Jesse Dukes
Jesse Dukes is a journalist and comedian who has done (nearly) all the jobs in podcasting and audio including producer, editor, executive producer, reporter, mix engineer, and teacher. Along with other projects, He’s currently working with the Teaching System’s Lab at MIT on The Homework Machine, a research and podcasting project about the arrival of generative AI in schools. He has taught audio storytelling at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke and Denison University.
Podcast Production
Season 4 of Motive explored abusive behavior in the Illinois Prison System in 8 episodes. It won a Robert F. Kennedy Award
Curious City is Chicago’s long running series in which listeners ask questions about their city. Jesse was the producer from 2015-2020.
The The Nazi’s Neighborhood is a longform investigation for Curious City that won a National Headliner Award.
The Story Behind Go-Cubs-Go tells the story of folksinger Steve Goodman’s lifelong quest to write a song about the Chicago Cubs.
Jesse co-created (with Chris Bagg) Upper Middebrow, a podcast that examines high-craft works of popular culture. Jonathen Lethem recently called it “My new favorite podcast“, although we think he was being a bit glib.
Place + Memory: Remembering Dreamland is a short non-narrated documentary about an African-American swimming pool in Roanoke, Virginia, during segregation. Produced with Allison Swaim.
Entrepreneur is Jesse’s second ever audio story, about a man who digs for bloodworms to pay the bills. It was made at the Salt Institute for Documentary studies. Years later, it holds up
Editing
Jesse is the editor of Rediscovered Radio: Women and Music in the WYSO Archives, produced by the award winning station WYSO in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Jesse served as the editor and team leader for Curious City in the summer of 2022, leading the team in reporting and producing these episodes:
Birdwatching Off the Beaten Path
Writing
Jesse is a contributing editor at Virginia Quarterly Review.
Babu on the Bad Road investigates a faith healer in Tanzania who claimed to cure cancer, diabetes, and HIV-AIDS. Included in the Best American Traveling Writing Collection
Soundstage Tunisia visits the filming locations of the Star Wars films after the Arab Spring in the North African country.
Racial Covenants Helped Me Buy My House an essay exploring how some of the wealth that helped me become a homeowner came from racial covenants.
Lost Causes is an immersion in a community of Confederate re-enactors, who struggle to acknowledge the centrality of slavery and racism to the Confederacy.
Diamond Shoals Productions | Jesse Dukes 