Return the Key

Jewish Questions for Everyone

“We are all…the unchosen, but we are nevertheless unchosen together.” - Judith Butler

This is podcast in which Julie Carr and occasional cohosts interview artists, writers, activists, scholars, religious leaders and others, asking questions related to Jewish (and non-Jewish) themes, themes such as oneness and the one, time and the infinite, home and diaspora, return and renewal, knowing and unknowing, text and textuality, the idea of justice and the idea of love.

The original music is composed and performed by Ben Roberts.

Recording and editing at Interplay Recording & Multimedia in Boulder, Colorado.

Julie Carr is the author of 12 books of poetry and prose, including Climate, co-written with Lisa Olstein, Real Life: An Installation, Objects from a Borrowed Confession, and Someone Shot my Book. Earlier books include 100 Notes on ViolenceRAG, and Think Tank. Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2023. Underscore, a book of poems, is forthcoming from Omnidawn in 2024. Overflow, a trilogy, will be published sequentially over subsequent years.

Julie is a Professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder in English and Creative Writing, and is chair of the Women and Gender Studies department. With Tim Roberts she is the co-founder of Counterpath Press, Counterpath Gallery, and Counterpath Community Garden in Denver.

Benjamin Roberts is a cellist, fiddler, and composer from Denver, Colorado. Having studied classical performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music and folk improvisation at the New England Conservatory, he now lives in Boston where he performs primarily as part of the Boston Celtic music scene. Contact Ben here.


Episode #6: An Insurrection of Imaginaries: Nabil Echchaibi
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Episode #6: An Insurrection of Imaginaries: Nabil Echchaibi

Julie and Nabil talk about the challenge and honor of being part of a Jewish-Israeli-Arab-Palestinian faculty discussion group. Nabil describes his childhood in Morocco, the beautiful handwriting of a beloved father who died too young, the weight and detritus of colonization, and the power of multilingualism.

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Episode 1: Getting to Know Us: Julie Carr and Jason Lipeles
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Episode 1: Getting to Know Us: Julie Carr and Jason Lipeles

In this pilot episode of Return the Key, Jason and Julie interview each other about our friendship, the origins of the podcast, and our Jewish upbringings. We list our “Jewish themes,” read a bit from our recent writing, and ask each other to talk about the vexing ideas of “oneness” and “the chosen.”

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