Podcast Intellectuals Panel #3 with Joy Connolly, Barry Lam, and Aurora Hutchinson

About this episode

The episode features a panel discussion on the potential impact of podcasts on the university system, moderated by Robert Boynton.

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On October 10, 2025, NYU’s Journalism Institute hosted a day-long conference titled Podcast Intellectuals: Producing Original Scholarship with Audio. Over the course of three panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research. In this third, and final, panel, Robert Boynton moderates a conversation which asks, “Can podcasts save the university?” In it, Joy Connolly, Barry Lam, and Dr. Aurora Hutchinson discuss what role podcasts might play in the university’s system of hiring, promotion and tenure. Robert S. Boynton is the director of the Literary Reportage program, and associate director of NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is author of The Invitation Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’ s Abduction Project, and The New New Journalism. Joy Connolly is president of the American Council of Learned Societies and a scholar of ancient Roman political thought and literature. At ACLS, she has led initiatives such as Doctoral Futures to broaden the scope and reach of humanistic inquiry. She is…

People in this episode

Host: Robert Boynton

Guests: Joy Connolly, Barry Lam, Aurora Hutchinson

Topics covered

• podcasts
• higher education
• narrative audio
• academic research
• scholarship
• university system

Keywords

• podcasts
• university
• academic scholarship
• narrative audio
• Joy Connolly
• Barry Lam
• Aurora Hutchinson

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: New York Institute for the Humanities, NYU’s Journalism Institute, American Council of Learned Societies, UC Riverside

Books & works: The Invitation Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’ s Abduction Project, The New New Journalism, The State of Speech, The Life of Roman Republicanism, All the World’ s Pasts, Hi-Phi