Summer Reading: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Reverse Centaurs Live!

In this month’s episode of Parallel Streams we listen to an episode of Cory Doctorow’s weekly podcast, in which he has a live (and lively) discussion with Angie Coiro about his new book The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI.   PARALLEL STREAMS EPISODE 07 | JULY 10 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Angie Coiro | Cory Doctorow | Owen Kelly   COMMENTARY Cory Doctorow’s website says that he “is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of dozens of books, most recently ENSHITTIFICATION: WHY EVERYTHING SUDDENLY GOT WORSE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT (nonfiction); and the novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Born in Toronto, Canada, he lives in Los Angeles and London”. He also works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and has a daily newsletter, a weekly podcast, and several websites. In a recent episode of the podcast he put out a discussion he recorded at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park as part of his book tour. That is what we are listening to today.   REFERENCES Cory Doctorow’s daily link blog https://pluralistic.net [https://pluralistic.net] Cory Doctorow’s book and podcast website https://craphound.com [https://craphound.com] The Reverse Centaur book website https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621575/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621575/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/] An hour-long excerpt from the audiobook https://craphound.com/podcast/2026/05/17/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ [https://craphound.com/podcast/2026/05/17/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/] The discussion at Kepler's Books on video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/live/cWN6XBa73xA [https://www.youtube.com/live/cWN6XBa73xA] Book review by Dorian Lynskey at The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/22/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai-by-cory-doctorow-review-the-real-price-of-artificial-intelligence [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/22/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai-by-cory-doctorow-review-the-real-price-of-artificial-intelligence] Book review by NerdyNerdyBooks on Substack https://nerdynerdybookbook.substack.com/p/book-review-the-reverse-centaurs [https://nerdynerdybookbook.substack.com/p/book-review-the-reverse-centaurs]

Summer Reading: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Sophie Hope recently read James Agee and Walker Evans classic documentary book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. She persuaded Owen Kelly to read it too, and in this episode they examine the book from several viewpoints: as a public art project, as ethnography, as literature, and as an historical document.   Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse Episode 88 | July 3 2026   PARTICIPANTS Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly   COMMENTARY According to Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Us_Now_Praise_Famous_Men]“Let Us Now Praise Famous Men grew out of an assignment that Agee and Evans accepted in 1936 to produce a Fortune article on the conditions among sharecropper families in the American South during the Great Depression. It was the time of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" programs designed to help the poorest segments of the society. Agee and Evans spent eight weeks that summer researching their assignment, mainly among three white sharecropping families mired in desperate poverty. They returned with Evans's portfolio of stark images - of families with gaunt faces, adults and children huddled in bare shacks before dusty yards in the Depression-era nowhere of the deep south - and Agee's detailed notes. His piece was rejected by the editors at Fortune; but the following year the magazine gave Agee permission to publish his Alabama research in a book. The manuscript was accepted for publication by Houghton Mifflin in 1939 and appeared two years later”. In this episode Sophie Hope and Owen Kelly discuss the book, questioning Agee’s motives and the work that results from his eight week’s with the three tenant families.  Owen Kelly suggests that a reader wanting a view of poverty during the New Deal period that seeks to change the world through its writing might learn more from the trilogy of novels written by John Dos Passos and known collectively as USA; first published in one volume in 1937.   References James Agee (author) and Walker Evans (photographer), And Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1941; Penguin Classics, 2006 [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/57522/let-us-now-praise-famous-men-by-james-agee-walker-evans-intro--blake-morrison/9780141188492]) Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, available to borrow from the Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/bwb_S0-EAC-301]  USA, available to borrow from the Internet Archive  [https://archive.org/details/bwb_S0-DIH-783] The 42nd Parallel, the first volume of USA is also available to borrow from the Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/42ndparallelusa0000john] for those wanting to try a sample first.  Christina Davidson, Let Us Now Trash Famous Authors, Atlantic (2010): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/let-us-now-trash-famous-authors/307994/ [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/04/let-us-now-trash-famous-authors/307994/] John Dewey, Art as Experience (1934): https://ia902908.us.archive.org/28/items/deweyjohnartasanexperience/DEWEY%20John,%20Art%20as%20an%20Experience%22.pdf [https://ia902908.us.archive.org/28/items/deweyjohnartasanexperience/DEWEY%20John,%20Art%20as%20an%20Experience%22.pdf] Grant Kester, Breaking and Entering: Poverty and Aesthetic Violence in Let us Now Praise Famous Men, FIELD Journal (2023) https://field-journal.com/issue-25/breaking-and-entering-poverty-and-aesthetic-violence-in-let-us-now-praise-famous-men/#_ednref35 [https://field-journal.com/issue-25/breaking-and-entering-poverty-and-aesthetic-violence-in-let-us-now-praise-famous-men/#_ednref35] Dale Maharidge (author), Michael Williamson (photographer), And Their Children After Them, Seven Stories Press (2020) https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/And-Their-Children-After-Them-by-Dale-Maharidge-author-Michael-Williamson-photographer/9781609809812?srsltid=AfmBOorkVujGhdZD8KFnVvxSeqnHvW9UQ5ZmD5Df7sPpc1I76aHh544o [https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/And-Their-Children-After-Them-by-Dale-Maharidge-author-Michael-Williamson-photographer/9781609809812?srsltid=AfmBOorkVujGhdZD8KFnVvxSeqnHvW9UQ5ZmD5Df7sPpc1I76aHh544o]

