Episodes
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Tune in to the latest Breaking History interview with Dr. Malcolm Purinton, a world historian and teaching professor at Northeastern University. His forthcoming book, Globalization in a Glass: The Rise of Pilsner Beer through Technology, Taste and Empire, will be published in Summer 2023 with Bloomsbury Press (pre-orders available May 4, 2023: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/globalization-in-a-glass-9781350324398/)
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Image: AHA 2022 logo (https://www.historians.org/annual-meeting)
AHA2022 Online (February 21-27) registration: https://www.historians.org/annual-meeting/aha22-online
Jeff Lamson and Adam Tomasi, World History PhD students at Northeastern University in Boston, discuss their visit to the American Historical Association's 135th Annual Meeting, held this year in New Orleans, LA from January 6-9, 2022.
Speaking of great conferences, the Breaking History podcast would like to let listeners know that Northeastern's History Graduate Student Association is hosting a hybrid conference for graduate students in world history and public history on Saturday, April 9, 2022, with the theme “Crisis and Change across the Anthropocene: Environments, Conflicts, and Inequalities." Graduate students can submit proposals here(https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIOP6HSw_NpmixuO1gCVAkc53-t2E3OK0f6YO-3FFlWdIMjA/viewform. The deadline is February 14, 2022.
And thank you as always to our sound editor, World History PhD student Cassie Cloutier! -
Missing episodes?
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In this interview, host Adam Tomasi talks with Prof. Timothy Brown, the chair of the History department at Northeastern and author of Sixties Europe, recently published with Cambridge University Press. The interview covers many topics, including the graduate school experience, Brown's previous books, and his "Historical Theory and Methodology" course this past Fall.
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In this episode, host Adam Tomasi interviews Professor Marty Blatt, the Director of Public History at Northeastern University, who retired at the end of this year's spring semester. Topics include graduate school and student activism in the 1960s and 1970s, Marty's connections to scholars and activists like Howard Zinn, Murray Bookchin, and Noam Chomsky, the joys of teaching, and Marty's long career in public history including more than two decades with the National Park Service.
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Dr. Laura Frader, retiring after forty years of teaching in Northeastern's history department, has produced excellent scholarship on French social history and European gender history. Our host, Adam Tomasi, will be talking with her about graduate education, social justice, historical objectivity and data, teaching, and stories about running into Malcolm X and Michel Foucault.
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Professor Cameron Blevins has taught excellent courses at Northeastern about digital/computational methods, the Western United States, and the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. His book Gossamer Network: The U.S. Post and State Power in the American West is under contract with Oxford University Press. Our host, Adam Tomasi, will be talking with Cameron about graduate education, digital history, the Twitter-verse, and teaching topics of contemporary significance.
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Episode 36: COVID-19 in Context: Histories of the Present by Breaking History Committee
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We have our first social distancing episode! Join Adam, James, and Matt as we interview Dr. Jamie Parker, freshly off his dissertation defense, on his dissertation: "The Fluidity of Late Colonial Development: Water Management, State Building, and Rural Resistance in Kenya 1938-63." On the heels of James and Matt's dissertation defenses, we work through defending dissertations in the mid-March pandemic stages during the first couple weeks of Massachusetts shutting down.
Jamie talks about how the British colonial government in Kenyan took resources away from natives and gave them to white settlers in the name of progress and profit. Jamie makes his intervention into the history of development and water resources in the British Empire, using Kenya as his case study. He shows how prioritizing specific economic growth by people far away over all else leads to disastrous consequences. He looks at the power dynamics and how tribal groups interacted with settlers, the colonial government, and the London offices. Jamie lays out the timeline of the Kenyan water mismanagement from the war to the Mau Mau rebellion through independence and post-colonial structures, with the focus on cash-crops. How does that play out in the larger globe, when development agencies replicate putting specific models onto larger population centers? What led Dr. Parker to look to Kenyan colonial water management? What was defending his dissertation like during a pandemic like? What's next for Dr. Jamie Parker and the rest of the newly minted doctors of history?
