Shoga Speaks: Recent Episodes
Robert Philipson
Join Filmmaker Dr. Robert Philipson as he explores the intersection of Black and Queer identities, Black-Jewish interrelations, and Music.
At the turn of the 20th century, African American artists faced a fundamental question: how could they prove their citizenship and claim their place in American culture? Historian and musician David Gilbert traces how the first generation of African American performers to crack Broadway effected this transformation.
Ernest Hogan named himself “the unbleached American.” Bert Williams and George Walker, marketed themselves as "the two real coons." Bob Cole and the Johnson Brothers transcended the coon genre entirely by writing sophisticated pop songs for white Broadway stars and crafting songs about Black romance that weren't sung for laughs.
Yet Gilbert confronts an uncomfortable truth: this topic is embarrassing, and most Americans would prefer to forget this era entirely. These artists walked an impossible line, and understanding their journey means confronting not just the ugliness of Jim Crow America but the echoes that still reverberate today.
Music
“Darktown is Out Tonight” - Will Marrion Cook
“Overture to ‘In Dahomey’” - Will Marrion Cook
“Under the Bamboo Tree” - Robert Cole and J. Rosamund Johnson
“You've Been A Good Old Wagon” - Ben Harney, Len Spencer
“You’ve Been A Good Old Wagon” - Ben Harney, Bessie Smith
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In 1896, Ernest Hogan's "All Coons Look Alike to Me" became the first song to sell a million copies in America, making him a star and setting off the "coon song craze"—an era in which African American performers and composers achieved unprecedented professional success while trafficking in the very stereotypes designed to undermine their citizenship. David Gilbert, a historian and musician, traces how coon songs emerged at the intersection of ragtime's rhythmic innovations and post-Reconstruction racial anxieties.
At its core, this is a story about the impossible bargains that Black artists had to make in an era of virulent racism—some of them achieving wealth, respect, and cultural influence by mastering the very forms designed to humiliate them, and finding within those constraints the seeds of a creative revolution that would eventually transform Broadway and American popular culture.
Music
“All Coons Look Alike To Me” – Kylan / ragtimerev
“Bully of the Town” – Holy Modal Rounders
“La Pas La Ma” – Kylan / ragtimerev
“On Emancipation Day” – William Brown
“Save Your Money ‘cause the Winter Am Coming On” – Clarice Vance
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My mother's first cousin, Marion Michelle, had grown up in the first decades of the 20th century chafing against the bourgeois restrictions of Cleveland Jewish society. She went to the University of Chicago where Thornton Wilder frightened her out of serious literary effort and learned photography. She also got involved with the Communists there as a result of a trip she had made to the Soviet Union. The combination of visual arts and left-wing politics fused into a determination to become a documentary filmmaker.
This ambition took her to New York where she worked for Paul Strand, Mexico, where she took photographs exhibited under the title, "Portraits By Marion Michelle and Man Ray." In Hollywood she met the man who was to determine the next five years of her life, Joris Ivens, the famous left-wing Dutch documentary filmmaker.
"Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin" details the adulterous passion that swept her into Ivens' exciting, nomadic, resolutely Communist world during and after World War II -- Hollywood, Australia, the new Soviet republics behind the Iron Curtain, and finally Paris.
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Our choice of pets says a lot about who we are … and we are all very different. There are cat people; there are dog people; there are bird people; there are reptile people and on and on. The famlly pet can mark a child’s development for better or worse, but if a dog or cat lives out the full term of its life, it is a part of that family for 12 or 14 or 19 years. These days most marriages don’t last that long.
Growing up in the relative innocence of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, the Philipson family dog — a female basset named Hamlet — progressed through the same stages of life as we did — puppyhood, socialization, taking place in the family constellation, motherhood … death. She even accompanied us on our two-year Paris sojourn.
And since we find ourselves in France, let us heed the wisdom of Anatole France. “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”
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The phrase "HIV Negative" implies the diagnosis "HIV positive," a precursor to the AIDS epidemic which decimated the gay male population in the 1980s and beyond. The stigma, still a force in some sectors of our society, delayed the mobilization for effective treatment when the epidemic first appeared in the early 80s. It took Ronald Reagan five years to even mention the word "AIDS," although the disease had been ravaging our community. His presidency set the tone of the national response: stigma and marginalization, insufficient funding, avoidance of public discussion, delays in research, funding, and education. As the epidemic conducted its scorched earth assault on gay America, the most at-risk population spun about in anger, despair, disbelief, and denial. The last of these, sanctioned by the federal attitude of indifference, was the deadliest. Victims participated not only in their own destruction but -- wittingly or no -- brought about the death of others. (Religious condemnation played its evil part as well.)
