Podcast for Social Research, Episode 65: Wendy Eisenberg—Process, Performance, and Musical Power from Below

In episode 65 of the Podcast for Social Research, recorded live at BISR Central, songwriter, improviser, and ecumenical instrumentalist Wendy Eisenberg took to the “stage” for an intimate solo performance of new acoustic work. They then sat down with BISR faculty Jude Webre for a wide-ranging discussion of their musical formation, theoretical inspirations, and promiscuous reading habits. Topics touched on include being the “type of guy” who’s inspired by Tom Verlaine; implicating others in your own embarrassments; the jazz training to noise pipeline (“codified at Bard”); “hardcore” as a blurry signifier; the brilliance of Brazilian music; Astrud Gilberto, voice leading, and musical power from below; the 4-track as time machine; how to change a line without touching it (as per William Gaddis); and sexy books for summer reading when all the trees are plump.

Om Podcasten

From Plato to quantum physics, Walter Benjamin to experimental poetry, Frantz Fanon to the history of political radicalism, The Podcast for Social Research is a crucial part of our mission to forge new, organic paths for intellectual work in the twenty-first century: an ongoing, interdisciplinary series featuring members of the Institute, and occasional guests, conversing about a wide variety of intellectual issues, some perennial, some newly pressing. Each episode centers on a different topic and is accompanied by a bibliography of annotations and citations that encourages further curiosity and underscores the conversation’s place in a larger web of cultural conversations.