Radio reborn: ‘Cultures of Energy’ podcast taps growing audience for global conversation

Now in its third year, CENHS show’s popularity has exceeded hosts’ expectations

A lot has happened since Rice professors Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe released the first episode of their podcast, “Cultures of Energy,” in January 2016.

Rice professors Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe released the first episode of their podcast, “Cultures of Energy,” in January 2016. (Photos by Jeff Fitlow)

Climate change, one of the driving themes of the show, is now among the most discussed topics in today’s political and cultural landscape. Episodes of the podcast, which recently hit 200,000 total downloads, have been taught in classes and cited in journal articles. Dedicated listeners have been tuning in from nearly every single continent, including a small but enthusiastic fanbase in Mongolia. And Boyer has turned his office in Sewall Hall into a recording studio.

“We started off our first two years in the basement of Fondren Library, in the Digital Media Commons,” said Boyer, a professor of anthropology and the founding director of Rice’s Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences (CENHS). But what began as a monthly mission to bring the Center’s work to a larger audience — the growing base of podcast listeners, which now comprises 64 percent of Americans — soon grew into a juggernaut, at least by academic standards.

As popularity grew, the monthly podcasts became bi-monthly, then weekly, then sometimes even twice a week. The schlep to the library every time necessitated a change of venue — and now Boyer’s office includes a neon “recording” sign that lights up every time he and Howe are in the studio. They recently recorded their 166th episode.

“We found that the resonance was faster and deeper than we thought it would be,” Boyer said.

“We just got a fan mail a few days ago that said, ‘I love listening to your podcast because it makes me laugh,’” Howe said. “But we also do a lot of serious stuff.”

Howe, his longtime research partner and fellow professor of anthropology who’s also a member of the CENHS faculty steering committee, attributes that resonance to the unusual yet accessible structure of the podcasts.

“We just got a fan mail a few days ago that said, ‘I love listening to your podcast because it makes me laugh,’” Howe said. “But we also do a lot of serious stuff.”

That serious stuff ranges from solar energy and electricity in India to the revival of wooly mammoths, and still more serious from there: “Sometimes we’re talking about extinction and the destruction of indigenous places and people,” Howe said.

“Because a lot of the material is dark and challenging and kind of depressing, we’ve tried to keep it light when we can,” Boyer said. At the top of each show, they’ll banter with the ease of old college radio DJs (which they both happen to be) and chat about anything from the legacy of college rock band R.E.M. to whether or not 1997 science-fiction drama “Gattaca” invented Tinder. One intro found them trying to talk through protective N95 masks like those worn by surgeons before deciding “this isn’t a good way to live.”

Some episodes have even been recorded on location, such as in Scotland, where Howe and Boyer reported from the Petrocultures 2018 event in Glasgow, or in Iceland, where the duo also filmed their acclaimed documentary on melting glaciers, “Not Ok.”

Their guests are also encouraged to relax and get chatty. Sometimes the scholars and researchers invited to the program are fellow Rice faculty such as Lacy Johnson or Timothy Morton; other times they’re academics or writers from across the world, like famed historical theorist Dipesh Chakrabarty, Hugo Award-winning sci-fi writer Paolo Bacigalupi or  “Annihilation” author Jeff VanderMeer. The pair has also been joined by anthropologist Elizabeth Povinelli, whose critical theory of late liberalism has been informed by years of field work with the indigenous Karrabing peoples in north Australia, and Jón Gnarr, the Icelandic comedian who served as mayor of Reykjavík from 2010 to 2014 and as the first writer-in-residence at CENHS.

“Because a lot of the material is dark and challenging and kind of depressing, we’ve tried to keep it light when we can,” Boyer said.

It’s a wide-ranging group of intellectuals, many of whom often hold conflicting opinions, but that’s what CENHS — and “Cultures of Energy” — does: gather humanists, social scientists, artists, activists and others across a multitude of fields to discuss the urgent issues humanity faces as a whole. “Once you start thinking about that nexus you get in all sorts of interesting places,” Boyer said.

The format of the show prioritizes discussion over debate, however, which serves to both relax the guests— a podcast isn’t based on the traditional academic world of critique, Howe noted — and humanize them for listeners. Many of the listeners, after all, will have never had the chance to meet scholars such as these in person.

“And yet on the podcast I think you feel that you have,” Howe said. “You get the feeling that you’ve had an intimate encounter. It offers a proximity that would otherwise be hard to get, especially for the famous people.”

This sense of connection is just one reason “Cultures of Energy” has become popular even outside of academia. Howe and Boyer are always cognizant of the fact that many listeners — be they in small towns or far-flung countries — don’t have regular access to the sorts of conversations held on their podcast. In fact, this is one of the reasons they began the podcast in the first place. There’s a weekly rhythm to the show now, with new installments every Thursday and a communal feeling around it that continues to grow alongside the popularity of the format itself.

“Podcasts for me are like radio reborn,” said Boyer.

“Podcasts for me are like radio reborn,” said Boyer, who once mourned the loss of the quirky little radio shows that used to be found on airwaves across America. With podcasting, those types of shows are back — and with a bigger, broader, more global audience than ever.

“It’s a great renaissance and it offers a different and interesting way for people to talk to each other, and usually in a more civil way than you’ll find in the comments sections of blogs or Reddit,” Boyer said. “Even if we disagree with people, we try to come at this with a spirit of kindness and generosity.”

For more information on “Cultures of Energy” or to listen to episodes past and present, visit culturesofenergy.com/podcast.