You might think that being HIV negative during the awful years before retrovirals made the disease a manageable condition rather than a death sentence felt like a deliverance, but you'd be wrong. "HIV Negative" portrays the terrible toll the disease took on all of us through the lens of a prequel to our short, "The Knowing." It covers the span of time from the early 80s, the honeymoon of Adam and Peter in first love and ignorance of the disaster that was about to befall, to the end of the decade which saw the dissolution of their relationship, the descent of catastrophe on their community, and their differing responses.
And yet, it is not a tale of unrelieved darkness. The bond between the two ex-lovers remains.
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This episode explores the life and legacy of actor John Garfield (born Julius Garfinkel), focusing on how his Jewish roots shaped his identity, artistic choices, and political stance. Journalist Robert Nott, author of He Ran All the Way: The Life of John Garfield, recounts Garfield’s upbringing on New York’s Lower East Side, among Jewish immigrant poverty, and strict religious expectations. Rejecting his Orthodox father’s path, Garfield turned to acting, eventually joining the leftist Group Theater—a hub of Jewish-American creativity and political activism.
Garfield’s performances in the play Golden Boy and the movies Body and Soul, and Gentleman’s Agreement reflect recurring themes: the immigrant struggle, the lure of the American Dream, and resistance to systemic injustice. Body and Soul—produced independently—blended his real-life experiences with a fictional reworking of the biography of the famous Jewish boxer Barney Ross. Despite facing the Hollywood blacklist and pressure from HUAC during the Red Scare, Garfield refused to name names, an act of integrity that prematurely ended his acting career and possibly his life (he died at the age of 39) but one that was rooted in his cultural and moral upbringing.
Garfield, though not religiously observant, remained culturally Jewish, embodying a complex, deeply American Jewish identity in both life and art.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Guest Info
Robert Nott, Author, “He Ran All the Way: The Life of John Garfield (2003)”Robert Nott is an arts and entertainment writer for The Santa Fe New Mexican
Resources
Books
Nott, Robert. He Ran All the Way: The Life of John Garfield.
Plays and Movies
Odets, Clifford. Waiting for Lefty
Odets, Clifford. Awake and Sing
Odets, Clifford. Golden Boy.
20th Century Fox, Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
Hollywood Backstories: Gentlemen’s Agreement
Music
“Body and Soul” - Sarah Vaughan
“Happy Days are Here Again” - Barbra Streisand
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In the conclusion of The Artificial Grandma, Dr. Robert Philipson continues his journey through post-college drift, emotional illness, and the disillusionment of returning home. Set against the backdrop of a failed commune dream, an acid-laced revelation, and the oppressive weight of family history, Philipson navigates his internal crisis from the smoggy mountaintops of Southern California back to the bedroom of his childhood home in Pasadena.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Music
“Fun Fun Fun” - Beach Boys
“Four Strong Winds” - Ian & Sylvia
"Nuvole Bianche" - Ludovico Einaudi
"New World Symphony Scherzo" - Antonin Dvorak
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Dr. Robert Philipson reflects on the emotional limbo of post-college life in 1970s Pasadena, where returning home sparks a spiral of depression, existential doubt, and a search for meaning. Amid the decay of suburban sprawl and family disconnection, a psychedelic night with friends offers a vision of communal living rooted in shared purpose and simplicity. Philipson explores internal disillusionment with the external collapse of American ideals, crafting a powerful meditation on adulthood, authenticity, and the yearning to build a life beyond inherited expectations.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Music
“Yesterday Once More” - The Carpenters
“Time (Darkside)” - Pink Floyd & Tom Stoppard
“I’m Fixing a Hole” - The London Starlight Orchestra
“Sunshine Superman” - Donovan
“Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, B.178: III Scherzo” - London Symphony Orchestra
“Aubrey” - Bread
“Big Yellow Taxi” - Joni Mitchell
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Host Dr. Robert Philipson reflects on the life of his maternal grandmother, Jeanette, tracing a family legacy shaped by mismatched love, unspoken expectations, and the emotional weight of generational silence. From her immigrant roots and ill-fated marriage to her slow decline into senility, Jeanette’s story becomes a lens through which Dr. Philipson explores maternal power, cultural identity, social aspiration, and the personal cost of dreams deferred. With wit, sorrow, and deep insight, he unpacks how the stories we inherit shape who we become.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
