About
In cooperation with radio stations and independent producers in the U.S. and Germany, the Goethe-Institut created the transatlantic podcast THE BIG PONDER. We invite listeners to reflect on abstract ideas and phenomena through hyper-local stories. Each topic is explored from a transatlantic perspective: do the U.S. and Germany share the same values? What divides us? What unites us?
In addition to telling great stories, THE BIG PONDER further strengthened the transatlantic network of journalists and podcasters through close collaborations with radio stations and partners on both sides of the pond. We are especially thankful for the support from our friends at the Bertelsmann Foundation, rbbKultur, and the RIAS Berlin Kommission.
Episodes are available on this website and your favorite podcast apps. For more information, visit How to Listen. We also teamed up with Public Radio Exchange (PRX) to make our episodes available to radio stations for broadcast in the U.S.
Together, the Goethe-Institut and rbbKultur released an eight-part German-language adaptation of THE BIG PONDER. The German edition of the series was recorded at rbb’s studios in Berlin and features the episodes: “Brieffreunde – My Pen Pal,” “Über die Freundschaft – In Friendship,” “Flaggen – Flags,” “Little America,” “The Diner,” “Zuhause – Home,” “Das Tagebuch – The Diary,” and “Über die Stille – Quietude.”
In addition to telling great stories, THE BIG PONDER further strengthened the transatlantic network of journalists and podcasters through close collaborations with radio stations and partners on both sides of the pond. We are especially thankful for the support from our friends at the Bertelsmann Foundation, rbbKultur, and the RIAS Berlin Kommission.
Episodes are available on this website and your favorite podcast apps. For more information, visit How to Listen. We also teamed up with Public Radio Exchange (PRX) to make our episodes available to radio stations for broadcast in the U.S.
Together, the Goethe-Institut and rbbKultur released an eight-part German-language adaptation of THE BIG PONDER. The German edition of the series was recorded at rbb’s studios in Berlin and features the episodes: “Brieffreunde – My Pen Pal,” “Über die Freundschaft – In Friendship,” “Flaggen – Flags,” “Little America,” “The Diner,” “Zuhause – Home,” “Das Tagebuch – The Diary,” and “Über die Stille – Quietude.”
Stay Up to Date
Contact
Do you have questions? Want to tell us about your favorite episode? We’d love to hear from you: Savannah.Beck@goethe.de
Producers
Nathaniel Brimmer-Beller
is the founder and artistic director of Black Bat Productions and the host of the podcast “Playing Favorites.” He is originally from Washington, D.C., but now lives and works in London. He has fond memories of visiting the Berlin Zoo.
Nathaniel’s episode: The Zoo
Scott Carrier
is an American writer, radio producer, and lecturer. His work has appeared on programs like “This American Life” and “All Things Considered,” among others.
Scott’s epiosode: Ball Bearings
Sylvia Cunningham
moved to Germany from New York City in 2017 and has been making radio in Berlin ever since. At KCRW Berlin, she made English-language programming for listeners in the German capital.
Sylvia’s episodes: I Love You, I Hate You, Little America Revisited
Katie Davis
is a writer and producer living in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “This American Life.” In her pieces for the Goethe-Institut, Katie has covered a range of German-American subjects, including the photographer Volkmar Wentzel and the judge Thomas Buergenthal.
Katie’s episode: Anatomy of an Apology
Susannah Edelbaum
lived in New York for years. In 2014, she opted for a change of scenery, moving to Germany along with her cat. She is now based in Berlin where she works as a freelance writer and occasional translator. Find out more on her website.
Susannah’s episode: Encounters, Firsts
Dina Elsayed
is a Berlin-based multimedia producer and editor. She started her journalism career in 2012 as a producer for NPR in Cairo. She is currently the senior producer of the weekly podcast “Common Ground.”
Dina’s episodes: The Diary, Humor, Street Names
Moritz Gerlach
is a journalist from Hamburg, Germany. Typically, he writes for print publications, but sometimes he writes online articles. In 2019, Moritz spent a month in New York City where he saw the Jets play and grabbed a hot dog in Coney Island. Find out more on his website.
