The Authority File

We often think about the consequences of the climate crisis as relentless wildfires, catastrophic floods, or devastating tornadoes. But climate change causes more than natural disasters; water quality, air quality, and overall public health are impacted as well. As humans continue to encroach on wild ecological spaces, viruses once contained within the animal world cross over into ours—e.g., Ebola, Zika, and, of course, COVID-19. Why does public policy need to recognize all of the effects of climate change? How can the global community work together to better protect the environment, and therefore, ourselves?

In this final episode of the series, Simon Dalby, author of Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, discusses the intersection between our artificial world and public health. He also digs into necessary future policies of the Anthropocene Era and key takeaways from 2021’s United Nations Climate Change Conference.

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While traditional music education prioritizes the music—namely, centuries-old classical compositions—community music seeks to understand the impact of music-making on both the musician and listener. Because of this shift in approach, activist intentions emerge. Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, explains, “If we start looking at music as being the musician that we’re privileging rather than the artifact of music, then we automatically start to see human conditions.” But how exactly does community music tie into activism in its intent to serve the musician? Which scholars or organizers do community music educators look to for guidance and direction?What current movements demand their attention?

In this third episode, Lee examines community music’s inherent ties to activism and social justice. Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join Lee to discuss the ongoing effort to center and support the work of scholars or activists of color within the largely white institution of higher education. Our guests also highlight programs or resources led by Black organizers that fight for social, economic, and racial equity, particularly in the realm of the prison abolition movement.

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We live in a globalized world. The clothes we buy, the food we eat, and the beliefs we hold have consequences on the other side of the planet. In fact, these activities—and many more—impact our climate on a global scale. And paradoxically, not only does our consumption cause problems, but so do our solutions, whether by halting the use of fossil fuels or designing massive geoengineering projects. As Simon Dalby, author of Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, notes, “Increasingly we are living in an artificial world…the decisions we make about which technologies to deploy, how and where, have got all sorts of potential dangers…That’s no longer something we can ignore and it’s part of living in the Anthropocene.”

In this third episode, Simon discusses globalization, geoengineering, and geopolitics. He explains the potential risks of geoengineering solutions like nuclear power and offers context around security and climate change. He touches on the US military’s connection to the climate crisis, and the duality of America as a global climate protector and one of the worst offenders. Last, Simon discusses how the unequal effects of climate change will continue to impact geopolitics as the oceans rise and people are forced to migrate.

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Music-making in prisons is not a new concept. For decades, cases like prison wardens implementing choral singing programs or music education students providing classes to the incarcerated have demonstrated the positive effects of “musicking” in the carceral state. But beyond the individual, familial, and wellness benefits for the incarcerated, Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the forthcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, hope that music can aid in tearing down unjust prison systems. As Mary notes, “Music-making has so many unique elements that provide an opportunity for personal reflection, for communal connections, and then ideally—and this is what we hope will happen more as these programs continue to develop—is abolishing the harmful aspects of prisons.”

In this second episode of our series on community music, Mary and Stuart share the thesis and background ofMusic-Making in U. S. Prisons. They also offer a historical perspective on the subject, highlighting the impact of music-making on the incarcerated. Next, Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, discusses the section of his book that delves into examples of music-making in the carceral state. To close, we hear a clip of “The Person I See” written by Richard Winemiller and performed by the Oakdale Community Choir.

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Since the start of industrialization, the Earth has undergone many changes. Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has spiked. New sediments of carbon-rich deposits (plastic) pollute our shores.Tunnels and mines have made “geological phenomena look like Swiss cheese.” If a geologist 10,000 years in the future looked back on this period of human existence, what would they think? Would the amount of human-made effects on the Earth call for a new geological age?

In this second episode,Simon Dalby, author of Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, digs into the debate around the our current geological age: the Anthropocene period. He explains the complications of using geology—a practice that looks to the past—to designate the present circumstances, and the urgency to define this period in the first place. Last, Simon discusses the importance of “planetary boundaries,” and why we need to obey them if we want to continue living on a habitable planet.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?

In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?

In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?

In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?

In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?

In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?

In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?

In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?

In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?

In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?