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Music:
"21 Hungarian Dances, WoO 1: No. 11 in D Minor" – Johannes Brahms / Budapest Symphony Orchestra
"Symphony No. 7" – Ludwig van Beethoven / Bernard Haitink, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
"Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 66" – Frédéric Chopin / Nikita Magaloff
"I'm Always Chasing Rainbows (Instrumental Version)" –Ivy Ravenwood
"I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" – Karrin Allyson
"Old Folks" – John Denver
"I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" – Judy Garland
"Les Vieux" – Karaoké Playback Français
"When You Are In Love" – Mario Lanza
"Stouthearted Men" - Mila Magno
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Dr. Robert Philipson reflects on the layered history and personal meaning of his childhood home in Southern California, weaving together Indigenous displacement, colonial conquest, and postwar suburban life. As he moves room by room through The Old House, Philipson unpacks memories of joy, loneliness, family ritual, and quiet grief, transforming the house into a central character in a story about belonging, loss, and the passage of time. A meditation on memory and change, this episode speaks to anyone who has tried to hold on to the past while facing the inevitability of letting go.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
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Music:
"A House is Not A Home" - Luther Vandross
"Home in Pasadena" - Tony Martin
"The Folks Who Live on the Hill" - Peggy Lee
"This Ole House" - Bette Midler
"El Rey" - Vicente Fernández
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In this episode, Dr. Robert Philipson interviews Mona Smith, Canada Lee's biographer, about the rise, political assassination, and virtual erasure of this African American hero. From 1934 to 1951, Canada Lee was the most famous and revered Black actor of his day, associated -- and frequently starring -- with every landmark African American Broadway production. He broke barriers again and again by being cast in non-Black productions. Despite this, Canada Lee is virtually unknown. They discuss how his early death at the age of 45 is tied to the blacklist of the postwar Red Scare which also buried his achievements.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Guest Info
Mona Smith Mona Smith is the author of Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee. She is a playwright, screenwriter, and former newspaper reporter. She is also a consultant to nonprofits and teaches theater and writing.
Music
“I Can’t Breathe” - H.E.R
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In this episode of Shoga Speaks, Dr. Robert Philipson interviews author Doug Century about his biography Barney Ross: The Life of a Jewish Fighter, exploring the extraordinary life of Barney Ross—a Jewish boxing champion, World War II hero, and outspoken recovering addict. Born Dov-Ber Rosofsky in an Orthodox household, Ross rose from Chicago’s Jewish ghetto to become a national sports icon in the 1930s, defeating opponents in matches that symbolized resistance amid the rise of Nazi Germany. Century traces Ross’s evolution from the ring to the battlefield at Guadalcanal, where he became a decorated Marine, and later to his public struggle with heroin addiction and advocacy for drug policy reform. The episode also touches on Ross’s Hollywood ties, failed biopic, covert support for Israel’s founding, and his fading place in Jewish American memory—offering a rich portrait of resilience, identity, and legacy.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson
Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Guest Info
Doug Century
Doug Century is a journalist and the author of Barney Ross: The Life of a Jewish Fighter.douglascentury.com
Music
“Echoes of Sinai” - WAYA & Cafe De Anatolia
“There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” - Bessie Smith
“Boogie Boogie Bugle Boy” - The Andrews Sisters
“You’se a Viper” - Stuff Smith & His Onyx Club Boys
“Hooray for Hollywood” - Johnny Mercer, Dick Powell, Frances Langford, Johnny Davis, Gene Krupa
“Kaddish” - Rachel Hyman
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Host Dr. Robert Philipson guides listeners through a lyrical meditation on memory, identity, and the lasting imprint of Paris. Framed by a moment of reflection on the banks of the Oubangui River in the Central African Republic, Philipson recalls the two years of his childhood spent in Paris—an experience that profoundly shaped both him and his mother, despite their outward return to American life. The episode captures the sometimes bittersweet reality of living with beauty, displacement, and the “Baudelairean longing for ailleurs” (elsewhere). As Paris fades into the past, it emerges again—through memory, art, and the riverbank reverie—as a defining and indelible presence.