Peter Renshaw

In July 2024 we interviewed the educator Peter Renshaw, who has been a huge influence on the development of socially engaged practice and research at Guildhall and the initiatives we’ve heard about in this podcast series so far: Leadership, PACE, The Institute for Social Impact Research in the Performing Arts and Disrupt. Peter has written extensively on music, education and socially engaged practice and is an influential figure in the worlds of community music and collaborative practices.  Echoes and the Unsaid  EPISODE 06 | JUNE 26 | 2026   HOSTS Jo Gibson | Sophie Hope   COMMENTARY  In the first part of this conversation we hear from Peter about a seminal experience he had in 1961 visiting refugee camps in Austria when he was a student and his experience as principal of the Menuhin School where he introduced music students performing in schools, hospices and prisons and coal mines.  Peter then moved to Guildhall in 1984 to set up the Performance, Communication Skills course. We hear about his ability to get external funding to set up that course, about the staff Peter got involved to run the course in the early days and the necessary allies and partners he connected with to support the development of the programme.  We end this episode with Peter inviting Sean Gregory into the conversation. Sean was a student of the course in  1989 and is now Vice-Principal & Director of Innovation and Engagement at Guildhall.  We’ll hear more from Sean and Peter in episode 7.    REFERENCES Menuhin School https://www.menuhinschool.co.uk/ [https://www.menuhinschool.co.uk/] The Society for the Promotion of Educational Reform Through Teacher Training (SPERTT / SPERTTT) https://www.proquest.com/openview/20d1005ac955a54bc50241aaf1f28439/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1820949 [https://www.proquest.com/openview/20d1005ac955a54bc50241aaf1f28439/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1820949] Dame Cicely Saunders, palliative care pioneer https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cicelysaunders/about-us/cicely-saunders [https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cicelysaunders/about-us/cicely-saunders] Carl Rogers, humanistic psychology https://www.apa.org/about/governance/president/carl-r-rogers [https://www.apa.org/about/governance/president/carl-r-rogers] Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_London_Education_Authority [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_London_Education_Authority] John Hosier, principal of Guildhall (1978-89) https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/apr/03/guardianobituaries [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/apr/03/guardianobituaries] Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s The Arts in Schools report written by Ken Robinson (1982) https://cdn.gulbenkian.pt/uk-branch/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/1989/01/The_Arts_in_Schools.pdf [https://cdn.gulbenkian.pt/uk-branch/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/1989/01/The_Arts_in_Schools.pdf] Sally Bacon and Pauline Tambling’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s  The Arts in Schools: Foundations for the Future (2023) https://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/The-Arts-in-Schools-full-report-2023.pdf [https://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/The-Arts-in-Schools-full-report-2023.pdf] Peter Brinson – Director of UK and British Commonwealth Branch,Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 1972-82 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-peter-brinson-1614720.html [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-peter-brinson-1614720.html] Helena Gauntt https://www.rwcmd.ac.uk/staff/helena-gaunt [https://www.rwcmd.ac.uk/staff/helena-gaunt]

