As part of our Teaching Theory Special Series, First Publics spoke to Dr. Kyle Green about his podcast Give Theory a Chance. Dr. Green talked about his commitment to “flattening theory,” making sociological theory accessible and enjoyable to students. He also shared the joys and challenges of creating a podcast, and the many theoretical perspectives he had a chance to discuss with guests in each episode. 

First Publics: Tell us about the origin story of the podcast. 

Kyle Green: I think it still might have been when we were on the grad editorial board for Contexts at the time, as it was transitioning to The Society Pages. One of the things I realized was that as we were talking about the value of sociology, the part that was always removed was methods and theory. We didn’t talk about methods, and we didn’t really talk about theory, and I thought that was kind of funny because these are such core things to the discipline. But we were almost either subconsciously or consciously buying into the idea that those are the ideas that are not translatable, and those are the ideas you don’t share with a larger public. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone doing statistical analysis or ethnography — hearing how people connect to their participants, the challenges they face, and the joy they get from the research is exciting! Those are stories that can translate at all levels. So I started the Give Methods a Chance podcast, about putting ideas into practice and hearing what it actually looks like in the field, or on your computer, depending on your method. 

Then I left the University of Minnesota and got a job as a tenure-track professor at Utica College in a combined sociology and anthropology department. I was still teaching methods, but in addition, I was the department’s theory person, and that same revelation hit again: theory is the thing we don’t talk about in terms of public sociology. We talk about results and findings, but ignore the big ideas operating behind the scenes. Students are incredibly scared of theory, but it’s exciting. Methods and theory not only connect all the different topics in sociology, but they also shape how you see the world. So I thought: I can talk to sociologists, geographers, people in gender studies, critical race theory, a variety of disciplines, and say, “Tell me about a person or idea that inspired you and how you built on those ideas.” By putting theory into action, you can see what’s exciting about it.

FP: Was this inspired by your experiences trying to read theory as a graduate student?

KG: I was a double major in geography and philosophy, but the geography program was very traditional, focused on physical landscapes and the movement of people. We didn’t really read any theory as undergrads. Later, I was lucky enough to get into the University of Minnesota Geography Ph.D. program, which turned out to be one of the most theory-heavy programs around. First semester, I was barely reading any geographers. Instead, it was a lot of contemporary French theory and references to big names I had never heard of before, and I was pretty lost trying to process it all. I didn’t come from an academic background; my dad never graduated from college, and my mom was a nurse. So I would sit in seminars working through complicated texts, surrounded by people who seemed so incredibly smart, not just in what they said, but how they said it. I felt out of place. I would try to interpret the texts and say things that seemed meaningful, but there was often silence afterward that left me feeling like I had said something incorrect, too obvious, or just dumb. In retrospect, I think I was trying to express ideas simply rather than replicate the complexity. 

A lot of people, I realized, engage with theory by trying to reproduce how it sounds — but I was always asking, “What are we actually doing here?” And in part, I was doing this out of necessity rather than a profound insight. I struggled with theory, but I was drawn to it because it was exciting. When I grasped the ideas, they changed how I saw the world.

It took, and continues to take, a lot of work for me to get comfortable using that kind of language and claiming any expertise. My path definitely shaped what I’m trying to do here.

FP: How has your motivation for starting the podcast evolved over time?

KG: Once you start to see theory in practice, such as someone applying Lauren Berlant’s idea of ‘cruel optimism’ to her research on burnout among medical doctors, it becomes more understandable and exciting. That motivation remains: making theory more accessible and showing why it matters. I also love hearing people share how confused they were the first time they encountered a theorist. One of my favorite examples is Stefano Bloch talking about reading Henri Lefebvre as an undergraduate and not understanding a single word of it until another student in the class told him that the theory directly related to Stefano’s own experience as a member of the Los Angeles-based CBS graffiti crew and now he is publishing books built around those ideas. Especially for students without academic backgrounds, it’s important to hear those stories.

Also, I’ve found that people stick with the theorists they already know or only pick up something new for a specific research need. Of course, there are a lot of external constraints and reasons for this. But you rarely get to casually dive into theory, talk to experts, ask questions, and be a student again. That doesn’t happen enough at conferences either. I wanted to create a space where you can hear people talking through ideas and hear their excitement. I get to be the stand-in for the student/listener and have the guest help me understand why a theorist is worth reading through, explaining why it was worth it for them, instead of relying on disciplinary pressure or overly convoluted speak. 

This brings me to another thing I’m trying to do, which I didn’t realize was an intention at the beginning!, is what I would call the flattening of theory. Meaning: I don’t want to hold up Weber, or Durkheim, or Marx, or even Du Bois (who has by far the most episodes devoted to his ideas), or any theorist as the theorist you have to know. Rather, there are all these amazing ideas out there that can be incredibly transformative. I want you to hear how these are valuable to certain people based on their life experiences or the specific topics they’re interested in understanding. I also want listeners to see how important a theorist can be for the ‘expert’ who devotes their career to understanding them, and also for the researcher who finds and makes use of their ideas to answer a specific question.

