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General History
On Religion June 29, 2022

On the Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of the Religious Left

A Discussion with L. Benjamin Rolsky

L. Benjamin Rolsky

Hosted by Gregory Soden
L. Benjamin Rolsky received his PhD from Drew University in American Religious Studies. His work has appeared in a variety of academic and popular venues including Method and Theory in …

General History

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Interviews with historians about their new books.

Genocide Studies June 29, 2022

Torture, Humiliate, Kill

Inside the Bosnian Serb Camp System

Hikmet Karčić

Hosted by Christopher Davey
Half a century after the Holocaust, on European soil, Bosnian Serbs orchestrated a system of concentration camps where they subjected their Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian Croat neighbors to torture, abuse …
History of Science June 29, 2022

Women Healers

Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia

Susan H. Brandt

Hosted by Corinne Doria
In her eighteenth-century medical recipe manuscript, the Philadelphia healer Elizabeth Coates Paschall asserted her ingenuity and authority with the bold strokes of her pen. Paschall developed an extensive healing practice …
German Studies June 29, 2022

Fear of the Family

Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany

Lauren K. Stokes

Hosted by Paul Lerner
Beginning in 1955, West Germany recruited millions of people as guest workers from Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and especially Turkey. This labor force was essential to creating the postwar …
Economic and Business History June 29, 2022

Leave Me Alone and I'll Make You Rich

How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey and Art Carden

Hosted by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo
The economist and historian Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has been best known recently for her Bourgeois Era trilogy, a vigorous defense, unrivaled in scope, of commercially tested betterment. Its massive volumes …
African American Studies June 29, 2022

The Families' Civil War

Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice

Holly A. Pinheiro Jr.

Hosted by Omari Averette-Phillips
The Families' Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice (U Georgia Press, 2022) tells the stories of freeborn northern African Americans in Philadelphia struggling to maintain families …
Food June 29, 2022

Edible Insects

A Global History

Gina Louise Hunter

Hosted by Amir Sayadabdi
From grasshoppers to grubs, an eye-opening look at insect cuisine around the world. An estimated two billion people worldwide regularly consume insects, yet bugs are rarely eaten in the West …
Intellectual History June 28, 2022

The Political Writings of Alexander Hamilton

Bradford P. Wilson and Carson Holloway, eds.

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
How much does the average person know about Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757-1804)? Would we have guessed that this hero of many fiscal conservatives wrote, “A national debt, if it …
Biblical Studies June 28, 2022

Satan and the Problem of Evil

From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers

Archie T. Wright

Hosted by Jackson Reinhardt
Satan's transformation from opaque functionary to chief antagonist is one of the most striking features of the development of Jewish theology in the Second Temple Period and beyond. Once no …
On Religion June 28, 2022

On Byzantium and 'Romanland'

A Discussion with Anthony Kaldellis

Anthony Kaldellis

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Anthony Kaldellis is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at The Ohio State University. He is the author of many books, including The Christian Parthenon, Hellenism in Byzantium …
Middle Eastern Studies June 28, 2022

The Irish Imperial Service

Policing Palestine and Administering the Empire, 1922–1966

Seán William Gannon

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
Seán William Gannon's book The Irish Imperial Service: Policing Palestine and Administering the Empire, 1922–1966 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) explores Irish participation in the British imperial project after ‘Southern’ Ireland’s independence in 1922 …
African American Studies June 28, 2022

Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution

The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth

Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks

Hosted by Katrina Anderson
Today I talked to Claire Bellerjeau about her book (co-authored with Tiffany Yecke Brooks) Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth (Lyons Press, 2021). In January 1785 …
Irish Studies June 28, 2022

The Fadden More Psalter

The Discovery and Conservation of a Medieval Treasure

John Gillis

Hosted by Danica Ramsey-Brimberg
In The Faddan More Psalter: The Discovery and Conservation of a Medieval Treasure Dr. John Gillis explores the conservation, construction, and context of an early medieval psalter discovered by chance in …
On Religion June 28, 2022

On the Roman Catacombs

A Discussion with William Gruen

Willliam Gruen

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Ever wonder about the Roman catacombs? Look no further. Today I talked to William "Chip" Gruen of Muhlenberg College about his article "Roman Catacombs" from the collection The Reception of Jesus in the First …
General History June 28, 2022

Who Killed Jane Stanford?

A Gilded-Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University

Richard White

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
In 1885 Jane and Leland Stanford cofounded a university to honor their recently deceased young son. After her husband’s death in 1893, Jane Stanford, a devoted spiritualist who expected the …
General History June 28, 2022

Benjamin Franklin

Cultural Protestant

D. G. Hart

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Benjamin Franklin grew up in a devout Protestant family with limited prospects for wealth and fame. By hard work, limitless curiosity, native intelligence, and luck (what he called "providence"), Franklin …
East Asian Studies June 28, 2022

From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945

Yin Cao

Hosted by Shatrunjay Mall
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and others including Indians – most of whom were Sikhs …
Literary Studies June 27, 2022

Ahab Unbound

Melville and the Materialist Turn

Meredith Farmer and Jonathan D. S. Schroeder

Hosted by John Yargo
Today’s guests are Meredith Farmer and Jonathan D.S. Schroeder, the co-editors of a bracing new collection of essays about the figure of Ahab in Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Meredith is the …
Literary Studies June 27, 2022

Citizens and Rulers of the World

The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire

Mahshid Mayar

Hosted by John Yargo
In this episode of New Books in Literary Studies, John Yargo spoke with Mahshid Mayar about how children’s puzzles and schoolbooks at the turn of the 20th century helped shape …
Middle Eastern Studies June 24, 2022

Nine Quarters of Jerusalem

A New Biography of the Old City

Matthew Teller

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
In Jerusalem, what you see and what is true are two different things. Maps divide the walled Old City into four quarters, yet that division doesn’t reflect the reality of …