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Listening with Respect: What Made Studs Terkel a Great Interviewer, via Truthout

weider

Recently, Alan Wieder, author of Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation, was interviewed by Mark Karlin, the editor of BuzzFlash at Truthout.org:

Explain Terkel’s impact as an oral historian on you and on the book and how it is written?

Studs Terkel liked to be amazed. He loved stories that took twists and turns and he loved to be surprised. But he also always surprised us. He had been an actor, both in theater and in radio soap operas. In the latter he always played a gangster who was either dead or in jail by the third episode. He listened because he always believed there could be wisdom in the room and he defined room very broadly. Studs had conversations on the bus, at the corner market, on the street, everywhere. People I interviewed talked about when Studs was engaged it was total….”

Read the interview in Truthout.org

Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission

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