I also want listeners to see how important a theorist can be for the ‘expert’ who devotes their career to understanding them, and also for the researcher who finds and makes use of their ideas to answer a specific question. 

– Kyle Green

We can get into debates about the canon and how you teach theory (and some of my favorite episodes are devoted to this!) but, for me, this is an important part of the project: I can record an episode about a theorist who’s still alive today, and then the next episode can be someone explaining Talcott Parsons to me who I had never read and who played such an important role in defining what the canon was and what contemporary sociology looks like. And then the next episode can be someone who’s an expert on Weber. And then the next one can be Stuart Hall. By putting all those people side by side, I am avoiding creating a hierarchy or ranking or order or prioritizing one over the other. 

FP: Who do you either imagine or know to be the audience for your podcast? Essentially, who is your public?

KG: I want it to be something that’s accessible to students, especially advanced undergrads and early grad students. For undergrads, I hope the podcast can demystify theory a little bit.  For grads, I hope to give them lots of different options, because it isn’t always easy to find a class that covers a theorist you might be interested in. As a side note, I’ll say that when I was going up for tenure, I put out a post on Twitter saying, “Hey, if anyone uses this podcast or listens to this podcast, can you just let me know and maybe send a few words I can use in my file?” It was incredibly rewarding, because I received emails from grad students and professors from around the country — people I’d never heard of or had the opportunity to meet — who were listening to it. It was such a nice moment of being like, “Okay, this thing is actually doing something!” 

About a year and a half ago, a professor at the University of Rhode Island emailed me to let me know that she structures her theory course for undergrads around the podcast in combination with Michele Dillon’s theory text. She is basically giving them an episode a week. I think this is such a cool idea and exactly what I imagine the podcast being used for! But I wasn’t confident enough to do it in my own class!  I’ve started restructuring my course, even if I am still getting over the hesitation. So, yeah, the audience is very much the classroom or the grad student who’s washing dishes or taking their dog for a walk and just has it on in the background, as they are starting to think about this stuff.

FP: So what makes a good podcast episode about theory? Do you have any favorite episodes?

KG: This is by far the hardest question since there are so many different ways that an episode can work.

Sometimes I’ve had someone who’s just such an expert on the person that they transform my understanding, and I really am a student again. The podcast I mentioned before, where Daniel Silver introduces me to Talcott Parsons, is an example of that. Dan was able to talk about the conversations Parsons was having at the time he was writing, and where Parsons was positioned in the field and in society. We also talked through the rise and fall of Parsons both in the discipline and as a public intellectual. That is exciting because not only was I introduced to a theorist that I have not read otherwise but I was able to get a more holistic understanding of them. This wasn’t my goal when I started the podcast! I always imagined real concise episodes. Same with Saida Grundy’s episode on W.E.B. Du Bois. I think we cut off at two hours because we both had to go to different meetings!  But the level of knowledge she had on Du Bois and his life and the arc of his research and the relationships he had with other intellectuals at the time was incredible. I would have been happy with that one going another two hours. 

But some of my favorite episodes are the opposite. Sticking with Du Bois, the episode with Angela Jones was twenty minutes long and I use it every semester in Theory. And I’ve got others where in the initial email exchange the guest will say some version of, “Are you sure I’m the right person?” because they are not an expert but rather read one piece by them and found it useful for a project. I love those ones and they work really, really well in the classroom! 

And then there are other episodes where people make arguments about what theory is. I had Seth Abrutyn on the podcast, and he really thinks about sociology as a social science. He wants to have empirical ways to test these big theories and see how they actually work (or don’t). It’s fun to see how he applies it, how he takes Durkheim’s ideas, and updates them rather than treating them like texts that can’t be changed. This is a great model for students. 

Another of my favorite episodes, and it’s fun because it’s completely different from what I do in my own class, is with Jocelyn Viterna. We recorded an episode called Teaching Our Ugly Roots. When she teaches classical sociology, she directly leans into saying, “Hey, if you look back at the early years of sociology, there was some horrifying stuff and a big chunk of it was based around evolutionary theory.” This is not a classic theory that also includes some racist or sexist language and ideas, but rather, these are instances where racism and sexism were actually built into the way sociology operated at the time. She says, “Don’t ignore those roots.” That’s completely different from what I do, completely different from what Seth does, and also completely different from someone like Fabio Rojas, who says, “Don’t even care about the names of the theorists. Just focus on the moves that sociological theories do.” It’s fun to hear people put forth these ideas, and again, Jocelyn taught me things about the field that I didn’t know myself. 

