Podcast Episodes

• Climate Displacement and Cultural Resilience

  2021-01-21

  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.

• Living Heritage

  2021-02-12

  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 it.

• The Home of Memory

  2021-03-09

  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.

• Heritage Has a History

  2021-03-31

  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.

• What We've Learned and What We Can Do

  2021-04-29

  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.

• Crisis as Catalyst: Notes from DCDC

  2021-06-10

  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.

• Season 3 Trailer: HBCU Library Alliance Tour

  2022-02-28

  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 introduction. View the video trailer at material-memory.clir.org.

• Our Ancestors' Wildest Dreams

  2022-03-23

  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.

• There's Magic in Creating Something from Nothing

  2022-04-06

  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.

• Cadence to the Rhythm of Life

  2022-04-13

  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.