Book mentioned in the episode:
"The Development Century" by Stephen J Macekura and Erez Manela
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40012143-the-development-century
"Triumph of the Expert: Agrarian Doctrines of Development and the Legacies of British Colonialism" by Joseph M. Hodge
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2139250.Triumph_of_the_Expert
"Empire State-Building: War And Welfare In Kenya 1925-52" by Joanna Lewis
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8349599-empire-state-building
"Seeing Like a Citizen: Decolonization, Development, and the Making of Kenya, 1945–1980" by Kara Moskowitz
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44665459-seeing-like-a-citizen
"Population, Tradition, and Environmental Control in Colonial Kenya" by Martin S. Shanguhyia
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27910250-population-tradition-and-environmental-control-in-colonial-kenya
"Water Brings No Harm: Management Knowledge and the Struggle for the Waters of Kilimanjaro" by Matthew V. Bender
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41839963-water-brings-no-harm
"Developing the Rivers of East and West Africa: An Environmental History" by Heather J. Hoag
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18049134-developing-the-rivers-of-east-and-west-africa
"How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" by Walter Rodney
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40630.How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser and Cassie Cloutier
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, James Robinson, Adam Tomasi
twitter: @BreakingHistPod -
Please join our host Will, along with Adam, James, Matt, and Simon, as we discuss the radical left since the fall of the Soviet Union. We discuss categorization of the left since 1989, with movements like the anti-globalization, anti-war, Black Lives Matter, Occupy, etc. What defines the left? We talk about the longer history and how it comes back to today, and how its played out strategically. Was the collapse of the Soviet Union good or bad? What about movements in the Global South, the Cold War, and what's happening globally today? How is the battle between the far right and radical left played out in recent years? Why did white working class support switch from left to right, at least in a perceptional sense? What about anti-fascist organizing? Violence and non-violence?
Book mentioned in the episode:
Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life by Natasha Lennard
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43477709-being-numerous
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser and Cassie Cloutier
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Adam Tomasi, James Robinson, Jamie Parker, Matt Bowser, Simon Purdue, Will Whitworth
twitter: @BreakingHistPod -
Join Matt, Jamie, Adam, and Simon as we interview James Robinson for his dissertation topic "Strikes and Strikeouts: Building An Anti-Racist, Anti-Fascist Working Class Sports Culture From Below in the United States, 1918-1950." We talk about the genesis of the labor sports movement in the United States, from immigrant communities to radical groups engaging with sports to a large scale mass sports movement through the CIO, and how it connects with the Worker Sport movement of Europe. We look at how the Socialist Party and Communist Party engaged with sports in the interwar period. How do social justice militants work to claim the sphere of sports for working class people of all backgrounds? We chat about the periodization of the Socialists and Communists, and some of the people involved in the building of Labor Sports, like Olga Madar, Dot Tucker, John Gallo, and Lester Rodney. Join us for this fascinating look at the connections between labor history, radical history, and sports history!
