The Medium is the Mother

That title I put up there is rather intriguing, if I do say so myself, and we could explore the possibility of maternal media, beginning with Lewis Mumford's notion that container technologies specifically mimic feminine biological attributes, to the notion of the mother city, the idea of books as containers of knowledge, to the contemporary electronic media environment with its boob tubes, motherboards, and the matrix (aka womb).

But my purpose in this post is not to explore how the medium might be the mother, nor to discuss the mother of all media (the matrix?), but rather simply to present you with the link to a Mother's Day radio program that I participated in. And before you say, hey stupid, Mother's Day was last week, let me explain that, while the program aired on WFUV-FM on the day before Mother's Day, May 10, it was not made available online until this week.

I should add that WFUV is Fordham University's radio station, but it's not a typical college station, but rather a major public broadcaster in the New York City Metropolitan Area. From the website, you can access live streaming audio and also streaming audio archives, as well as download podcasts--click here for the listening options menu.

The program I appeared on is called Cityscape, which is described on the website as "An inside look at the people, places and spirit of New York City and its surroundings, with host George Bodarky." I should point out that George was one of our outstanding undergraduates back when I was a junior faculty member at Fordham, now he's an outstanding seasoned professional broadcaster, and it was a lot of fun to have him interview me for the program segment. I should also note that this was all set up by his producer, and my MA student, Rasheeda Winfield.

The program is described on the website as follows: "A special Mother's Day edition of Cityscape. Some New York City mothers talk about their daily challenges, a suburban mom talks about life as the lead vocalist of a rock band, and we explore the history of motherhood as seen through pop culture." Actually, the first segment involves mothers who blog, that is, are blogists (the term we established early on in the history of this blog). And my segment is specifically about television situation comedies.

And to be perfectly honest, the first segment with the mother-bloggers, oops, I mean mother-blogists, and the second with the mother-rocker, are the best part of the show. But there's also the third part with me, which is mildly entertaining. There doesn't seem to be a podcast available yet, but you can access the streaming archive if you click here.

Oh, mama, you're gonna like this! I hope...