Moritz’s episode: Hunting
Melissa Gerr
lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and captures sounds and stories in the world around her. Her previous pieces for the Goethe-Institut have profiled mothers in Germany and the U.S. and the congregation at Zion Lutheran Church. Find out more about her work here.
Melissa’s episodes: Wonder, Community
Florenz Gilly
is a freelance reporter based out of Berlin and the producer of the podcast “This is Ithaca.” During a year abroad at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, he covered local news for the town’s radio station WVBR.
Florenz’s episodes: The Diner, Airlines
Leon Ginzel
works as a freelance reporter for various German radio stations and is the co-host of the podcast “Doppelspitze.” In 2019, Leon did a traineeship at KUOW in Seattle through the RIAS Berlin Kommission.
Leon’s episodes: The Diner, Airlines
Sally McGrane
is a journalist who writes for publications like “The New York Times,” “New Yorker Magazine,” and “Die Zeit.” Nowadays, she lives in Berlin with her little German-American family. She also wrote the spy novel “Moscow at Midnight.”
Sally’s episodes: The Mom-and-Pop Store, Cartoons, Beer
Cariad Harmon
is an independent radio producer, writer, and musician. Originally from Great Britain, she now resides in Nashville, Tennessee. These days, she prefers making stories to making music, focusing on the ties that bind us together and pull us apart. Find out more on her website.
Cariad’s episodes: Record Booth, Road Trip, Hidden History
Erica Heilman
is the host and producer of the podcast series “Rumble Strip” and a member of the audio collective Hub and Spoke. For her podcast, she invites herself into people’s homes to unveil the vivid stories of their everyday lives.
Erica’s episode: The Farm
Michael Hobbes
is a freelance journalist and co-host of the podcast “Maintenance Phase.” He is from Seattle but now lives in Berlin.
Michael’s episode: Happiness
Ayosha Kortlang
is a Berlin-based designer who works on applied research and design projects within a social and cultural context. He is the founder of THF Radio and a co-founder of Torhaus Berlin e.V.
Ayosha’s episode: Housing
Jakob Lewis
is the creative director of Great Feeling Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. He was born in Germany while his father was stationed there with the military. Although he left Germany as a baby, his interest in the country has remained strong.
Jakob’s episodes: The Garden, My Pen Pal, The Typewriter
Katie Marquette
is an independent producer living in the rural countryside of Maryland. She has worked on many public radio programs for Baltimore’s WYPR. Growing up, Katie lived with a series of German au pairs. Find out more about her work at bornofwonder.com.
Katie’s episode: The Night
Jim McKee
studied music at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music and the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College. In the ’80s and ’90s, he worked on “Hörspiel/USA,” a German-American radio project. Jim co-founded and owns Earwax Productions.
Jim’s episode: Listening
Carol McKinley
is a journalist with over 40 years of experience. She lives in Colorado with her husband, her mom, and her French bulldog. Carol grew up in Wiesbaden, Germany, in the ’70s and says that German culture is still one of her greatest passions.
Carol’s episodes: Candy, Sacred Self
Monika Müller-Kroll
has lived around the world in cities like Amsterdam and Los Angeles, producing radio stories for various German public radio networks. She is currently an editor and radio producer in Berlin. At KCRW Berlin, she produced English-language radio for the German capital.
Monika’s episodes: I Love You, I Hate You, Little America Revisited, The Diary, Encounters, Firsts
Soraya Nelson
is a veteran journalist and host of the podcast “Common Ground.” Previously, she acted as the program director at KCRW Berlin, where she made English-language programming for listeners in the German capital. Originally from the U.S., she spent 13 years with NPR as an international correspondent, living in Kabul, Cairo, and Berlin.
Soraya’s episodes: Humor, Street Names
Alex van Oss
has been a reporter and producer for four decades, for NPR and other networks. From 2003 to 2014, he coordinated Caucasus Area Studies for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. Alex once played the part of German playwright Bertolt Brecht in a high school theater production.