Books mentioned in the podcast:
Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939
by Lizabeth Cohen
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/335626.Making_a_New_Deal
Sport in Capitalist Society: A Short History
by Tony Collins
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16193650-sport-in-capitalist-society
Labor's Time: Shorter Hours, the Uaw, and the Struggle for the American Unionism (Labor in Crisis)
by Jonathan Cutler
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/307090.Labor_s_Time
Media and Culture in the U.S. Jewish Labor Movement: Sweating for Democracy in the Interwar Era
by Brian Dolber
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30777744-media-and-culture-in-the-u-s-jewish-labor-movement
The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century
by Michael Denning
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/952955.The_Cultural_Front
The Story Of Worker Sport
by Arnd Krüger
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4172844-the-story-of-worker-sport
Playing as if the World Mattered: An Illustrated History of Activism in Sports
by Gabriel Kuhn
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23398404-playing-as-if-the-world-mattered
Silk Stockings and Socialism: Philadelphia's Radical Hosiery Workers from the Jazz Age to the New Deal
by Sharon McConnell-Sidorick
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32440151-silk-stockings-and-socialism
Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920
by Roy Rosenzweig
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/489509.Eight_Hours_for_What_We_Will
The Park and the People: A History of Central Park
by Roy Rosenzweig, Elizabeth Blackmar
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1153123.The_Park_and_the_People
Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game
by Rob Ruck
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9596279-raceball
Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports
by Irwin Silber, Jules Tygiel (Forward)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1215952.Press_Box_Red
The Making of the English Working Class
by E.P. Thompson
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/947848.The_Making_of_the_English_Working_Class
"A Road to Peace and Freedom": The International Workers Order and the Struggle for Economic Justice and Civil Rights, 1930-1954
by Robert M. Zecker
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35011931-a-road-to-peace-and-freedom
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
by Robert D. Putnam
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/478.Bowling_Alone
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser and Cassie Cloutier
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, Jamie Parker, Adam Tomasi, Simon Purdue
twitter: @BreakingHistPod -
Join Simon, James, Adam, Chuck, and Huseyin Kurt as we interview Matt Bowser about his dissertation, "Misdirected Rage: The Origins of Islamophobia in Burma, 1930-1948", that takes a deep historical dive into the roots of the current crisis in Myanmar. We take a look at the late colonial period in Burma in the 1930s. Matt's argument looks at the anti-colonial movement between the socialists and the ultra-nationalists who scape-goated the Muslim population in order to gain power, with the encouragement of the British authorities. Matt talks about his academic path looking at empires, and we riff on the tactics of ultra-nationalists, including the fascist U Saw, in their struggle for leadership of the anti-colonial struggle against the socialists. Matt connects the code-words of "Muslim" for blaming Indians without blaming the British.
He talks his about theory on co-colonialism, as wealthy Indians ruled Burma economically through the British, even as working class Indians came into the country for work. How did it play out on the ground? How is the 1938 anti-muslim riots connect to how genocide has happened in Myanmar, targeted at Muslims? How does this play out elsewhere? What happens afterwards, during WWII and the Cold War?
We also hear about Bowser's research journeys and methods in navigating in a charged political climate to dig up potentially sensitive history in Myanmar.
Books to read for more information!
Regarding the Rohingya:
Ibrahim, Azeem. The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Hidden Genocide. New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Publishing, 2017.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26717021-the-rohingyas
Regarding Buddhism and colonial Burma:
Turner, Alicia. Saving Buddhism: The Impermanence of Religion in Colonial Burma. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22828775-saving-buddhism
Regarding Indian Ocean world:
Aiyar, Sana. Indians in Kenya: The Politics of Diaspora. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25401212-indians-in-kenya
Amrith, Sunil S. Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17804366-crossing-the-bay-of-bengal
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser, Cassie Cloutier, and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Simon Purdue, James Robinson , Chuck Clough, Adam Tomasi, Huseyin Kurt
twitter: @BreakingHistPod -
Join Jamie Parker, Matt Bowser, and James Robinson as we discuss Jack Gronau's dissertation, "French Women, But Not Citizens: Colonial Emigration, Imperial Prostitution, and the Emancipatory Writings of French Feminists, 1897-1962" with Jack himself.
Jack tells us about how he came to focus on French North Africa and French Feminist imperialist history, from German history to Jewish history to WWII. His dissertation is framed as a series of episodes, and how French feminists engaged with the Empire and how they navigated the French imperial project. Jack details how he found voices invisible in history, by looking into French women's emigration societies' papers, the Feminist Press in Algeria, and how masculinity/femininity played out in colonial Algeria. French women would enforce racial norms and help normalize men in settler-colonies, Gronau argues. The "Civilizing Mission" was, in the end, a way for French women to claim their part in the Empire. Last, Gronau looks to the campaign against prostitution as a way to bolster their emancipatory claims.
