About Stephen Hausmann

Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is an assistant professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and is the Assistant Director of the American Society for Environmental History.

NBN Episodes hosted by Stephen:

Sarah Keyes, "American Burial Ground: A New History of the Overland Trail" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

February 25, 2024

American Burial Ground

Sarah Keyes
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The Overland Trail into the American West is one of the most culturally recognizable symbols of the American past: white covered wagons traversing the…

Marc Arsell Robinson, "Washington State Rising: Black Power on Campus in the Pacific Northwest" (NYU Press, 2023)

February 2, 2024

Washington State Rising

Marc Arsell Robinson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

In the late 1960s, as the United States was wracked by protests, assassinations, and political unrest, students in Washington State seized the moment.…

Charlotte Coté, "A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast" (U Washington Press, 2022)

January 30, 2024

A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other

Charlotte Coté
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Food is at the center of everything, writes University of Washington professor of American Indian Studies Charlotte Coté. In A Drum in One Hand, A Soc…

Robert Michael Morrissey, "People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America" (U Washington Press, 2022)

January 10, 2024

People of the Ecotone

Robert Michael Morrissey
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

By putting the Midwest at the center of Vast Early America, University of Illinois historian Robert Morrissey reconfigures the power dynamics in the s…

Peter Richardson, "Savage Journey: Hunter S. Thompson and the Weird Road to Gonzo" (U California Press, 2022)

December 15, 2023

Savage Journey

Peter Richardson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Hunter S. Thompson was never a hippie, but his writing nonetheless helped define the counterculture and the San Francisco scene of the 1960s and early…

Lindsey Claire Smith, "Urban Homelands: Writing the Native City from Oklahoma" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

December 10, 2023

Urban Homelands

Lindsey Claire Smith
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

What do Tulsa, Santa Fe, and New Orleans have in common? When viewed from the perspective of Indigenous arts and culture, the answer is quite a bit. I…

Mia Mask, "Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

November 24, 2023

Black Rodeo

Mia Mask
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Did you know Sidney Poitier was a western icon? In a genre best known for John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, African American actors and directors have pl…

William S. Kiser, "Illusions of Empire: The Civil War and Reconstruction in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)

November 23, 2023

Illusions of Empire

William S. Kiser
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The 19th-century Mexican-American borderlands were a complicated place. By the 1860s, Confederates, Americans, Mexicans, French, and various Native so…

Michael Welsh, "Big Bend National Park: Mexico, the United States, and a Borderland Ecosystem" (U Nevada Press, 2021)

October 22, 2023

Big Bend National Park

Michael Welsh
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

National Parks are sites where politics, cultures, and ecology converge. University of Northern Colorado historian Michael Welsh argues that, at Big B…

Sheila McManus, "Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West" (Texas A&M UP, 2022)

October 11, 2023

Both Sides Now

Sheila McManus
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

Are borders real? This is the question at the center of Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West (Texas A&M UP, 2022) by Lethbridg…

Michelle K. Berry, "Cow Talk: Work, Ecology, and Range Cattle Ranchers in the Postwar Mountain West" (U Oklahoma Press, 2023)

September 26, 2023

Cow Talk

Michelle K. Berry
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

How did ranching become an identity? University of Arizona historian Michelle Berry explains in Cow Talk: Work, Ecology, and Western Ranchers in the P…

Josephine Lee, "Oriental, Black, and White: The Formation of Racial Habits in American Theater" (UNC Press, 2022)

September 11, 2023

Oriental, Black, and White

Josephine Lee
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

The history of race in American theater is more complicated than you might think, writes Dr. Josephine Lee in Oriental, Black, and White: The Formatio…

Stephen Aron, "Peace and Friendship: An Alternative History of the American West" (Oxford UP, 2022)

August 18, 2023

Peace and Friendship

Stephen Aron
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

The history of the American West has typically been told in one of two ways: as triumph, or as tragedy. Stephen Aron, accomplished scholar of the West…

Erika Marie Bsumek, "The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructures of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau" (U Texas Press, 2023)

August 6, 2023

The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam

Erika Marie Bsumek
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River provides electricity for some forty million people, and is one of the largest sources of water in the Americ…

John M. Findlay, "The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

July 24, 2023

The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000

John M. Findlay
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

At the end of the 1930s, the West was in peril. A cultural and economic backwater, the Great Depression had all-but wiped out the extractive industrie…

Julie Carr, "Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

July 14, 2023

Mud, Blood, and Ghosts

Julie Carr
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

In Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West (U Nebraska Press, 2023), University of Colorado poet and English…

Rani-Henrik Andersson and Janne Lahti, "Finnish Settler Colonialism in North America: Rethinking Finnish Experiences in Transnational Spaces" (Helsinki UP, 2022)

June 20, 2023

Finnish Settler Colonialism in North America

Rani-Henrik Andersson and Janne Lahti
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

Finns tell a story about themselves as a people exempt from European colonialism. Not so, argue the contributors to Finnish Settler Colonialism in Nor…

Moon-Ho Jung, "Menace to Empire: Anticolonial Solidarities and the Transpacific Origins of the US Security State" (U California Press, 2022)

June 14, 2023

Menace to Empire

Moon-Ho Jung
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Listen:

As the American imperial project in the Pacific World grew at the end of the nineteenth century, so too did the American security and intelligence sta…

James Zarsadiaz, "Resisting Change in Suburbia: Asian Immigrants and Frontier Nostalgia in L.A." (U California Press, 2022)

May 23, 2023

Resisting Change in Suburbia

James Zarsadiaz
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The myth of the frontier West found its home in America's late twentieth century suburbs, argues University of San Francisco associate professor James…

Anne Marie Todd, "Valley of Heart's Delight: Environment and Sense of Place in the Santa Clara Valley" (U California Press, 2022)

May 2, 2023

Valley of Heart's Delight

Anne Marie Todd
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

This agricultural history explores the transformation of the Santa Clara Valley over the past one hundred years from America's largest fruit-producing…

Christen T. Sasaki, "Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i" (U California Press, 2022)

April 28, 2023

Pacific Confluence

Christen T. Sasaki
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

What if Hawai'i wasn't the 50th state? In Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i (U California Press, 2022), UCSD …

Michael K. Johnson, "Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and Genre" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

April 20, 2023

Speculative Wests

Michael K. Johnson
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

The Western as a genre is alive and vibrant, argues University of Maine - Farmington professor of English literature Michael K. Johnson. In Speculativ…

Adam Sowards, "Making America's Public Lands: The Contested History of Conservation on Federal Lands" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

March 24, 2023

Making America's Public Lands

Adam Sowards
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

Over one quarter - some 640 million acres - of the United States consists of public land owned, not privately, but by the federal government, much of …

Eric Porter, "A People's History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport" (U California Press, 2023)

March 16, 2023

A People's History of SFO

Eric Porter
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

What can an airport tell us about a city? Quite a bit, according to UC-Santa Cruz history professor Eric Porter in A People's History of SFO: The Maki…