Alex’s episode: How Buildings Mean
Nancy Pettinicchio
is a filmmaker and podcaster from Montreal. Her work focuses on feminist and queer perspectives. She is currently working on the podcast series “Ce que le corps raconte.” Find out more on her website.
Nancy’s episode: Immersion
Bilal Qureshi
is a radio journalist and culture writer whose work has appeared on NPR and in “The New York Times,” “The Washington Post,” “Newsweek,” and “Film Quarterly.” From 2011 to 2012, Bilal was based in Berlin and Munich as a transatlantic fellow of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
Bilal’s episodes: Radio Wanderlust, In Friendship, Winterreise
Jocelyn Robinson
is an educator, independent producer, and radio preservationist based in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In 2019, Jocelyn traveled to Berlin with the Goethe-Institut program “Radiobrücke Reversed” where she visited the German radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur. Find out more about her work on her website.
Jocelyn’s episodes: The Flag, Home, Grief
Harald Rumpf
is a cinematographer and photographer from Southwest Germany. He has made many films, including “Hip Hop: A Tale From the Hood,” which follows the story of two rappers in New York City.
Harald’s episode: The Street
Axel Scheele
is a musician and podcast producer based in Berlin, where he lives with his German-American family. He produced the German-language children’s podcast “Ollarikchen,” read by actress Katharina Thalbach. Find out more about his work on his website.
Axel’s episodes: The Mom-and-Pop Store, Cartoons, Beer
Tomma Suki
is a Berlin-based designer who likes to engage with people, colors, and imagination in her work. In 2019, she co-founded Torhaus Berlin e.V.
Tomma’s episode: Housing
Tosca Terán
is an interdisciplinary artist whose work uses biodata-sonification from fungi. Her art has been featured at institutions like MOCA Toronto, The Ontario Science Centre, and the Raindance Film Festival. Find out more on her website.
Tosca’s episode: Sounds of Nature
Team
Verena Hütter
works out of Washington, D.C. as the director of communications for the Goethe-Institut in North America. Before that, she lived in Munich, Germany. Follow her on Instagram at ead.weard.
Savannah Beck
is the online editor at the Goethe-Institut Washington. She’s originally from Florida, but spent a year abroad in Essen, Germany during high school. Follow her on Instagram at slo_beck.
Jenny Marrenbach
is a radio maker and editor from Berlin, Germany. Her first experience in the U.S. was as a 16-year-old exchange student in North Dakota. She’s producing the German version of THE BIG PONDER for rbbKultur.
William Gilcher
worked on electronic media projects for the Goethe-Institut Washington for years. Bill lives in Maryland and keeps in touch with his German heritage through his work in the cultural sector. He is the founder of Harmonia Band Communications LLC and the editor of the English-language episodes of THE BIG PONDER.
Dario Radišić
specializes in cultural studies and works in Berlin as a freelance author, editor, and project manager. Dario has a minor in American Studies and has been to the East Coast a few times. He looks after the website and coordinates the distribution of THE BIG PONDER.
Nicola Hofstetter
is originally from Munich, but now lives in Virginia with her German-American family. She is responsible for social media and digital communications at the Goethe-Institut Washington. Find out more at nikkioutwest.com.
Flawn Williams
is the technical director of THE BIG PONDER. Flawn spent decades making programs for NPR and teaching audio journalism and music recording at Georgetown University. Growing up, Flawn briefly lived in Germany while his father was stationed there with the U.S. Army. Now, he lives in Maryland.
Our Partners
The Bertelsmann Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to a strong and lasting transatlantic relationship.
rbbKultur is part of Radio Berlin Brandenburg, a national public broadcasting station for the German states of Berlin and Brandenburg. They produced the German-language episodes of THE BIG PONDER.
RIAS Berlin Kommission is a transatlantic exchange program for broadcast journalists from the U.S. and Germany that was founded in 1992. Today, there are over 1,800 alumni of the program.
