Human Powered

Jim Winship is an oldster with a mic and a camera. His latest project combines his background as a social worker, retired professor, storyteller, and filmmaker to create his second film, Growing Older in Rural Wisconsin. In this episode, co-hosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin talk with Winship about what he’s learning in a state that projects that 1 in 5 people will be over age 65 within the next two decades, and many of those people are choosing to age-in-place. Winship shares stories about a...

In this episode, special guest Danielle Hairston Green breaks down the basics of how university extension programs combine advocacy, research, and academia in response to real community needs. Hairston Green directs the Institute for Human Development and Relationships with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, where she encourages her staff to tell stories so we can better understand the power and impact of the Wisconsin Idea in action today. Co-hosts Jessica Becker and ...

Food traditions are core to who we are and how we build community. In this episode, cohosts Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin talk with Qwantese Winters, the founder of A Bowl of Soul. Winter’s has been dubbed the Food Doula and was the host of Wisconsin PBS’s show, “Let’s Grow Stuff.” Her Love Wisconsin story about learning to farm and cook by connecting with her family heritage was wildly popular, so we wanted to catch up and learn more about how she is showing up in the world today. Winte...

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...

“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 chang...

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 Humani...

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 websit...

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...