/Audio by Adam/

Radio and Audio Features and Documentaries

Author: Adam Phillips

Adam Phillips has been a radio features journalist and audio documentarist and oral historian since 1986, both as public radio freelancer and, since 1993, as a career journalist at the Voice of America. Adam has won nearly twenty international, national and in-house awards for his work, which highlights the experiences and realities of everyday people with extraordinary stores to tell, and which makes extensive use of found sound and music to create a “theater of the mind.” Adam teaches Audio Documentary Making at the New School’s Graduate School of Media Studies, and Oral History at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. His combines his lifelong interests in mythology, theater and community building in his celebrancy practice, which uses ceremonies to mark life’s milestones and the processes of nature. Adam was ‘born, bred and buttered’ in New York City.

Corruption in American Politics is Nothing New

Americans were shocked by the boldness of the graft and other crimes allegedly committed by indicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and by the 20-plus politicians and others indicted for corruption in New Jersey recently. But corruption is nothing new in American politics, although the scope and definitions of corruption have changed over time. This […]

Profiles of People with Disabilities (Berkeley CA)

Americans with disabilities are, in one sense, just like everybody else: they come from varied backgrounds, and cope with the challenges life presents them in many different ways. But living a full, satisfying life with a physical or mental handicap is no ordinary struggle. Adam spoke with several people living with disabilities in the San […]

Mother’s Day: Mothering in the Non-Human World

Mother’s Day in America is a special day set aside for honoring mothers, and celebrating all those qualities and actions that make mother “Mom.” But animals and even plants have also evolved their own dizzyingly diverse maternal styles over the millennia, all of which serve to make sure the next generation thrives. Adam interviewed a […]

Profile: Maxine Greene – Educator, Philosopher, Humanist (VOA 2009)

Professor Maxine Greene of Teachers College, Columbia University, 91, has spent her educating and inspiring educators, artists and children in humanistic “wide-awakedness” and the social imagination. Now 91, Maxine has also been Philosopher-in-Residence at the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education since 1975. She just received a Gold Medal from Barnarnd College. Maxine […]

Woodstock (somewhat groovily) Remembered Forty Years Later

Forty years after Woodstock, the iconic music festival still looms large in the public mind as the high point — or, some say, the death knell — of America’s 1960s’ counterculture. What was it like to be there for “veteran” audience members and performers, and what is the legacy of this unique cultural happening? Adam […]

The Meaning of Gratitude: Everyday Americans Reflect

For most Americans, the Thanksgiving feast means a traditional turkey feast with family and friends, and a moment’s pause to feel and express gratitude for the gifts life has given them, even during tough times. I took to the streets of New York to talk to people about what they are grateful for, and why.