And finally, some of my favorite episodes just come down to there being a good rapport. And it is almost impossible to predict when that will occur! I had never met Hannah McCann before but I heard about her book Queer Theory Now so I invited her and her co-author Whitney on. I really enjoyed the conversation, and Hannah has returned for episodes on Sara Ahmed, perhaps my favorite episode (and I know I keep saying that!), and Judith Butler. And my conversation with Clifton Evers on Raewyn Connell went so well that we ended up co-authoring an article for Contexts. 

FP: Are there particular challenges in translating certain theorists into a podcast format, and how do you navigate those decisions?

KG: I don’t worry about whether it’s difficult to translate, because that’s part of what I want to explore. Even the most difficult theorists make some sense when you see how their ideas are put into action. Now, of course, there are some that are more difficult. I have two episodes on Deleuze, and those do end up being complicated episodes because that language takes a lot of work before we can get to the understanding. And just because someone uses a theorist doesn’t mean they can necessarily break it down to a simple explanation. 

I’m also not someone who believes, “Well, all these ideas are actually simple.” No, they are complicated, but I don’t think that means we have to make them complicated in how we explain them. I think those are two different things. So there’s no theorist that I am avoiding.

I do intentionally try to include a mix of theorists that are the big names, the ones that first come to mind when we think of sociology. But I also try to break down the disciplinary walls. Because I think in sociology, we try to maintain them way more than we should. So I’ll include someone like Yi-Fu Tuan, a geographer. I’ll include someone like Iris Marion Young, who is a philosopher and political scientist. I’ll include someone like Aimé Césaire, who transcends disciplines as a poet, essayist, surrealist writer, anti-colonial activist, and later a politician. These ideas can and should be very inspiring for sociologists, even if the writer isn’t doing social theory in the way our discipline might expect. 

FP: How does theory fit within the broader mission of public sociology?

KG: That’s a really good question. I struggle with this one a bit because I still haven’t really figured out what I think of public sociology and what the purpose is. Much like I’ve sidestepped some of the questions about how to teach theory itself, I almost sidestep a lot of the questions about what counts as public sociology because all of it seems exciting to me.  I also read Rahsaan’s critique of what we’re doing in public sociology, which I thought had an incredible amount of value, and I’m still working through some of the issues he raises.

For me, the thing that I turn to is something I say when I teach Marx, and I don’t even know if Marx actually said it, but my understanding is that theory works when you’re already feeling it – when the material conditions demand it, and theory is not going to have the same value if it is not related to the things you’re seeing around you and feeling on some level. It’s not the ideas that drive the experience; it’s the experience and material conditions that drive what theory emerges and what theory sticks. And I think you can see that both in the guests on the podcast and also with students. There is a reason that right now, when we introduce Durkheim’s ideas, students seem really compelled by them. It’s not a happy story about society, but they feel it. The fact that they connect to them so immediately – the sense of disconnect, the lack of integration, the lack of understanding why they’re doing certain things, or the feeling of drifting– the theorist can help put words to that. 

It might transform their understanding. It might set a foundation for some sort of action. Or it might even just be therapeutic, right? While that is not the goal of social theory, it can be therapeutic to realize you’re not the only one experiencing this. It’s part of larger systems. Which can be depressing because you’re like, “How do I change those larger systems?” But you can at least point to something, and you can start to ask better questions to understand it. And so that’s why I think theory really is one of the most important tools in public sociology because you find the theories that relate to what you’re experiencing and what you care about, and it can help you see them differently and decide what direction you want to go. It doesn’t matter if you’re interested in education, religion, food, sports, or crime; theories can have value. 

There is a reason that right now, when we introduce Durkheim’s ideas, students seem really compelled by them. It’s not a happy story about society, but they feel it. The fact that they connect to them so immediately – the sense of disconnect, the lack of integration, the lack of understanding why they’re doing certain things, or the feeling of drifting– the theorist can help put words to that. 

– Kyle Green

FP: Is there anything else that we haven’t asked you, or something that you want to be sure to communicate about your project?

KG: I’m trying to offer a very low-stakes entry into theory, which goes along with the title Give Theory a Chance. It’s just “give it a chance,” that is a modest request! And I’m also trying to explore theory without being prescriptive. So my goal as a host is to set the stage, ask questions, and have fun doing it. I never bring someone on with the goal of making them look bad or pushing an alternative perspective, “Yeah, but I’m in this camp, and I don’t think that’s right!” My goal is to be a curator. I want to be the person who shows you all this really cool art on the wall, but I want to let the art, in a sense, speak for itself. Which I guess is kind of a lie…because I do a lot of speaking around it…but my goal is always to stage it in a way that you can find joy and inspiration in it as well.