Host Info:
Dr. Robert Philipson
Former professor of African-American studies and Harlem Renaissance scholar. Filmmaker and founder of Shoga Films, with a focus on the intersection of race, sexuality, and culture.
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Music
"J'ai Deux Amours" - Josephine Baker
"Easter" - Francis Bebey
"À la claire fontaine" - Baby Petons
"À La Tour Eiffel" - Melody Gardot & Philippe Powell
"Les rues de Paris" - Nicolas Godin
"Les Champs-Elysées" - Joe Dassin
"Sous Le Ciel De Paris" - Karrin Allyson
"Camille" - George Delerue
"Flower Duet from Lakmé" - Leo Delibes
"J'ai Deux Amours" - Dario Muller
"Les Champs-Elysée" - Igor Baranovskiy
"Sous le Ciel de Paris" - Rustem Mustafin
"Sous le Ciel de Paris" - Yves Montand
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Sam and Daniel are in Israel, circa 1969. They are on a kibbutz, learning Hebrew in the morning and working for their room and board in the afternoon. Sam follows Daniel in his effort to deepen his Jewish identity. They go to Mount Tabor, site of a battle between the Israelites and the Canaanites, spend a weekend at a Chassidic yeshiva where Daniel is ardently proselytized by a recent convert. Finally they make pilgrimage to the Western Wall, the holiest shrine in Judaism, where Sam confronts his Jewish destiny. And still the revelations are not over because the first-person narrator -- me -- discovers the real motivation behind the writing.
It may not be what you think. It certainly wasn't what I thought at the time. "Even the outpouring of my story had been an act of cowardice. I had written what green authors so often write about, a territory so worn and worked over that it could serve only as an apprenticeship."
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Music
“Theme of Exodus” Ernest Gold
“He AIn’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” - The Hollies
“Jerusalem of Gold” - Ofra Haza
“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” - U2
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America 1968. Everything was up for grabs. All passion and creativity seemed to gush from the counterculture. "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven." I was young, 18, and enrolled as an undergraduate in the fourth year of the great experimental campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz. The spirit of the 60s was everywhere, in our music and our politics. and our firm belief that the Establishment promoting the war in Vietnam and threatening us with the coercion of the draft was so wrongheaded that it would have to collapse in its own excrement.
Out of this oppositional stew of radical politics, how did I, a thoroughly assimilated Jew with an identity I could barely point to, end up in a slide towards Israel? In this first part of "A Salvage Job," you will meet the barefooted young man dancing the hora in the picture above. It's his fault.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Music
"Am Yisrael Chai" - Eyal Golan
"Hinei Ma Tov" - Canto Hebraico
“For What It’s Worth” - Buffalo Springfield
"Hatikvah(התקווה) Across the Globe - Acapella Israeli Anthem for Hope" - Various Artists
"Am Yisrael Chai" - Shlomo Carlebach
“Mama Told Me (Not To Come)” - Three Dog Night
“The End” - The Beatles
"Where is Love" - Acapella Arrangement from Oliver!
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What's in a bedtime story? More than you might imagine. As we were growing up, my father introduced his version of imaginary creatures, the goops, into our household and family life. Created as negative role models to teach manners to Victorian children, the goops first saw life in books of moralistic doggerel published in 1900 and after. "But it was their bad behavior that led my father to adopt them for his own." In this episode you will also be treated to one of my father's Prince Bagel stories, a world he invented whole cloth for his children as we piled on our parents' beds to listen in wonderment.
"This was the mystery of the goops, and, in fact, the mystery that I never had understood about storytelling before. The goops did not spring ex nihilo from my father's head. They were an expression of his love. The stories were told to somebody."
Best to listen to this episode in your jammies.
Host Info
Hosted by Dr. Robert Philipson Robert is a former professor of African-American studies with a passion for jazz and art. A published author and Harlem Renaissance historian, he has produced multiple films about the intersectionality of race, music, and sexuality.
Music
“Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)” - Billy Joel
“Gymnopédie No. 3” - Martin Hederos
"My Blue Heaven" - Artie Shaw
"Spiegel im Spiegel" - Arvo Pärt
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Dr. Philipson interviews playwright and lesbian activist Jewelle Gomez about the life of the famous blues singer, Alberta Hunter, and the play Jewelle wrote based on that life.
