Amplifying Academics and Supporting Public Education

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

• Why Dr. Marshall Poe left a tenured professorship to create the New Books Network
• How his own experience with dyslexia inspired his book-talk podcasts,
• Why he wouldn’t want to go back to being a professor now,
• Common misconceptions—plus some good advice—about starting a podcast
• The NBN’s role in democratizing education and in supporting academic presses.

Our guest is: Dr. Marshall Poe, who is a historian, writer, podcaster, and editor. He is the founder and editor of the New Books Network, an online collection of podcast interviews with a wide range of nonfiction authors which began as a single channel in 2007 and has since grown into an archived audio library containing thousands of NBN episodes. He has taught Russian, European, Eurasian, and world history at universities including Harvard, Columbia, University of Iowa, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Poe has also authored and edited of a number of books for children and adults. He lives in Northampton, MA.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode might also be interested in:

• A History of Communications: Media and Society from the Evolution of Speech to the Internet, by Marshall Poe
• Articles by Marshall Poe in the Atlantic
• The Grinnell College History Department
• The Grinnell College podcast channel on the NBN
• The Russian and Eurasian Studies channel on the NBN

You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you experts about everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Here on the Academic Life channel, we embrace a broad definition of what it means to be an academic and to lead an academic life. We view education as a transformative human endeavor and are inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DMs us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

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