It’s here… the Punk Scholars Podcast! Co-hosts and producers, Jessica Schwartz (UCLA) and Paul Hollins (Bolton), set out to explore the seemingly paradoxical role of punk (and punks) in the academy and break with oft-generalized dismissals by highlighting the pivotal contributions and necessary interventions made by punk scholarship.And, who better to kick off the first episode than Punk Scholars Network (PSN) founding members Mike Dines (Chair and Co-founder of the PSN) and Russ Bestley (Designer and Writer). Our two illustrious guests have been at the forefront of the formation and development of the PSN, and we get in deep about issues of institutional legitimacy and the absolute necessity of punk scholars’ (networked) camaraderie. Both informative and poignant, this inaugural episode of the Punk Scholars Podcast (PSP) sets the stage for what promises to be an educational, engaging, and dare we say entertaining first season! 

About Our Guests

Mike Dines is Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader of BA (Hons) Music at Middlesex University. He is Chair and co-founder of the Punk Scholars Network and Series Editor for the Global Punk Series with Intellect Books. He has written extensively on punk (specifically spirituality and Krishnacore), subcultures and New Age Travellers, with recent volumes including the co-edited Exploring the Spiritual in Popular Music: Beatified Beats (Bloomsbury, 2021) and Punk Identities, Punk Utopias: Global Punk and Media (Intellect 2021). He is Lead Editor of the ground-breaking The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies due for publication in 2025. He is an avid supporter of Portsmouth Football Club. For more information go here and here.

Dr. Russ Bestley is Reader in Graphic Design & Subcultures at London College of Communication. His areas of interest include graphic design, popular culture, subcultures, comedy and humour. He is Lead Editor of the academic journal Punk & Post-Punk, now in its thirteenth year, Series Editor and Art Director for the Global Punk book series published by Intellect Books and a founding member of the Punk Scholars Network. In 2013, he established the Graphic Subcultures research hub at the London College of Communication, before going on to form the UAL Subcultures Interest Group in 2022. For more information go here and here.

For more information on the Global Punk Series go here.