Head of Department, Dr Chris Deacy, has published his 100th episode of the Nostalgia Interviews podcast. For the 100th episode, Dr Deacy’s guest is Pete Paphides, a music journalist who has written for Melody Maker, Q and Time Out and was the Chief Music Critic for The Times.
Dr Deacy shares, “Pete’s memoir, ‘Broken Greek‘, with the wonderful subtitle, ‘A Story of Chip Shops and Pop Songs‘, was BBC Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’. We talk about leaving Birmingham to study Philosophy on one of the smallest campuses in the country, his apprehension of listening to sheep at night, infinite choice, how Lampeter kickstarted the idea of the café as office, writing a ‘confusion memoir’, selective mutism, music as a proxy for understanding life, Guilty Pleasures, Abba, Paul McCartney, a racist neighbour and an unexpected act of kindness on Christmas Day 1977, and why his 10 year old self was in some ways smarter than his 25 year old self.”
We caught up with Dr Chris Deacy to find out more about his Nostalgia Interviews podcast and his plans for the future.
What led you to start this podcast?
I started the podcast in May 2018 and I did it because I was finding that I knew more about the research projects of colleagues and less about their motivation for doing them. I realised that I needed to know why someone was inspired to work on a project than in the project per se. And, although my research on nostalgia started out as theoretical (what do sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, theologians etc. think about nostalgia) I came to find that the personal testimony of people was in many cases likely to thwart or change my apprehension of what I thought nostalgia was. There is another reason, too, which is that from a young age I desperately wanted to be on the radio, and after all these decades that ‘dream’ hasn’t faded, so the podcast is a wonderful way of bridging my academic and my personal interests.
What are your future plans for the next 100 episodes of the podcast?
For the next 100, I would love to spread the net more widely and interview celebrities, especially radio heroes of mine. When I was a teenager I wrote to a few Radio 1 DJs (and got replies!) asking them how I could follow in their footsteps. If I could interview some of them then that would be awesome. I would also love to interview politicians and talk about their careers – a good chance to reminisce/be nostalgic about the campaigns, elections and policies of yesteryear. I am also very keen to interview more BAME guests – and I am liaising with the staff BME network to ensure that I have a wider, more diverse body of interviewees than I think has been the case so far. So, I have lots to be excited about for the next hundred.
If anyone is interested to record an interview with me, please let me know. Upcoming interviewees include stand up comedian, poet and Radio 4 regular Kate Fox, Biblical Studies professor Adele Reinhartz and our very own Celia Pontin, who did her BA and PhD here in the Religious Studies department at Kent.
You can listen to the 100th episode online now via Audioboom.