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"I have concluded from the melancholy nature of my subsequent development that the artifacts hung up on a child's wall can have a permanent effect on his life."
So begins the essay on the role the Art played in my formation, an evolution spanning Southern California, France, the groovy Sixties, Africa. "Still Life" will reveal the malefic influence of "the original Joe Vogel," plumb the mysteries of “Ten Nights in a Barrel,” revel in the salvation of Dutch realism -- and picture this, so much more!
If you didn't grow up in a family of visual artists or art collectors, the prints and paintings that adorned the walls of your house were probably reproductions of the Beautiful (landscapes! Impressionist paintings! photographs from that amazing trip to South America!). What effect might this art which you took in consciously or not every day have upon whatever taste you developed as you became your own person? Welcome to the Philipson Museum of Eclectic and Accidental Art!
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Christian, Jew, or undeclared, all are subjected to the music, the rituals, the legacy of the Victorian Christmas which exercises an annual month-long grip on American culture. How can one not be warped, influenced, sentimentalized by this slow-motion avalanche. We can take "Christ" out of Christmas, but we cannot remove it from our hearts.
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Meet Doris Hale, the most intimate and important African American that my famlly knew and trusted, in her own words. Dr. Philipson conducted and transcribed the interview back in the early 90s. In anticipation of releasing the manuscript of the family memoir, we present certain chapters as podcasts performed by voice actors. "Skinny" was recorded and mixed by Joyce Licorish.
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The topic is an exposition of my diffuse yet distinct identity as a non-practicing Jew, as the son of non-practicing Jews, and as the great-nephew of the once-famous Rabbi David Philipson, one of the first Reform rabbis to be educated and ordained in America. Where does Shylock fit in? You know who he is; everyone knows who he is. If he figures in your mental landscape, whether you’re familiar with the Shakespeare play or not, imagine how he looms for the Jew?
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Dave Drexler of the San Diego's Jazz88.3 FM conducted an interview with Dr. Robert Philipson when his documentary, "Body and Soul: An American Bridge" was selected as the closing night offering of the San Diego Jewish Film Festival and was watched by over 1000 people. Philipson discusses the composition of the song "Body and Soul" by Jewish composer Johnny Green in 1930. He then uses the early performance history of this most-recorded of jazz standards to unfold the various aspects of Black-Jewish interrelations in popular music. As in the film, the contributions of Libby Holman, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson are examined in some detail. Drexler ends the interview by asking Dr. Philipson about the film's reception and what challenges he faced in its making.
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In 2019, the Netflix adaptation of the August Wilson play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, spread her fame to tens of thousands of Americans. The film starred Viola Davis as the bisexual blues diva and enshrined Chadwick Boseman's final performance before his untimely death to cancer.
In a blog post I wrote about the film at the time, I prophesied that Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman would be nominated for numerous acting awards, that kudos would flood to all involved but that there would be little discussion of the complexities of Ma's sexuality."
Our new Shoga Speaks podcast, "Our Queer Feminist Take on Netflix's Ma Rainey," finally gives this neglected aspect a full and fascinating airing. Dr. Philipson dialogues with Natasha Johnson, a Black queer activist currently crusading against female genital mutilation, about the source of Ma Rainey's power, the complex and nuanced depiction of her relationship with her girl-toy Dussie Mae, and the inspiration that Natasha herself takes from this early and at-that-time (1984) unique depiction of a Black queer woman fully in control of her world.
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Shoga Founder Dr. Robert Philipson holds a dialogue with African American composer Ozie Cargile about the possibilities of Black classical music. Find out what an orchestra "hit" is.
Shoga Founder Dr. Robert Philipson discusses the question, "Can Classical Music Be Black" with African American composer Ozie Cargile. Does there need to be something recognizably “Black” in classical music compositions by Black composers? Indeed is there anything “Black” about the classical music tradition or is it, as Dr. Philipson contends, a white preserve fiercely defended as such by white conductors, impresarios, music critics and other gatekeepers of High Culture. Ozie Cargile urges us to look beyond the too-familiar narrative of African Americans overcoming white resistance. This is a story told all too often and one that robs agency and inspiration from African Americans themselves.