In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

Whether a local youth choir, a drum circle, or a musical ensemble, community music can take many forms. Perhaps because of this malleability, the subject area has attracted a devoted following in academic study and continues to grow into its own beside and within the more traditional field of music education. But how is it defined? What are its limits? How do its roots relate to activism?

In this series,Lee Willingham, editor of Community Music at the Boundaries, and Mary Cohen and Stuart Duncan, co-authors of the upcoming Music-Making in U. S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices, join the program to discuss the parameters and possibilities of community music. By prioritizing the musician over the music, this grassroots-led discipline has the potential to reap positive effects for both the music-maker and their community. Our guests ask: how can community music reach beyond sheet music to invoke social change?

In this first episode, Lee, Mary, and Stuart discuss their various paths toward becoming involved in the study of community music. They also take a crack at defining and tracing its growth in the past decade, thereby highlighting its wide-ranging, fluid, and dynamic characteristics.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

When we think of climate change, issues of borders and security usually aren’t the first concerns to come to mind. However, as Simon Dalby explains in his book, Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, to achieve a sustainable future we need to understand that climate change knows no political boundaries. In fact, preventing the devastating effects of climate change will require rewriting geopolitical policies to abide the limits of planetary harm.

In this four-part series, Simon joins the program to define terms like the Anthropocene period, planetary boundaries, and environmental insecurity. Within the context of our globalized world, he unpacks how climate change will continue to play a significant role in our understanding of political, economic, social, and public health security. He also looks ahead to the future, tackling what needs to change in order to protect our planet—and ourselves.

In this first episode, Simon discusses the origins of Anthropocene Geopolitics and how it intertwined with the Borders in Globalization project. In addition, he highlights his background in geography and how the surprisingly interdisciplinary field better prepared him for his research.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

The abundance of materials at students’ fingertips. The pitfalls of the keyword search. The lack of serendipity in online databases. Thanks to digitization and text recognition developments, these factors now affect modern-day primary source research practices. What new technologies aid—or hinder—young scholars’ primary source research? How can educators and publishers help build digital literacy skills in addition to primary source access?

In this final episode, Dr. Rebecca Crites of Warwick University and Felix Barnes of Adam Matthew Digital dig into digitization’s impact on primary source research, digital literacy, and accessibility. Our guests discuss how primary source use has changed since their time at university, and delve into the complications of abundance and serendipity on primary source platforms. Finally, Felix closes with the latest and upcoming digital tools available on Adam Matthew Digital.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

When writing DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono, Nduka had to consider more than poetic devices, rhyme scheme, or syntax. Born in Nigeria and currently teaching in Ottawa, Ontario, Nduka had to wrestle with what language to write in—his native Ìgbò, English, or a mixture of both? These questions interrogated in the collection reflect a larger inquiry: What are the social and political implications of language use? As Nduka notes, “Language is politics. The moment we enter the realm of language, we have entered the realm of cultural politics.”

In this final episode, Nduka and Peter Midgley, editor of DisPlace, reflect on the politics of language. They highlight language’s ties to identity, the potential for English to absorb new languages, and how these topics relate to Nduka’s poetry. Nduka also reads two poems from DisPlace, “Today, Time Is the Eyeglass I Wear” and “A Chain of Requiems.” Our guests discuss the poems’ backgrounds and connections to major themes in the collection, like the presence of the spiritual realm, non-linear perceptions of time, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

Adam Matthew’s Research Methods Primary Sources aims to provide tools, resources, and best practices that will strengthen students’ primary source literacy skills. By combining case studies, videos, essays, and practical guides by professionals, the online platform offers a space for students to practice independent primary source research. As case study contributor Dr. Rebecca Crites notes, “This platform really gives [students] the confidence that they are engaging in a sound research process from the beginning.”

In this third episode, our guests discuss the goals, tools, and uses of Research Methods Primary Sources. Becky walks through the case studies she’s contributed, as well as the benefits of the platform’s guided tours and demonstrations for her students. Felix Barnes of Adam Matthew Digital explains what the contributors bring to the platform—understanding how an academic or archivist processes a material teaches young researchers invaluable skills for their own research.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!