Books mentions in the podcast:
"Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915"
by Antoinette Burton
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/295901.Burdens_of_History
"French Women and the Empire: The Case of Indochina"
by Marie-Paule Ha
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18951025-french-women-and-the-empire
"Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris"
by Jennifer Anne Boittin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8577409-colonial-metropolis
"Transnational France: The Modern History of a Universal Nation"
by Tyler Stovall
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22668823-transnational-france
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser, Cassie Cloutier, and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, Jamie Parker, and James Robinson.
twitter: @BreakingHistPod -
Please join Bridget, Debra, James, Jamie, and Matt to talk about the MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in the US and Canada) movement. Debra leads us through the discussion on this long standing emergency situation in both the United States and Canada. We talk about the history of the movement and how its played out differently in Canada and the United States. How does this fit into the larger history of violence against Indigenous women and how the movement is fighting back. We talk about a few different cases and how the history of "Indian Affairs" agencies has played out. What's the weakness of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions?
Full disclosure: None of the speakers are indigenous people and we acknowledge that.
Further Reading on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in the US and Canada:
The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC)
https://www.nwac.ca/
Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women
https://www.csvanw.org/mmiw/
National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
http://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca
Walking With Our Sisters
http://walkingwithoursisters.ca
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Report-Urban Indian Health Institute
http://www.uihi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Missing-and-Murdered-Indigenous-Women-
and-Girls-Report.pdf
Sovereign Bodies Institute-MMIW Database
https://www.sovereign-bodies.org
S. 1942 Savanna’s Act 115 th Congress
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1942/text
Kim Anderson, Maria Campbell, Christi Belcourt, eds. Keetsahnak: Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters
Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
Jane M Smith, Richard M Thompson II, CRS Report for Congress. Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction over Non-Indians in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization and the SAVE Women Act. April 18, 2012.
Emmanuelle Walter, Stolen Sisters: The Story of Two Missing Girls, Their Families, and How Canada has Failed Indigenous Women
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser, Cassie Cloutier, and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, Bridget Keown, Debra Lavelle, Jamie Parker, and James Robinson.
twitter: @BreakingHistPod -
Please join Bridget, James, Matt, Simon, Thanasis, and Will as we discuss the global history of right-wing populism. What is populism? What is the history of nativist populism? How has it played out across the globe? Where we can trace direct intellectual traditions versus general impulses? Why has it been so effective an organizing force in modern history? How has gender played out in right-wing populism? Is it inherently masculine? Is right-wing populism inevitably if we look historically, to our present day? Where is the crossover between right-wing and left-wing populism? How do conspiracy theories play in populism? How do these ideas spread?
Books Mentioned in the Podcast:
Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage In The American Grain
by Catherine McNicol Stock
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1214303.Rural_Radicals
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
by Benedict Anderson
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/399136.Imagined_Communities
The Populist Vision
by Charles Postel
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1599876.The_Populist_Vision
From Fascism to Populism in History
by Federico Finchelstein
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34408690-from-fascism-to-populism-in-history
The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt Against Elite Democracy
by Richard Javad Heydarian
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35548361-the-rise-of-duterte
Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917
by Elizabeth Sanders
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/335652.Roots_of_Reform
The Age of Reform
by Richard Hofstadter
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/770032.The_Age_of_Reform
Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists Between Authenticity and Performance
by Timothy S. Brown
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5138638-weimar-radicals
Sexuality and German Fascism
by Dagmar Herzog
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/349800.Sexuality_and_German_Fascism
Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy
by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35013165-mothers-of-massive-resistance
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser, Cassie Cloutier, and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, Bridget Keown, Thanasis Kinias, Simon Purdue, James Robinson, Will Whitworth
twitter: @BreakingHistPod -
Please join Bridget, James, Matt, and Thanasis as we talk about settler-colonialism in world history! What is settler-colonialism? What are settler-colonies and how did they develop differently? Replacing indigenous populations or ruling over those populations? Who belongs and who is erased in the public perception of the nation? We discuss the "blank space" presented by settlers to push indigenous people out and the differing intentions of settler-colonies. We talk about how hyper-masculinity explicitly defines political systems of settler-colonialism. Did settler-colonialism produce whiteness or was it something different? How does settler-colonialism fit into the larger imperial project? What does it mean to live in a settler-colonial society today?
