February 12, 2013

Voices of change reverberate through Professor Clare’s new podcast

Professor of Counseling Psychology Mary Clare expands upon her book 100 Voices: Americans Talk About Change, with ten episodes streamed through a podcast.  

During the first 100 days of Barack Obama’s first term as president in 2008, Mary Clare, professor of counseling psychology, traveled across the country to collect the unique reflections of common Americans about the meaning of the word “change.” Now, four years and one inauguration later, Clare has transferred her initial recordings into rich audio format with her new podcast, 100 Voices: Americans Talk About Change.   

Professor Clare’s podcast focuses on the personal reflections of ordinary citizens. Each of ten installments highlights individual perceptions of change in a distinct geographical region. Her subjects range from entrepreneurs in New York to rural farmers in the Deep South. The conversations complement her book of the same name with expressions of the tension and uncertainty, resolution and hope that people felt during a time of national upheaval—at the high of a major recession, at a moment when America had elected its first Black president. “Everybody wanted what the word promised,” she says. But despite media portrayals of national division at the time, her conversations reveal a thread of collective experience: “I heard person after person sharing way more in common than at odds.”

Clare’s other research focuses on applications of psychology in schools and communities, with a particular focus on issues of oppression and justice. Continue the conversation on her blog, Ex:Change, and through her book, 100 Voices: Americans Talk About Change.