Afleveringen
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For this episode Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Margaret OâMara. Margaret is a professor of modern American history at the University of Washington, and the author of multiple books, including Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley and Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century. Her most recent book is The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. I was a huge fan of this book and have recommended it to so many people, so I was thrilled to get to ask about what went into writing it. Margaret has also co-authored a history textbook, written many pieces for places including The New York Times, WIRED, and many more, and is an active public speaker. We talked about how she keeps track of so many different projects, the way her past work in the Clinton administration affects her writing, and much more.
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In this episode, I was thrilled to welcome historianâand fellow MissourianâKimberly Harper to the show. I am especially delighted by this episode because I get many requests to feature guests who have written history books while off of the tenure track or outside of academia, and Kim is a great example of that. I find guests for the show in a lot different ways â sometimes they are people I am a longtime fan of, other times I see books getting some press, or they pitch themselves for the show or other people suggest them. But I also scan catalogs of upcoming books to make sure Iâm catching things that might otherwise get overlooked, and thatâs how I first learned about Kimberly Harper. I spotted her new book, Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America in the University of Arkansas Press catalog, and got to read an early copy. I was so impressed by the research and storytelling that I knew I had to reach out right away, and lucky for us, Kim agreed to come on the show. Kimberly Harper earned a masterâs degree in history from the University of Arkansas, and she is an editor for the Missouri Historical Review. Her first book, White Manâs Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909, came out in 2010, and it received the Missouri Humanities Councilâs Distinguished Achievement in Literature award. Kim and I spoke about how some key mentors helped her find her way as a historian and writer, how she is learning to balance her day job, writing, and family life, and how you deal with sources for a book in which everyone is lying. Enjoy my conversation with Kimberly Harper.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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In this episode, Kate welcomes historian Dr. Nathan Perl-Rosenthal. Nathan is a professor history at the University of Southern California. His first book, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution, came out in 2015. His new book just came out this month, February 2024, from Basic Books. Itâs called The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It, and it tells the history of the revolutionary era from 1760 to 1825 across multiple nations and many individual lives. Nathan and Kate talked about the merits of messy outlines, how historians could borrow the techniques of fiction writers, and why his new book was a bit like making cheese â youâll just have to listen to find out what thatâs all about.
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For Episode 40, Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale. Grace is the Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia, and the author of four books. Her two most recent are Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture, which was published by UNC Press in 2020, and In the Pines: A Lynching, a Lie, a Reckoning, published by Little Brown in 2023. In the Pines is a remarkable book that combines Graceâs investigation into her own familyâs history and her expertise as a scholar of white supremacy to investigate the pervasive racial terror of the Jim Crow South and its lasting impact. Grace joined me to talk about how she put the book together, the joy of great editing, and much more. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale.
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Welcome back to the third season of Drafting the Past! Iâm thrilled about the lineup of historians that Iâll get to bring to you this year. I know youâre going to love them. That includes todayâs guest, Dr. Benjamin Park. Ben is an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University, and the author of three books. His first two were American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, and Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier. His newest book, which came out just this month, is called American Zion: A New History of Mormonism. I was excited to have the chance to talk with Ben about how he tackled a book with such an impressive scope, how he stays disciplined about what to leave in and what two cut, and two pieces of really excellent, practical writing advice from his editors. Youâll have to listen until the end for those.
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At the end of the year, a flurry of âbest books of the year books hit publications. For the last episode of 2023, I wanted to try something a little different on Drafting the Past. Rather than come up with my own best books list, I asked listeners to call in and leave a message with the best history book they read in 2023 (it didnât have to be published this year). I loved hearing about the books you guys have been reading, and I hope you enjoy these reading recommendations, too. Should we make it an annual tradition?
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In this episode, Kate spoke with historian Dr. Martha Hodes. Dr. Hodes is a professor of history at New York University and the author of multiple previous books focused on the nineteenth century, including The Sea Captainâs Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century, and Mourning Lincoln, which won multiple awards and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her most recent book, however, has a very different focus. My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering, is an account of her experience as a 12-year-old hostage aboard a hijacked airliner in 1970. We talked about what it was like to write such a different type of history book, and the experience of mining her own unreliable archive for information. Youâll also learn how she ends up with as many as 20 or 25 drafts and why the best way to start a project is to pick a favorite document and just start writing about it.