Books mentioned in the episode:
Islands of White: Settler Society and Culture in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1890-1939
by Dane Kennedy
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1129042.Islands_of_White
Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality
by Marilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2551707.Drawing_the_Global_Colour_Line
Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview
by Lorenzo Veracini
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11318355-settler-colonialism
Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event
by Patrick Wolfe
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1238448.Settler_Colonialism_and_the_Transformation_of_Anthropology
Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race
by Patrick Wolfe
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23602714-traces-of-history
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser, Cassie Cloutier, and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, Bridget Keown, Thanasis Kinias, Jamie Parker, James Robinson -
Join Bridget, Dan, James, Jamie, Matt, and Thanasis as we discuss the legacies of World War One, as the centenary of the First World War's end of the war armistice is marked on the publishing day of this episode.
We discuss issues of public memories of masculinity, propaganda, world vs the European war, how the war is remembered differently in different places. We look to how the war was used by political movements to shift memories for their own purposes, such as the "stabbed in the back" myth by the Nazis, and how shame was used to frame the war. We discuss the possibilities after the war that quickly go awry, especially in how the Ottoman Empire is carved up and the limits of "making the world safe for democracy" when dealing with colonial empires. Who gets included in citizenship after the war and who doesn't? How do the empires of Europe begin to crumble in the ashes of war, as subject people take the opportunity to push back?
How should Armistice Day be remembered? We remember the veterans but what about the mutinies that end the war? We discuss how narrow the definition of veteran has been, and how gender lines are drawn. We do some comparisons of Armistice Day vs Veterans Day in the UK vs US. We talk about the poppy, and the consequences of war globally!
Picture: 369th Infantry (Colored): the "Harlem Hellfighters", who fought under French command because General Pershing refused to have them in the American forces.
Books mentioned that the listener may want to pick up in order to know all the good points we brought up:
The Wilsonian Moment: Self Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism
by Erez Manela
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1537700.The_Wilsonian_Moment
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall Of The Ottoman Empire And The Creation Of The Modern Middle East
by David Fromkin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78107.A_Peace_to_End_All_Peace
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser, Cassie Cloutier, and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, Bridget Keown, Thanasis Kinias, Jamie Parker, James Robinson, Dan Squizzero -
Join us as we talk about the legacies of Cold War history on our present world. We chat about what is happening both between the Capitalist West and Communist Bloc, and the anti-colonial to postcolonial global struggles. We talk power, gender structures and identities, economics, ideas of left vs right, nationalism, the Non-Aligned Movement, shifting alliances, and the propagandistic triumph of neoliberal capitalism coupled bound by right-wing nationalism. We look to the rise of the hard-right in the wake of the Cold War.
Is there books to read to know more? That's a really good point, listener. Yes, they are!
