The Detour

Each month, host Adam Davis and guests explore tough questions about how we live together. Conversations on The Detour connect ideas and personal experiences without looking for easy solutions. Here we find the path to understanding often takes unexpected turns.The Detour is produced by Oregon Humanities.

The Detour is a society podcast hosted by Oregon Humanities, with 63 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Oregon Humanities hosts The Detour, a society show with 63 episodes published.

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  Episode #10

  The Changing Roles of Religious Spaces

  Sep 1, 202659 minS5

  Wherever people live in Oregon, you are certain to come across churches. Sometimes you'll find mosques, synagogues, and other houses of worship, but as you'd expect in a majority Christian country, church buildings especially are everywhere. All these structures were built for a specific purpose, but with fewer and fewer people going to church, fewer and fewer are people using and paying for the upkeep of these buildings. In March of 2026, Brandon Rhodes, Amy Jane, and Frank So explored what's happening with these buildings in a conversation in La Grande, Oregon. The cover image for this episode is a photo by Curtis Gregory Perry of a church in Flora, Oregon.

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  Episode #8

  Beyond 250 with Wendy Willis and Nick Nash

  Jul 1, 202659 minS5

  With the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence just days away, we talk with two people who have been leading conversations about that anniversary in communities across Oregon. Wendy Willis runs Oregon's Kitchen Table and writes poetry and essays, including several pieces in Oregon Humanities magazine, and moved to Portland after growing up in Springfield. Nick Nash is from Pendleton and teaches philosophy and writing at Blue Mountain Community College.

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  Episode #7

  What Sports Are for with Jules Boykoff and Georgia Cloepfil

  May 29, 202653 minS5

  With the 2026 Men's World Cup right around the corner, we're thinking about soccer and sports: What does it feel like to play? And what does it take to play at a high level? We're thinking about not only the playing of sports, but also the business and the politics of sports, and about how sports—played, watched, and worked at—affect our bodies, our attention, and our communities. We talk first with Georgia Cloepfil, author of "The Striker and the Clock," on being in the game, and then with Jules Boykoff, author of "Kicking" and "Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine." Both Georgia and Jules have played at a professional level, and both speak and write thoughtfully and beautifully about the game and what it might mean in and for our lives.

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  Episode #6

  Work and Words with Lydia Kiesling, Nicholas Hengen Fox, and Jorge Herrera Caro

  May 1, 202653 minS5

  Summary for Labor.In celebration of International Workers' Day and in conjunction with the "Labor" issue of Oregon Humanities magazine, this episode of The Detour explores how work shapes our lives. What is work for? Are work and labor the same thing? And what, if anything, makes work meaningful? To get at these questions, we talk with three people who spend a lot of time thinking about labor and work. First, we speak with Lydia Kiesling, author of the novels "The Golden State" and "Mobility." Next, we talk to Nicholas Hengen Fox and Jorge Herrera Caro about Working Class Literature, the only class explicitly about class at Portland Community College.

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  Episode #5

  Stories that Change Us with Colum McCann and Nelson High School Students

  Apr 1, 202659 minS5

  In this episode we hear from Colum McCann, a National Book Award–winning novelist and cofounder of Narrative 4, a nonprofit organization that uses personal storytelling to build empathy between young people. Colum is Irish and lives in New York, and he joined us in February 2026 for a conversation about stories, national character, identity, and the 250th anniversary, of the Declaration of Independence. You'll also hear from Beyti, Jaylen, Uliana, Malaki, and Steve—five students at Adrienne C. Nelson High School in Happy Valley who participated in a storytelling workshop led by Narrative 4.

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