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For this episode I was lucky enough to speak with a historian and writer I have long admired, Dr. Catherine McNeur. Catherineâs first book, Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City, first came out in 2014, and it is one of my favorite environmental histories. So I was more than a little excited to learn about her new book out this year, Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science. I couldnât pass up the chance to talk with Catherine about how the book emerged out of a different book project, the techniques she uses for bringing place so vividly to the page, and the writing process that results in prose that is such a pleasure to read. Plus, this book has one of the best stories of serendipitous archival discovery I have ever heard.
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For this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Tanisha C. Ford. Tanisha is a writer, historian, and professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of three books and many articles on subjects at the intersection of politics and culture, and especially on Black fashion and social movements. Her first book, Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul, was published in 2016, and in 2019 she released her second book, Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girlâs Love Letter to the Power of Fashion. Her newest book, Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement came out just last month. Itâs a fascinating biography of famed Black fundraiser and activist Mollie Moon that takes readers into the world of an overlooked aspect of the civil rights era. Kate's conversation with Tanisha covers how she brought the world of Mollie Moon to life, her methods for organizing her sources--the "oldest of old school"--and why she's glad she was an English major.
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In this episode Kate is joined by historian Dr. Bruce Dorsey. Bruce is a professor of history at Swarthmore College. In 2002, he published his first book, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City, and he is also the co-editor of the book Crosscurrents in American Culture. His new book is called Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime that Captivated a Nation. In it, Bruce tells the story of the death of factory worker Sarah Cornell, the trial of the Methodist preacher who was accused of her murder, and the public frenzy over the trial and its aftermath. I was thrilled to have the chance to talk with Bruce about how a historian tackles true crime, and our conversation covers how this book originated in a college course, as well as the challenge of weaving historical analysis a gripping drama.
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In this episode, I interviewed Dr. Sarah McNamara, assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University, about her new book, Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South (UNC Press, 2023). From her website:
"McNamara is dedicated to sharing her scholarship with broad audiences through public history and community engagement. She developed the project, âNuestra Historia,â an historical memory and preservation project that unites public art with historical markers within the City of Tampa. The first site of this project commemorated the 1937 Antifascist Womenâs March of Ybor City and unveiled in Tampa during Womenâs History Month of 2023. McNamara regularly collaborates with community groups to coordinate history programs that range from historical photography exhibits to educational events for adults and works on K-12 curriculum development and teacher training through organizations such as the National Humanities Center.
McNamaraâs work has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association for University Women, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the American Historical Association, and the Tulane Center for the Gulf South. In recognition of McNamaraâs commitment to teaching and student mentorship at Texas A&M University, she has received the Montague-Center for Teaching Excellence Award, the Early Career Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching. Sarah McNamara is a native of Tampa, Florida and her family is from Ybor City."
In our interview we talk about the process of writing and rewriting that book. We also talk about the marvels and challenges of doing oral historiesâespecially with family membersâand the ways that Sarah has worked to make sure that the history she writes in her book is also alive in the community of Ybor City.
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This episode features Dr. Samantha Muka, whose enthusiasm for her work is pretty much guaranteed to improve your day. Samâs first book is Oceans Under Glass: Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea, in which she investigates how a community of aquarium users have created and shared knowledge about how to take care of marine life in captivity. Sam is an assistant professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and she is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters about the history of marine science, including essays in Slate and The Atlantic. We talked about how her enthusiasm translates into her writing voice, keeping track of non-traditional sources, and what Sam has in common with a horse (youâll just have to listen to know what thatâs about).
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In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Katrina Phillips. Katie Phillips is an associate professor of history at Macalester College. She is the author of Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and Performances of Native American History, which focuses on the past and present of three Western performances that purport to show Indigenous history, but do so from the perspective of white settlers. Katie is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. She is also a public historian and consultant, and, to my delight, she has also published multiple childrenâs books about Indigenous history. Our conversation covers the importance of making history accessible, the value of an intellectual community that says things like âthis has to be in the book,â and how writing for kids lets her reach a whole new set of readers.
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Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. Iâm your host, Kate Carpenter, and this is the 30th episode of Drafting the Past! In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd about the process of writing and revising her debut book, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars (UNC Press, 2023). Lauren is a historian of higher education, and she teaches at the University of New Orleans. We had this conversation early this year when Lauren was still in the process of going over final page proofs, so youâll hear us talking about that stage of publication. But the book is out now, and you can find it at any bookseller. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy our conversation about the hard work of turning a dissertation into a book, interdisciplinarity and imposter syndrome, and how to organize the results of a smash and grab archive trip, something I think a lot of us can relate to. Hereâs my conversation with Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd.
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My guest this week is historian Dr. Anna Zeide. Anna is an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, where she is also the founding director of the food studies program, as well as the author of two books. The first, Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry, won a James Beard award, and her most recent book, U.S. History in 15 Foods, was published earlier this year. Incidentally, reading that book inspired me to plant corn in my home garden for the first time ever, so stay tuned on that experiment. She is also a co-editor of an anthology called Acquired Tastes: Stories About the Origins of Modern Foods. In our delightful conversation, we talked about everything from putting together a writing outline to taking a metaphoricalâor literalâwander through the woods as part of the writing process.
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In this episode, it was my pleasure to interview science journalist Melissa Sevigny about her new book, Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Colorado River. She is the science reporter for Arizona Public Radio as well as the author of two previous books, Mythical River: Chasing the Mirage of New Water in the American Southwest, and Under Desert Skies: How Tucson Mapped the Way to the Moon and Planets. Her work has also appeared in many places, including Orion, The Atavist Magazine, Science Friday, and more. I spoke with Melissa about writing a book while working a full time job as a reporter, how she created such detailed scenes, and the helpful metaphor she used to think about the bookâs narrative structure.
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For Episode 27 of Drafting the Past, I was delighted to be joined by historian Dr. Carly Goodman.
Carly is a historian, a senior editor for the Made by History section at the Washington Post, and the Communications Coordinator for Nationalities Service Center, an immigration agency. Her first book, Dreamland: Americaâs Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction, came out in May from the University of North Carolina Press. I was so excited to talk with Carly earlier this spring about her research and writing, how her work as an editor has impacted her own writing, and the excellent craft advice she has to offer other historians.
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In this episode, I was so excited to finally talk with writer and historian Dr. Aaron Sachs. Aaron researches and teaches environmental history at Cornell, and he is the author of four books and one edited collection. Iâve been eager to talk with Aaron for several years, ever since I first heard about the Historians are Writers! group that he led at Cornell (should out to Daegan Miller and Laura Martin who mentioned the group to me). We talked about that and the two books that Aaron has recently published: Up From the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Recovery in Dark Times, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography. And in April he published Stay Cool: Why Dark Comedy Matters in the Fight Against Climate Change. He is also the author of The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism and Arcadian America: The Death and Life of an Environmental Tradition. With John Demos, he also published the edited collection Artful History: A Practical Anthology.
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In this episode Kate Carpenter interviews writer and historian Dr. Kidada Williams. Dr. Williamsâ most recent book is I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction, which came out with Bloomsbury this year. She is also one of the co-creators of #CharlestonSyllabus, which began as a collection of resources on Twitter in response to the racist massacre at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and is now available as a collection of readings on race, racism and racial violence through the University of Georgia Press. Her first book, They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I, was published by New York University Press in 2012. In addition to her writing, Dr. Williams is also the host and co-producer of Seizing Freedom, a podcast about African Americansâ fight for liberty and equality during and after the Civil War. In addition to being an associate professor of history at Wayne State University, she also makes many public appearances and consults with projects to help the public engage with history. You are guaranteed to walk away from this interview inspired and encouraged -- be sure to share it with a friend!
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In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Louis Moore. Lou is a sports historian and a professor of history at Grand Valley State University. He has published two books: We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality, and I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915. He also writes essays for many outlets and, along with fellow historian Derrick White, hosts an excellent podcast called The Black Athlete. If that all wasnât enough, he has also produced two audio courses that you can find on Audible, called African-American Athletes Who Made History and A Pastime of Their Own: The Story of Negro League Baseball. We talk about all of that, what heâs working on now â and why sports history comes with itâs own unexpected set of challenges.
For a transcript and links to everything we mentioned in the show, visit draftingthepast.com.
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