The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945 1968
by Kevin G. Boyle
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/709532.The_UAW_and_the_Heyday_of_American_Liberalism_1945_1968
Marxism in the United States: Remapping the History of the American Left
by Paul M. Buhle
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1749496.Marxism_in_the_United_States
Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and "Nation Building" in the Kennedy Era
by Michael E. Latham
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1075782.Modernization_as_Ideology
The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times
by Odd Arne Westad
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156594.The_Global_Cold_War
The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
by David K. Johnson
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/206541.The_Lavender_Scare
Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation
by Karla Jay
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/534736.Tales_of_the_Lavender_Menace
Patterns of Empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present
by Julian Go
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12896981-patterns-of-empire
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser, Cassie Cloutier, and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Matt Bowser, Cassie Clouter, Bridget Keown, Jamie Parker, Simon Perdue, James Robinson, and Will Whitworth -
Join as we talk to English PhD Candidate Liz Polcha, who specializes in 18th and 19th century American and Caribbean literature, about her dissertation, "Redacting Desire: The Sexual Politics of Colonial Science in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World". Liz talks about her research path, navigating the worlds of literary criticism and history, feminist and postcolonial digital scholarship, and her dissertation. Very creepy diaries and travel narratives of the slave world of the early Caribbean! She walks us through some of her subjects, who fancied themselves as scientists but often functioned more as rapists, sex tourists, and torture, not as outliers but as a regular part of colonial life. Liz also talks about her experience in organizing a grad worker union and building hope in the academia, teaching, community, landing fellowships, and what's next!
Don't miss this terrific interview with the one and only Liz Polcha!
Projects mentioned in the podcast:
Early Caribbean Digital Archive
https://ecda.northeastern.edu/
Women Writers Project
https://www.wwp.northeastern.edu/
Articles and Books mentioned in the episode:
"The Origin of Others"
by Toni Morrison
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34758228-the-origin-of-others
"Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book"
Hortense J. Spillers
https://people.ucsc.edu/~nmitchel/hortense_spillers_-_mamas_baby_papas_maybe.pdf
"Venus in Two Acts"
Saidiya Hartman
https://myelms.umd.edu/courses/1224150/files/46327971/download?download_frd=1
"Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive"
by Marisa J Fuentes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28561909-dispossessed-lives
Other Shout-out:
"Colored Conventions: Bringing 19th Century Black Organizing To Digital Life"
http://coloredconventions.org/
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg
Today's hosts were: Thanasis Kinias, Molly Nebiolo, Jamie Parker, and James Robinson -
Join us as we talk with PhD Candidate Olivier Schouteden as we talk about French imperialism's explorers in late 19th century Indochina. How did these private adventurers interact with local people, the French imperial state, and how much control did the central state have over these people? What is an "explorer"? What does it say about the weaknesses of French imperialism, and how the French state eventually tried to reel them in? Olivier walks us through his dissertation and how the image of the explorer animated the spatial French imperial project, state-backed and private scientific societies, no matter the cost and resistance of people of present day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. We even see one explorer, Charles-Marie David de Mayréna, set up his own rogue country in the middle of madness: Kingdom of Sedang (the basis of the novel Heart of Darkness, set in Central Africa, which became Apocalypse Now, returning to Indochina.)
Olivier talks about his research adventures in the archives in France, Cambodia, and Vietnam, looking at letters and papers of french explorers, his experience with teaching, and what's next.
Books mentioned in the episode:
"Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa"
by Johannes Fabian
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/859138.Out_of_Our_Minds
"The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture"
by Michael F. Robinson
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2091360.The_Coldest_Crucible
"Heroes of Empire: Five Charismatic Men and the Conquest of Africa"
by Edward Berenson
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8717661-heroes-of-empire
"The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of Landscape and History"
by Paul Carter
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2854657-the-road-to-botany-bay
"The Paper Road: Archive and Experience in the Botanical Exploration of West China and Tibet"
by Erik Mueggler
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11694721-the-paper-road
"The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism"
by Antoinette Burton
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26262770-the-trouble-with-empire
"Colonial Cambodia's 'Bad Frenchmen'"
by Gregor Mueller
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16780270-colonial-cambodia-s-bad-frenchmen
"Of Rats, Rice, and Race:
The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre, an Episode in French Colonial History"
Michael G. Vann
(future book)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/42110
The Breaking History podcast is a production of the Northeastern University History Graduate Student Association.
Producers and Sound Editors: Matt Bowser and Dan Squizzero
Theme Music: Kieran Legg - Show more
