Punk Scholars Podcast

Where to begin with a guest such as Dr. Russ Bestley, who has done so much for the punk scholarly community, not to mention all the graphic design work, exhibits, publications--including his newest publication, Turning Revolt Into Style (2025), and network organizing...Where to begin...or really, where and how to end?! As you'll hear, in this episode, co-hosts Paul Hollins and Jessica Schwartz face this daunting task as they opt to take a deep dive into Russ' most recently published book while also inquiring about his formative punk years, education, and publications. And, even with a keen focus on Turning Revolt Into Style, we still manage to cover a range of issues, not least the reemergent questions concerning the Art School-Punk connection, punk politicization (via visual communication in addition to the music), and punk diasporic networks. We also experience a myth-busting moment when Russ shares his genealogical knowledge of Jaime Reid's famous "God Save the Queen" image. Check it out!Guest Bio. Dr Russ Bestley is Reader in Graphic Design & Subcultures at London College of Communication. His areas of specialist interest include graphic design, popular culture, alternative music scenes and subcultures, comedy and humour. He is editor of the academic journal Punk & Post-Punk, now in its fourteenth year, series editor and art director for the Global Punk book series published by Intellect Books, and a founding member of the Punk Scholars Network. His research archive can be accessed at www.hitsvilleuk.com. Russ has written several books, including Turning Revolt into Style: The Process and Practice of Punk Graphic Design (2025), Action Time Vision: Punk & Post Punk 7” Record Sleeves (2016), Visual Research (2004, 2011, 2015, 2022), Up Against the Wall (2002), and Experimental Layout (2001). His book The Art of Punk, was published by Omnibus Press (UK), Voyageur (North America), Hannibal Verlag Gmbh (Germany) and Hugo et Compagnie (France) in 2012. In 2013, he established the Graphic Subcultures research hub at the London College of Communication, before going on to form the UAL Subcultures Interest Group in 2022. He has designed and curated exhibitions in London, Southampton, Blackpool, Leeds, Oxford, Birmingham, and Newcastle, and designed books, posters, record covers, and other material for Active Distribution, the Hope Collective, PM Press, and many other DIY and independent labels, publishers, and producers. He recently designed a critically acclaimed autobiography by Pauline Murray, Life’s A Gamble, for Omnibus Press.LinksEmail: r.bestley@lcc.arts.ac.ukHitsville UK-We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 2, Episode 5, was recorded on October 10, 2025, on Zoom with participants in the UK and the US. Paul Hollins and Jessica Schwartz co-hosted and co-produced this episode and edited the transcript, which is available here.Jessica Schwartz also edited the audio.

Straight outta Jakarta, Indonesia, across all kinds of time zones, we at the Punk Scholars Podcast (PSP) are proud to bring you Indonesian "punk for life" and scholarship leader, organizer, and musician, Fakhran Ramadhan. Interviewed by the PSP co-host team, Jessica Schwartz and Mike Dines, Fahkran's interview bursts with knowledge and a love for his punk community and the political milieu that necessitated punk's uprising and resistance, bringing joy and friendship from collective struggle and the promise of difference and inclusion. As PSN Indonesia Chair, Fakhran continues to be an enthusiastic, tireless documentarian of his scene and music from his band, No Slide Next.Guest Bio. Muhammad Fakhran al Ramadhan, or Fakhran Ramadhan, is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Universitas Islam 45 Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia. He earned his M.Hum in Humanities from Universitas Indonesia and is currently preparing a research proposal on aging punk in Indonesia for his doctoral degree, which he plans to undertake in 2026. Fakhran is a punk scholar, musician, and Chair of the Punk Scholars Network Indonesia. His academic and creative work focuses on Indonesian popular culture, popular music, and youth subcultures—particularly punk—while exploring broader themes of identity, politics, resistance, alternative education, and grassroots cultural production. Through his leadership in the Punk Scholars Network Indonesia, he actively connects academia and activism by organizing conferences, cross-cultural collaborations, public talks, and community-based research.Fahkran's Playlist (as explained in the episode)No Slide Next – “Hymne Guru Indonesia”, from the album From First to Last, Vandal Destructor, 2025.Anthrax – The Devils You Know, from the album XL, 2022.MCPR – “We Are Punk, We Are Pride”, from the album Songs for Priders, Priders HQ Records, 2023.Romi and The Jahat – “Buah Hati”, from the album Rumah, Nilai Merah Records, 2018.Bad Religion – “Do What You Want”, from the album Suffer, Epitaph, 1988.No Use for a Name – “Biggest Lie”, from the album The Feel Good Record of the Year,  Fat Music, 2008. LinksFakhran Email = fakhranramadhan01@gmail.com Fakhran Instagram = @fakhranramadhan PSN Indonesia Instagram = @psn_indonesia15 No Slide Next Instagram = @noslidenext PSN Indonesia Email = psnindonesia15@gmail.comFakhran Linkedin-We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 2, Episode 4, was recorded on September 10, 2025, on Zoom with participants in the UK, the US, and Jakarta, Indonesia_. Mike Dines and Jessica Schwartz co-hosted and co-produced this episode and edited the transcript, which is available here.Jessica Schwartz also edited the audio.