Restoke: an update from Clare Reynolds

On episode 65 of A Culture of Possibility, François Matarasso and Arlene Goldbard interview Clare Reynolds, codirector of Restoke, to find out what has happened since they last spoke to her in Episode 3.   A CULTURE OF POSSIBILITY EPISODE 65 | JUNE 19 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Arlene Goldbard | François Matarasso | Clare Reynolds   COMMENTARY Clare Reynolds works as the codirector of Restoke, a community arts organization in Stoke-on-Trent, in the north of England.  We interviewed Clare five years ago, in the third episode of this podcast, and have now returned to find the organization thriving with National Portfolio funding from Arts Council England, a wonderful building, and significant new work with young people.  Clare talks about Restoke’s processes, including Holding Lightly, and its work on scaffolding hope in times when hope may be hard to find.   REFERENCES Restoke https://www.restoke.org.uk/ [https://www.restoke.org.uk/] Clare Reynolds interview on Episode Three of A Culture of Possibility in March, 2021 https://www.miaaw.net/e/restoke/ [https://www.miaaw.net/e/restoke/] Power Project report on Restoke’s youth theater https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d51b5359cc687828bf115c/t/685073fc56a13c48bc943201/1750103039433/PP+Report+WEB+%281%29.pdf [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d51b5359cc687828bf115c/t/685073fc56a13c48bc943201/1750103039433/PP+Report+WEB+%281%29.pdf] Arlene Goldbard writes about Clare Reynolds & Restoke https://arestlessart.com/2021/03/19/a-culture-of-possibility-3-clare-reynolds-on-restokes-work-in-staffordshire/ [https://arestlessart.com/2021/03/19/a-culture-of-possibility-3-clare-reynolds-on-restokes-work-in-staffordshire/]

Art Is Change

In this month’s episode of Parallel Streams we listen to an episode of ART IS CHANGE, introduced by Bill Cleveland who created the long-running podcast. Each episode aims to bring you “deep into the lives and work of activist artists and cultural organizers who are doing more than dreaming — they’re transforming communities around the world.”   PARALLEL STREAMS EPISODE 06 | JUNE 12 | 2026   PARTICIPANTS Bill Cleveland | Owen Kelly   COMMENTARY Bill Cleveland is a musician, author, and teacher with a pioneering history in producing cultural, educational, and community arts programs. He is the Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Art and Community, a group of creative leaders from business, government and the arts since 1991, based in Alameda, California. Bill Cleveland is the author of a number of books, including Art in Other Places: Artists at Work in America’s Community and Social Institutions (Praeger, 1992) and Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World’s Frontlines (New Village Press, 2008). He was previously a leader in the Walker Art Center’s Education and Community Programs Department (1995-97), California’s Arts-In-Corrections Program (1981-1989), and the California State Summer School for the Arts (1989-1991). His most recent projects include STORYstory (2020) and an accompanying film, SongLines CD (2014), based on stories from Art and Upheaval, and the Change the Story / Change the World podcast.  For this episode of Parallel Streams Bill Cleveland has chosen an episode from ART IS CHANGE (formerly known as Change the Story / Change the World), which he describes as “your front-row seat to the real-world impact of art and social change”. He provides a short introduction.   REFERENCES Americans for the Arts https://www.americansforthearts.org/users/5236 [https://www.americansforthearts.org/users/5236] Center for the Study of Arts and Community https://www.artandcommunity.com [https://www.artandcommunity.com] Youtube: Bill Cleveland on the Power of Artmaking  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4fYpQ6GAaU [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4fYpQ6GAaU] Art is Change on Castbox.fm https://castbox.fm/channel/ART-IS-CHANGE%3A-Tactics-and-Tools-for-Activist-Artists-and-Cultural-Organizers-id3176767?country=us [https://castbox.fm/channel/ART-IS-CHANGE%3A-Tactics-and-Tools-for-Activist-Artists-and-Cultural-Organizers-id3176767?country=us] Art is Change: curated lists https://www.artandcommunity.com/copy-of-podcast [https://www.artandcommunity.com/copy-of-podcast]