Ann Towns

The Hayseed Scholar Podcast

Professor Ann Towns of the University of Gothenburg visits the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Towns grew up in Sweden, and was interested in playing music and especially performing classical music as a child. But by the time she was in high school, she wanted to broaden her horizons, and get out of not only her town but Sweden. That led her to Kansas, where she finished high school in an exchange program. She lived outside of a small town, and she reflects on the different contexts in the rural US compared to Sweden - religion, expectations on teenagers, and the social environment of that time and place. She went to Nebraska for undergraduate, and she talks about the classes she took, the music scene in Lincoln, and what she wanted to do after college. Professor Towns traveled to Peru after college, and ended up working for an NGO that helped those who suffered from political violence. She talks about going to the Univ of Minnesota for graduate school, some post-docs she took after her PhD, going on the market and working at the University of Delaware, her experience at the ISA-Northeast Circle in 2009, and then eventually going back to Sweden where she is now. She concludes with how she approaches writing, what she does to decompress, and more!