From record collecting to radio, from art history to punk, pin-ups, and disciplinary-breaking work in the field of design, we bring you none other than Dr. Maria Elena Buszek. Interviewed by Punk Scholars Podcast (PSP) co-host team Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bustley, Dr. Buszek traces her love of and engagement with punk, as well as hip-hop, from a generative, albeit de-industrializing, Detroit, MI, to finding more punk community in Omaha, Nebraska. This episode helps trace the significance of a punk scholar's positional contributions to pushing disciplinary limits and grappling with the tensions between the "old guard" of and "new" critical approaches to disciplines, including the rethinking of canons and recontextualizing of work through feminist perspectives and Riot Grrrl logics. Guest Bio. Maria Elena Buszek, Ph.D. is a scholar, critic, curator, and Professor of Art History at the University of Colorado Denver, where she teaches courses on Modern and contemporary art and design. Her recent publications include the books Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture and Extra/ordinary: Craft and contemporary art; contributions to the anthologies Punkademics: The Basement Show in the Ivory Tower and Design History Beyond the Canon; catalogue essays for numerous international exhibitions; and articles and criticism in such journals as Art in America, Art Journal, Flash Art, and Punk & Post-Punk, where she also serves as an Associate Editor. With Hilary Robinson, she edited the 2019 anthology of new writing, A Companion to Feminist Art. Her current book project, Punk Feminisms: No Style But Strength, explores the feminist art and activism at punk’s roots. Dr. Buszek is also a prolific independent curator, who has previously worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Recent exhibitions include Danger Came Smiling: Feminist Art and Popular Music at the Franklin Street Works, Inner Ear Vision: Sound as Medium (with Raven Chacon and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe) at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Sensitive Content (with Alayo Akinkugbe and Helen Beard) at Unit London. In 2022, Dr. Buszek was inducted into the fellowship of the University of Colorado’s President’s Teaching Scholars. The President’s Teaching Scholars Program honors faculty from the university’s four campuses who “embody teaching, scholarship, creative work and research with excellence in all.”LinksWebsite: www.mariabuszek.comIG: maria.elena.buszekCelebrating the in Betweenness of Punk Art History: A Conversation with Maria Buszek by Daniel Makagon - Razorcake -We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 2, Episode 3, was recorded on August 8, 2025, on Zoom with participants in the UK and the US. Russ Bestley and Jessica Schwartz co-hosted and co-produced this episode and edited the transcript, available here.Jessica Schwartz edited the audio.

You heard him on the first episode alongside Russ Bestley in a discussion about co-founding and sustaining the PSN and its significant role in growing the field of punk scholarship globally. You heard him as co-host, helping shape the form and direction of this podcast. In this episode, co-hosts Jessica Schwartz and Paul Hollins take a deep dive into the work of prolific punk scholar, Mike Dines, as he traces his inspired journey from classical music and anarcho-punk to an epiphanic realization and Krishnacore, and recently, serving as lead editor on a handbook on popular music methodologies and hosting a podcast, as well as continuing his academic position and leadership role in the PSN. Speaking of which, we've included a clip from an AMASS song called "Academia" about the Punk Scholars Network. You won't want to miss this and, more importantly, our compelling conversation that takes new directions and, at times, probes the depths of our musical affinities in a critical context--all shared by a familiar voice amidst familiar voices.Guest Bio. Mike Dines is a British musician, writer, scholar and publisher who has written widely on subcultures and popular music, co-editing The Aesthetics of Our Anger: Anarcho-Punk, Politics, Music (2016), Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning (2017), The Punk Reader: Research Transmissions from the Local and the Global (2019), Punk Now!! Contemporary Perspectives on Punk ( 2020), Trans-Global Punk Scenes: The Punk Reader Vol. 2 (2020) and Punk Identities, Punk Utopias: Global Punk and Media (2021). His current writing takes him in the direction of popular music and spirituality with the co-edited collection Exploring the Spiritual in Popular Music: Beatified Beats (2021). He was lead editor on The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies (2025), the first comprehensive overview of methodological approaches within the field of popular music studies. He is currently Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Music and MA Professional Arts Practice at Middlesex University and is an avid supporter of Portsmouth Football Club.LinksEmail: m.dines@mdx.ac.ukDr Mike Dines | Middlesex UniversityTales From the Punkside | Itchy Monkey PressPunk Scholars NetworkIntellect Books | Global PunkSong excerptAMASS, "Academia" Gamekeepers Gallows. 2024.-We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 2, Episode 2, was recorded on July 9, 2025, on Zoom with participants in the UK and the US. Paul Hollins and Jessica Schwartz co-hosted and co-produced this episode and edited the transcript, available here.Jessica Schwartz edited the audio.

