Soulthrum: Underlight is a voices-only public humanities audio series about women who author inside or against constraint, primarily from the 1960s–80s. Each episode is a crafted oral history that treats voice and language as the primary instruments: no archival film or TV clips, no host monologues over music—only lived testimony, careful description, and sourced paraphrase.
The first cycle, Underlight, is a 12–13 episode season tracing how women turned confinement, typecasting, and erasure into new cinematic force. Core studies include figures such as Karen Black, Susan Tyrrell, Shelley Duvall, Meiko Kaji, Cookie Mueller, Tura Satana, Silvana Mangano, Smita Patil, Eartha Kitt, Delphine Seyrig, Giulietta Masina, and Edith Scob, with each episode focusing on a specific axis of craft (for example: Improvisation as Architecture, Permeability as Method, Silence as Blade, Compassion as Rebellion).
Parallel to the core season, I’m building focused tribute pieces in partnership with cultural organizations—for example, Myrna Loy — Wit as Equilibrium, co-presented with The Myrna Loy in Helena, MT.
Method and ethic:
– Voices-only: sessions are recorded remotely or with local engineers; in the final cut, only the guest’s or reader’s voice remains.
– Contributor agency: participants receive a full transcript and finished audio for review and can request changes or veto material.
– Rights & usage: licenses are non-exclusive and rights-light; no ads or sponsor copy appear inside the editorial audio.
– Editorial guardrails: no gossip; biography appears only when it illuminates emotional and artistic architecture. True silences are retained; music (if any) appears briefly between sections, never under speech.
Episodes are presented via a free public podcast feed and project website, accompanied by transcripts/captions and a short educator one-pager (learning goals, 2–3 discussion prompts, and citations). Selected pieces are also designed to work in listening spaces at museums, libraries, cinematheques, and festivals.