Portfolio

[Note: some of these articles appear on the Internet without my byline, but they’re all my work. Enjoy perusing them! -Roger]

MUSIC AND CULTURAL HISTORY WRITING

“As Long as They Can Blow”: Steve Provizer on Interracial Jazz. The Syncopated Times, April 2024 (cover story).

1920: The Year Broadway Learned to Syncopate. The Syncopated Times, August 2020. [An audio companion to this article is available here (part 1) and here (part 2).]

Teddy Wilson: American Jazz Hero. The Syncopated Times, May 2019.

Bessie Smith’s First Recordings. NY1920.com, February 15, 2023.

The Brand (part 1): The Mark of Zorro introduces the Hollywood action hero. CineFiles (Wharton Studio Museum blog), August 2024.

The Brand (part 2): Zorro, Mary, UA, and Pickfair. CineFiles (Wharton Studio Museum blog), August 2024.

Marion, Beverly, and Silent Film World. CineFiles (Wharton Studio Museum blog), August 4, 2023.

The Jazz Age Begins Not With Banging But With “Whispering.” NY1920.com, August 23, 2020.

You Can’t Keep a Good Girl Down: Sally Goes Up on Broadway. NY1920.com, December 21, 2020.

The Scandals Walk. NY1920.com, October 2, 2020.

In 1920 Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” Paved the Way for Black Music. The Syncopated Times, March 2020.

Babatunde Olatunji. Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 126, 2015.

PROFILES, ESSAYS, AND POLITICAL WRITING

Superbly Natural: Earth, Cosmos, and Secular Spirituality. Medium, April 11, 2023.

In the Trenches for Truth: Looking Back on the Career of Ithaca College’s Jeff Cohen. Ithaca Times (cover story), April 19, 2018.

Where’s a World Order When You Need One? The Anchorage Press and Peace Voice, April 18, 2020.

Randy Forsberg and the Quest for Peace on Earth. The Progressive, September 21, 2018.

The 1.6-Party System: When the Two Parties Add Up to Less Than the Sum of Their Factions. Reader Supported News, July 16, 2020.

I Am Become Death. Common Dreams, October 24, 2010.

Doomsday Clock Keeps Winding Down. The Progressive and Tribune News Service, January 29, 2020.

Dorothy Cotton. Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 152, 2019.

Edgar Daniel Nixon. Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 100, 2012.

Promotional blog (excerpts) for the documentary film Paul Goodman Changed My Life, directed by Jonathan S. Lee, 2011.

See here for my opinion pieces published on commondreams.org.

EDUCATIONAL WRITING

Industrialization, Labor, and Life. National Geographic Resource Library, January 27, 2020.

Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Modifications. National Geographic Resource Library, May 11, 2020.

Nativism. Immigration and Migration: In Context. Cengage Gale, 2018.

President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize. Historic Documents of 2009, CQ Press.

Jean Améry. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 342.

“Freya of the Seven Isles” by Joseph Conrad. Short Story Criticism, Vol. 219.

CRAZY WORDS, CRAZY TUNE & RADIO WORK

(Note my radio portfolio on this website!)

1945 Documentary Special, August 7, 2020. (Part Two here)

1920: Broadway Syncopates, December 11, 2020. (Part Two here)

“I Want to Talk for a Few Minutes About Banking”: 1933 Bank Crisis special, March 17, 2023.

This Day Is Ours: Radio Sundial, September 20, 2024.

Feeling For Life: Indonesian Music Special with Marty Hatch, January 26, 2024.

Juneteenth Special, June 19, 2020. (Part Two here)

Colin Hancock and the Missing Link of Rag-a-Jazz, September 25, 2020. (Part Two here)

The Animal Itself: Interview with Ithaca storyteller Jay Leeming. WRFI “Your Morning” show, March 13, 2020.

The Syncopators’ Thesis Defense. WRFI Community Radio News feature, May 1, 2019.

Time Machine: Recording Hot Jazz on Cylinder. WRFI Community Radio News feature, January 2, 2019.

WHEN HUMANISTS ATTACK!! PODCASTS AND VIDEO INTERVIEWS

Ari Honarvar: Gardens in the Friendship Desert. Podcast published September 25, 2023.

Anna Kelles: Power Is Responsibility; Human Health and Planet Health. Podcast published March 7, 2023.

Uriel Abulof: What Makes Us Human? Podcast published October 18, 2022.

Gail Holst-Warhaft: Greece With Gail. Podcast published August 26, 2022.

Jonathan Granoff: Humanism, Human Security, and Human Survival. Podcast published May 27, 2021.

HJ Evans: Escape From the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Published to YouTube March 19, 2021.

Citizen John Gastil: How Do We Democracy? Published to YouTube February 23, 2021.

Bill “Reverend Billy” Talen: Consume Everything Before It’s All Gone! Published to YouTube January 5, 2021.

Jeannette H. Porter: How Are You Doing? (But Don’t Actually Tell Me!): Mental Illness and How It Is Ignored in the USA. Published to YouTube December 4, 2020.

Lukas West: Transgenderism And You. Published to YouTube October 31, 2020.