We’re back….with Season 2 marking the beginning of the SECOND YEAR of the Punk Scholars Podcast. And, who better to ring in the new PSP year than OG (or, OP/original punk) co-host, Paul Hollins, to help break down all things punk scholarship with our special guest, an original member of the PSN US crew–Daniel Makagon. In this episode, we–Jessica Schwartz and Paul Hollins–take turns asking Daniel about all things DIY, ethnography, house shows v. venues, Lollapalooza U (tune in and find out what that course offering entails), college radio, and the key to the mystery of what Daniel believes defines the core of punk (for him, at least)...here’s a couple clues - it’s not experimental fashion or radical art…-Guest Bio. Daniel Makagon received his PhD from the University of South Florida. Makagon's teaching and research interests are in urban communication, ethnography, documentary, and music industries (DIY and corporate). He is author of Underground: The Subterranean Culture of Punk House Shows (2015), Where the Ball Drops: Days and Nights in Times Square (University of Minnesota Press, 2004) and co-author with Mark Neumann of Recording Culture: Audio Documentary and the Ethnographic Experience (Sage, 2008). Makagon has also published articles about guerrilla art, DIY punk touring, community, and urban life in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Punk & Post Punk, Southern Communication Journal, Journal of Communication Inquiry, and Text & Performance Quarterly. He is editor of a special issue of Liminalities, on "On the City", and co-editor with Michael LeVan of a special issue of Text & Performance Quarterly on the seven deadly sins. His audio documentaries have been broadcast on public radio and the internet, and he publishes a (mostly) monthly column with Razorcake magazine. Prior to becoming a professor, Makagon worked as a radio and retail promoter and then as an A&R representative in the music industry.Linksdmakagon@depaul.eduInstagram @danielmakagonhttps://razorcake.org/tag/daniel-makagon/-We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 2, Episode 1, was recorded on June 13, 2025, on Zoom with participants in the UK and the US. Paul Hollins and Jessica Schwartz co-hosted and co-produced this episode and edited the transcript, which is available HERE.Jessica Schwartz also edited the audio.

“Philosophers theorize about changing the world. The point is to change it. And we have changed the world… hopefully [we] inspire people to not feel so isolated in these looming institutions like the academy, rather than feeling I'm not worthy, you know, putting a PSN shirt on and going, yeah, we got this. We did this.” - Alastair ‘Gords’ Gordon-One year ago, we began the PSP as an extension of the Punk Scholars Network, which has branches worldwide, to amplify punk scholarship across various disciplines. The PSN has provided a supportive community, necessary when punk scholarship remains underappreciated and misunderstood. In this spirit, we welcome PSN co-founder, Alastair ‘Gords’ Gordon, to speak on the beginnings of the PSN, his work on authenticity (among other projects), the significance of anarcho-punk, playing in bands, and crucially, his advice to punk scholars. Don't miss this impactful conclusion to an inspired inaugural season!  Guest Bio. Alastair ‘Gords’ Gordon is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Leicester De Montfort University, UK. He is a cultural sociologist with key interests in critical theory, hauntology, the paranormal and occulture and all manifestations of subcultures and insurgent cultures. He has supervised and examined doctoral theses in the areas of local festival culture, international punk culture; folklore and digital culture. In 2012, Gords co-founded the internationally famous Punk Scholars Network with Mike Dines.  He used to record and tour internationally in such bands as Hard to Swallow, John Holmes, Geriatric Unit and Endless Grinning Skulls.  He is author of numerous academic articles and book chapters.  Most recently he authored Crass Reflections (2016) now in its fifth edition, and co-edited The Punk Reader Vol.1 (2019) and The Punk Reader Vol.2 (2021). His forthcoming research chapter is:  Gordon, A. Dines, M, Stewart, F forthcoming (2025) ‘Psychic TV: Hauntological Cultic Rejection And Autoethnographic Legacies’ in Partridge, C. Wagner, T (eds) New Religions, Spiritualties, and Popular Music, London, Bloomsbury.'LinksEmail: agordon@dmu.ac.uk Gords — Punk Scholars NetworkAlastair Gordon - De Montfort University, Leicester, UK)Discogs website (music/discography)Musical Excerpts: Geriatric Unit, “Hell Is Just Too Good For You.” Distance and Damage. 2008. -We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 1, Episode 12, was recorded on May 12, 2025, on Zoom with participants in the UK and the US. Mike Dines and Jessica Schwartz co-hosted and co-produced this episode and edited the transcript, which is available here. Jessica Schwartz also edited the audio.

