Human Powered

Each of us is experiencing a million things on any given day. Alexandria Delcourt believes that how we move from the chaos and overwhelm of life to understand ourselves, and each other, comes down to telling a good story. Alexandria helped to produce some of readers’ favorite Love Wisconsin stories for Wisconsin Humanities, is the current editor of Our Lives magazine, and leads the Isthmus Writing Workshop. Co-hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker sit down to talk with Alexandria about her pivot from science to creative writing, what she has learned as an editor and educator, and how to do the most important stories of our lives justice. 

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Adam Carr is a Milwaukee alchemist. He is an evangelist for his home and an urban explorer who uses storytelling, city walking tours, radio productions, film, journalism, and art to build connections between people and place. Hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker invited former Human Powered co-host into a friendly conversation that got deep, fast. Join us for a discussion about the mystery and magic of doing the good work of the public humanities. We talk about starting collective experiences through the mouth, the superpowers of a city, and how to uplift the work of alchemists who make communities thrive in 2025. This is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

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“Stories are told for connection,” says Brendon Panke, who has found ways to use stories to build community, entertain audiences, train medical professionals, and help veterans and people who are incarcerated craft their understanding of their place in the world. Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker sit down with Panke to learn more about how the tool of storytelling has applications for breaking through some of the walls and calluses we’ve built. Storytelling is a crucial part of imagining the change we want to see, according to Panke. He believes that narratives are important for deciding where we are going, as individuals and as a society. Listen to hear the story he’s been telling for over ten years, how it has evolved, and how it led him to make a career out of the human inclination to tell stories. By the end, we know you’ll be looking for public spaces where stories are shared. 

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This episode of Human Powered was produced and edited by Chrissy Widmayer. All rights reserved.

These days the national news is full of stories about deportations and ICE raids, and the latest legislation that will vastly increase the ICE budget. In Wisconsin, studies by the University of Wisconsin–Madison School for Workers have documented the large portion of farm labor -- estimated at 70% -- done by immigrants, many of whom are undocumented. Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker sat down two weeks ago with Mercedes Falk, the director of Puentes/Bridges, an organization based in Alma that works to bridge the cultural and linguistic gap between dairy farmers and their Mexican employees. In this conversation, we hear about the cultural shift that has happened over the past decades as a result of Puentes’ work and learn why Falk applied to take part in Wisconsin Humanities’ Community Powered training program, becoming a Wisconsin Humanities Fellow. The year-long training session was cut short after only a couple of months when WH lost federal funding, but Falk offers her thoughts on what she sees as the value of skills taught in the program, including humanities-based methods of connecting through personal stories. She says that it’s at moments like these that community relationships really matter to help everyone feel safe. We promise you'll find hope in her stories

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This episode of Human Powered was produced and edited by Chrissy Widmayer. All rights reserved.

BJ Hollars' energy for making connections in sometimes unexpected places is infectious. He is a writer, a professor, a documentary filmmaker, and a proud resident of Eau Claire. His anthology, "Hope is the Thing: Wisconsinites on Perseverance in a Pandemic" from Wisconsin Historical Society Press inspired a series of Wisconsin Humanities' Love Wisconsin stories. And a film he co-produced called "When Rubber Hit the Road" about the closing of the Uniroyal tire plant received a Wisconsin Humanities grant. Hosts Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker talk with Hollars about the game of Kubb, gathering the Rubberheads, and how to create mechanisms that encourage conversations, build empathy,  and support democracy.

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This episode of Human Powered was produced and edited by Chrissy Widmayer. All rights reserved.

Wisconsin Humanities is going into hibernation. What does that mean? And what will happen to Human Powered podcast? Jen Rubin and Jessica Becker have been behind the scenes for past seasons of Human Powered. In this strange moment, after DOGE eliminated federal funding to support humanities councils all over the country, Jen and Jessica are taking the mics to talk with people about what this means in our state and communities. First up, they talk with Dena Wortzel, longtime director of Wisconsin Humanities, about what happened on April 3rd and what comes next.

This episode of Human Powered was produced and audio edited by Chrissy Widmayer. All rights reserved.

An important update about Wisconsin Humanities and its programs, including Human Powered podcast and Love Wisconsin digital stories:  

As a result of the defunding of Wisconsin Humanities and all state councils' operational grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this will be the last episode of Human Powered. The news of the cut to the WH was abrupt, and so we are still figuring things out.  If you want to know more, we have updates on the Wisconsin Humanities website: wisconsinhumanities.org

In this episode. you'll hear from April Stone, an Ojibwe Black Ash basketmaker from the Bad River Reservation who harvests the black ash logs by hand from the deepest parts of the marshes and swamps near her home in northern Wisconsin. April is a self-taught artist who is sought out by folks throughout the country who want to learn the techniques of a traditional black ash basket weaver. April only works with natural materials that she can gather herself and weaves her baskets by hand – which connects her to the land. She also has a lot to say about how the change to increasingly extreme weather is impacting her work. Yet the work continues to be healing for her and for the many, many people she has been able to teach.

To celebrate ten years of Love Wisconsin stories, we have been reconnecting with some of the people behind the most popular stories. We think April's ideas and work are as relevant today as they were when we first met her and we hope you enjoy the updated ‘Where is she now?” chapter.   

Read April Stone's Love Wisconsin story here: https://www.lovewi.com/april

For ten years, 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. Over this anniversary year, we are excited to reconnect with some of the people who shared stories that our readers loved most. This episode of Human Powered features Scott Schultz.  Scott is a farm boy from Wisconsin, a Marine Corps veteran, a retired small-town journalist, a writer, and the founder of the Heartbeat Center for Writing, Literacy, and the Arts. In this conversation with Love Wisconsin producer Jen Rubin, we hear snippets of Scott's story (read the full story here: lovewi.com/scott-schultz) and learn more about Scott's dedication to his work with veterans using writing and storytelling to help them express themselves.

For this special edition of Human Powered, we are sharing an episode of a series called Uprooted produced by our friends at Wisconsin Life and WPR. 

In 1980, there was an exodus of Cubans who left their homes for the United States as part of the Mariel Boatlift. This includes almost 15,000 Cuban refugees who were sent to Fort McCoy in Sparta, Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin Humanities awarded a grant to the La Crosse Public Library in support of an interactive online exhibit on the history of the 1980 Cuban migration. 125,000 Cubans fled to the US and it was a paramount moment of the Cold War. The exhibit is called Uprooted and you can browse the stories and collection at  lacrossehistory.org/online-exhibits/uprooted 

Additionally, a podcast series called “WPR Reports: Uprooted” explores this history and shares stories from people like Enrique Moré. Moré is a musician who came to Wisconsin from Cuba and now is a big part of the La Crosse-area music scene. He and other Cubans share stories about their early lives, moving to Wisconsin, and what life is like living in limbo.

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.