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American West
Religion May 28, 2023

The Women’s Mosque of America

Authority and Community in US Islam

Tazeen M. Ali

Hosted by Joseph Stuart
The Women’s Mosque of America (WMA), a multiracial, women-only mosque in Los Angeles, is the first of its kind in the United States. Since 2015, the WMA has provided a …

American West

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Interviews with scholars of the American West about their new books.

American West May 23, 2023

Resisting Change in Suburbia

Asian Immigrants and Frontier Nostalgia in L.A.

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 Zarsadiaz in Resisting Change in Suburbia: Asian Immigrants and …
American West May 22, 2023

Arid Empire

The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia

Natalie Koch

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
The iconic deserts of the American southwest could not have been colonized and settled without the help of desert experts from the Middle East. For example: In 1856, a caravan …
Women's History May 21, 2023

From Back Alley to the Border

Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969

Alicia Gutierrez-Romine

Hosted by Jeannette Cockroft
In From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969 (U Nebraska Press, 2020), Alicia Gutierrez-Romine examines the history of criminal abortion in California and the role abortion providers …
American West May 2, 2023

Valley of Heart's Delight

Environment and Sense of Place in the Santa Clara Valley

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 region into the technology capital of the world. In …
American West April 28, 2023

Pacific Confluence

Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i

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 assistant professor Christen Sasaki argues that the years 1893-1898 marked a …
Critical Theory April 27, 2023

Oil Beach

How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond

Christina Dunbar-Hester

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How can we stop infrastructure from damaging the planet? In Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond (U Chicago Press, 2023), Christina Dunbar-Hester …
Popular Culture April 25, 2023

Who Cares Anyway

Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age

Will York

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age (Headpress, 2023), Will York draws on over 100 interviews with musicians, artists, and scene participants as well as …
American West April 23, 2023

Continental Reckoning

The American West in the Age of Expansion

Elliott West

Hosted by Andrew Graybill
In Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion (U Nebraska Press, 2023) renowned historian Elliott West presents a sweeping narrative of the American West and its vital …
American Studies April 20, 2023

Kingdom of Nauvoo

The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier

Benjamin E. Park

Hosted by Blair Hodges
Compared to the Puritans, Mormons have rarely gotten their due, treated as fringe cultists at best or marginalized as polygamists unworthy of serious examination at worst. In Kingdom of Nauvoo …
American West April 20, 2023

Speculative Wests

Popular Representations of a Region and Genre

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 Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and a …
Disability Studies April 14, 2023

Committed

Remembering Native Kinship in and Beyond Institutions

Susan Burch

Hosted by Shu Wan
Between 1902 and 1934, the United States confined hundreds of adults and children from dozens of Native nations at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, a federal psychiatric hospital in …
American Studies April 1, 2023

The Racial Railroad

Julia H. Lee

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Despite the seeming supremacy of car culture in the United States, the train has long been and continues to be a potent symbol of American exceptionalism, ingenuity, and vastness. For …
Native American Studies March 25, 2023

Lakhota

An Indigenous History

Rani-Henrik Andersson and David C. Posthumus

Hosted by Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez
The Lakȟóta are among the best-known Native American peoples. In popular culture and even many scholarly works, they were once lumped together with others and called the Sioux. This book …
LGBTQ+ Studies March 25, 2023

Violent Inheritance

Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West

E. Cram

Hosted by Clayton Jarrard
Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West (U California Press, 2022) deepens the analysis of settler colonialism's endurance in the North American West and how …
American West March 24, 2023

Making America's Public Lands

The Contested History of Conservation on Federal 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 it in the …
American West March 22, 2023

Rim to River

Looking Into the Heart of Arizona

Tom Zoellner

Hosted by Daniel Moran
Tom Zoellner walked across the length of Arizona to come to terms with his home state. But the trip revealed more mountains behind the mountains. Rim to River: Looking …
Urban Studies March 18, 2023

Tensions in Diversity

Spaces for Collective Life in Los Angeles

Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan

Hosted by Anna Zhelnina
Urban landscapes are complex spaces of sociocultural diversity, characterized by narratives of both conviviality and conflict. As people with multiple ethnicities and nationalities find their common destinies in thriving globalizing …
American West March 16, 2023

A People's History of SFO

The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport

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 Making of the Bay Area and …
Latin American Studies March 11, 2023

Abandoning Their Beloved Land

The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico

Alberto García

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Abandoning Their Beloved Land: The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico (U California Press, 2023) offers an essential new history of the Bracero Program, a bilateral initiative that allowed Mexican …