Keeping the momentum of “Live in Las Vegas,” this week we bring you Nuit Hansgen of the Punk Rock Museum and Punk Foundation. What does it mean to curate a “punk rock” museum and organize a “punk” non-profit that strives to preserve, promote, educate, and advance punk in its genealogical ties to historical social justice movements? As we punk scholars know, it takes a lot of passion, dedication, and perseverance despite the oft-heard challenges “that’s not punk” (referring to the scholarly, archival, and otherwise “institutionalizing” of punk). In this episode, Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley go “behind the scenes” or “displays,” as it were, and engage Nuit in questions concerning the high/low culture binary, mass produced material & punk ephemera, generational divides concerning cultural values and definitions, and the nuts, bolts, politics, and logistics of amplifying punk in the broader network of punk collections and cultural foundations. BioNuit Hansgen is an arts-world veteran whose work merges cultural heritage, technology, media, and social change in her roles as a curator, producer, and educator. During her nearly 20 years at the Kennedy Center, she led collaborations with established and emerging artists, musicians, and activists, while her work in arts and cultural heritage encompasses storytelling and story-gathering in multiple media. In 2017, Nuit founded the Cultural Archive Initiative, a nonprofit, DIY effort to locate, aggregate, preserve, and share the collective memory and material culture of the American underground. The prototyping initiative, the Punk Archive, is a DIY effort to locate, aggregate, preserve, and document American punk's cultural archives and narratives, fusing crowdsourcing, collective memory, and emerging tech to steward and share its complex, complicated history. Nuit also works closely with The Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas and is working with a team to develop a nonprofit body, The Punk Foundation, to document and preserve the global cultural history of punk for future generations. Links: The Punk Rock Museum: https://www.thepunkrockmuseum.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nuit-hansgen–We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 1, Episode 11 was recorded on March 25, 2025 over Zoom with participants in the UK and the US. Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley co-hosted and co-produced this episode. Jessica Schwartz edited the audio. Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley edited the transcript, available here.

For PSP's 9th episode, we have not one…but two guests for your monthly dose of punk scholarly knowledge. Listen to co-hosts Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley speak with the Dublin Hope Collective’s Michael Murphy and Niall McGuirk about the history of the Hope Collective and the story of its uplifting ‘four letter word’ namesake, as well as the importance of DIY/DIT complementarity from those who live it and inspire others in their community to become involved in their many projects, working with amazing people as they grow their collaborative network. But, at the heart of the episode is our guests' organizing and academic work, so without further ado...Michael Murphy grew up in suburban Dublin and got a job in his local record shop because he spent so much time there. At University he became involved in gig organization when one of the record shop’s customers became the Entertainments Officer and put on pivotal gigs for Sinead O’Connor, Virgin Prunes, Five Go Down To The Sea, and the Pogues. Michael emigrated in 1989 and worked for Virgin records in London, and later started his own music management company. His book, Pop Music Management: Lessons from the Managers of Number One Albums, will be launched in February 2025. His co-authored book, Sounds Irish, Acts Global: Explaining the Success of Ireland's Popular Music Industry, was released in 2023.…And…Niall McGuirk was born on the opposite side of Dublin City, growing up a river between them but it felt like a million miles away in 1970’s dublin.  Music helped broaden that horizon as the small working class area suddenly became less insular thanks to going to see live bands in Dublin.  Niall played in punk bands and started putting on his own gigs rather than expecting others to do it for him.  This was the tradition of the bands he was listening to. Putting on gigs for his own bands soon broadened out as Niall realised the best way to get bands from outside Ireland to play here was to put them on himself.  Hope Promotions became the name on the poster and this spawned to Hope collective as more people helped out.   Hope went on to put on over 180 gigs in Dublin and assisted others throughout the island to do something similar.  Bands such as fugazi, Bikini Kill, Green Day, NOFX, Jawbreaker, Chumbawamba and Babes In Toyland all played gigs with the name Hope on the poster.Links:Dublin's Hope CollectiveSounds Irish, Acts Global; Explaining the Success of Ireland's Popular Music Industry; Murphy; Rogers - Equinox PublishingPop Music Management: Lessons from the Managers of Number One Albums -–We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.comThe PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved. Season 1, Episode 9 was recorded on February 13, 2025 on Zoom with participants in the UK, the US, and Ireland. Jessica Schwartz and Russ Bestley co-hosted and co-produced this episode. Jessica Schwartz edited the audio and audio-synced transcript, available here.