Friday, July 30, 2021

July 30, 2021: AmericanStudiers to Highlight: New Podcasts

[This past weekend’s tribute to Daniel Immerwahr’s book reminded me that it’s been a while since I highlighted fellow AmericanStudiers. So this week I’ll share a handful of such voices and texts—I’d love to hear more scholars and works you’d add to the mix!]

I’m far from a podcast expert, but I’ve learned a lot in the last year, and part of the reason is that there continue to be so many great new AmericanStudies offerings. Here are a handful (in no particular order, although I have been fortunate enough to be a guest on the first four):

1)      Impressions of America: Three British grad students (one of them an American transplant) run this wonderful podcast on politics and pop culture. If you’re a Star Wars fan, listen to the 2.5 hour episode where Vaughn delves deeper into the politics of that series and extended universe than you could have ever thought possible.

2)      Unsung History: Kelly Therese has been the co-host of the Two Broads Talking Politics podcast for a long while, but recently started her own historical podcast, on which I was very honored to be the third weekly guest (talking about Susie King Taylor). I guarantee you’ll learn a great deal from every episode, both from Kelly and her guests!

3)      Axelbank Reports History and Today: Tampa TV reporter Evan Axelbank is one of our most vocal supporters of historical and public scholarly writing, and he started this podcast to highlight new books and authors/voices in those categories. Let’s all make sure we thank him accordingly by listening in!

4)      Drinking with Historians: I can’t imagine too many of my readers don’t already know this unique and fun video podcast (videocast?) from historians Matt Gabriele and Varsha Venkat. So I’ll just say that I think they’ve unlocked a cheat code for having serious fun while getting guests talking casually and sincerely about their work and interests.

5)      Now & Then: It’s probably even less necessary for me to say much about the new podcast from two of our truly preeminent public scholars, Joanne Freeman and Heather Cox Richardson. So I’ll just add that I love how from their title on they’re making clear a central tenet of the work we’re all trying to do: those complex, crucial interconnections between past and present.

July Recap this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? AmericanStudies scholars or works you’d share?

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