on recent Oscar contenders and favorites…and not so favorites, unpacking the hype, the snubs, and what actually makes a film stick. From awards politics to personal taste, it’s a mix of hot takes, nostalgia, and the simple question: what makes a movie worth returning to?

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

This week Nicole docks the conversation on the topic we were, surely, all told to bring up at the dinner table: politics. Brett and Nicole ask the question… does “apolitical” exist? If politics is about power, community, and how we negotiate space with one another, can anyone really opt out?

They trace how repeated crises, platformized news, and cultural flashpoints (from sports to Super Bowl halftime to global conflict) have made politics feel inescapable. Through a conversation about the political as social — and the “geography of reason” that shapes what we see, center, or ignore — they unpack neutrality, privilege, and the choices we make about media, language, and engagement. Because whether you “do politics” or not they remind listeners… Politics is gonna do you, babe.

Show Notes

Nicole’s Notes

📚 Katherine McKittrick: Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle

📚 Lewis Gordon: Shifting the Geography of Reason in Black and Africana Studies - https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2020.1780861

🎬 Darkest Hour (2017)

🎬 The West Wing (Mercator Project Scene)-  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Xyz9MgDWA 

Brett’s Notes

Tor Publishing - https://torpublishinggroup.com/ 

TJ Klune - https://torpublishinggroup.com/search/tj+klune

Dr. Brett’s TJ Klune Rec’s

• Under the Whispering Door

• Green Creek series (four-book series)

• In the Lives of Puppets

• The House in the Cerulean Sea

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation from a perspective of millennial angst, political fatigue, and generational survival. What begins as a reflection on the low-grade anxiety humming through millennial adulthood shifts when breaking news of military escalation in the Middle East reframes the moment in real time. Framing the past 25 years as a darkly comic infomercial — Now That’s What I Call Millennial Angst — Nicole and Brett trace the emotional track list that shaped their generation: 9/11, the 2008 collapse, endless wars, Trump(s), COVID, and the persistent sense that the next headline is always waiting. Humor, loyalty, and even absurd protest become survival strategies, not forms of denial, but ways of metabolizing crisis without surrendering to it. Rather than offering geopolitical expertise, they reflect on place, perspective, and the daily practice of staying engaged while protecting joy.

Show Notes 

Nicole’s Notes

• 🎬 Vice (2018) A dramatized look at Dick Cheney, the Bush administration, and the lead-up to the Iraq War.

• 🎧 Blowback (Podcast, Season 1) A narrative deep dive into the Iraq War; how it started, how it was sold, and its long-term consequences.

• 🎬 The Big Short (2015) A dark comedy breakdown of the 2008 financial crisis and the Wall Street decisions that triggered it.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation from a perspective of curiosity, joy, and survival.

After a candid account of living with suicidal ideation, Brett shares a clinical reframe: curiosity as an actionable, sustaining practice. Brett and Nicole explore how small pleasures, obsessive fandoms, and everyday curiosities can become lifelines. They weave personal stories (from Lord of the Rings to Ted Lasso and Pokémon Go) into a larger argument about utopia as practice, the difference between hope and actionable care, and how genuine curiosity builds connection. Gentle, practical challenges and reading/listening recommendations are offered for listeners who want to lean into joy without erasing the darker realities.

Content note: This week’s episode discusses themes around suicide and mental health. 

Brett’s Notes: 

• Julien Baker “Appointments” music video

• Ted Lasso “Be curious, not judgemental” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_FofLSherM

• Lord of the Rings “Theoden’s Battle Speech” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POdknqszMDY 

Brett’s suicide writing:

• Thoughts on/of Suicide

• On Hope and Despair

• On Writing, Connection, and Emotions in a Pandemic

• Inside/Out … or … The Workplace

Nicole’s Notes

• Lord of The Rings “The tales that really mattered” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6C8SX0mWP0

• Playlist LOTR: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7Jijv5dCRvZX1RqgjQTSLc?si=c9674fb8b6274893 

Need help? Know someone who does?

- Call or text 988- Chat at 988lifeline.org 

Connect with a trained crisis counselor. 988 is confidential, free, and available 24/7/365.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation from Minneapolis, reflecting on the visible escalation of state violence and the rhetoric surrounding ICE. Together, Brett and Nicole interrogate the phrase “American Gestapo”: why it resonates, where it illuminates, and where it risks obscuring a harder truth — that ICE is not a foreign aberration but a product of a long U.S. genealogy of racialized containment.

Drawing on history, geography, and Nicole’s framework of cartographies of subordination, they ask what it means to confront authoritarianism without exporting it elsewhere.

Trigger/content note: This episode discusses police and state violence, murder, and systemic racism. Listener care is advised.

Brett’s Notes

• Hamilton, 2015. 

Nicole’s Notes

• Whitman, James Q. Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. Princeton University Press, 2017.

• Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Random House, 2020.

• Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s. University of California Press, 1991.

• McGhee, Heather. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World, 2021.

• Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. University of Minnesota Press, 1977.

• Hall, Stuart. “The Work of Representation.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, Sage, 1997.

• Mayberry, Nicole K. Shrouded Cartographies of Subordination: How Science Fiction Stories Build Anti-Black Futures. PhD diss., Arizona State University, 2022.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation by sitting with a question that keeps coming up in her friendships and relationships: can men and women actually be just friends?

Thinking about When Harry Met Sally, Nicole and Brett unpack how popular media, religion, and gendered socialization shape the limits placed on friendship. Nicole reflects on growing up in rigid religious gender worlds and later relationships structured by mistrust and surveillance, while Brett situates the question within architectures of masculinity, loneliness, and entitlement.

Together, they explore why jealousy is treated as inevitable, trust as naïve, and friendship as something that must be justified or closely monitored. The conversation moves through questions of power, emotional capacity, and boundaries, challenging the expectation that intimate partnerships should be everything, and asking what gets lost when other forms of connection are restricted or devalued.

It’s a reflection on friendship, desire, and what it means to build a life shaped by relationships that expand, rather than narrow, who we’re allowed to be.

Nicole’s Notes

• When Harry Met Sally (1989)

• We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks

• History of Sexuality Vol 1 by Michel Foucault 

Brett’s Notes

• Stud: Architectures of Masculinity by Joel Sanders

• American Pie (1999)

• “APT.” – Rosé & Bruno Mars

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube.