Beside the Rabbit Hole Podcast

November 01, 2021

During one of my graduate seminars, in addition to thinking and reading about Sound Studies, we also learned some audio production techniques. As a project in the class, I produced this podcast in which I share the project I was reasearching. There was a time when I was naive and thought that I might have the time to continue making more seasons and episodes about my work. But the reality is that I have not had the time to actually go about doing this. Perhaps one day...

It’s a common warning that we need to be carefult to not “go too far down the rabbit hole” – that is, we don’t want to get too caught up debating the specifics of some particular definition, or want to avoid going too far off on some tangent. And in almost all cases, this is certainly great advice.

But I also think we don’t want to lose sight of the rabbit hole entirely. If the definition of something has such a contested meaning, it must be pretty important. Or at the very least it’s a sign that something interesting is going on.

In each season of the Beside the Rabbit Hole podcast, I pick a topic that has the potential to go down a definitional rabbit hole, and I walk us right up to the edge. But instead of diving in, we explore that surrounding area and see what issues are at stake and to understand why there’s a rabbit hole to possibly fall into in the first place.

Click here to listen and read more.