Sinopsis
Interviews with Scholars of African America about their New Books
Episodios
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David George Surdham, “The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989” (U of Illinois Press, 2015)
24/07/2015 Duración: 18minDavid George Surdham is the author of The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989 (University of Illinois Press, 2015). Surdham is Associate Professor of Economics at Northern Iowa University. Just back from the Major League Baseball All-Star break, Surdham has written a book for sports lovers. Why do major league sports receive such preferential treatment from Congress? And what does this have to do with labor and economic development policy? Surdham examines Congressional hearings held over decades to figure out how Washington’s role in professional sports has changed over since the 1950s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Carlos Kevin Blanton, “George I. Sanchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration” (Yale UP, 2015)
12/07/2015 Duración: 01h28minAlthough the designation now applies to American citizens of Mexican ethnicity writ large, the term Mexican American (hyphenated or not) also refers to the rising generation of ethnic Mexicans born and raised in the U.S. that came into adulthood during the Great Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War years. In a new biography, George I. Sanchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration (Yale University Press, 2015) Professor of History at Texas A&M University Carlos Kevin Blanton provides the first in-depth study of one of the Mexican American generation’s most prolific intellectuals and activists. Born into humble circumstances in rural New Mexico in 1906, George I. Sanchez became a tireless and tremendously influential academic, policy advisor, and activist who devoted his career to battling poverty and discrimination against Mexican Americans throughout the Southwest. Whether engaged in teaching as a professor of education at the University of Texas, a researcher for numerous governmental
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Julian E. Zelizer, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society” (Penguin, 2015)
06/07/2015 Duración: 19minJulian E. Zelizer is the author of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (Penguin Press, 2015). Zelizer is the Malcom Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and a fellow at New America. In the Fierce Urgency of Now, Zelizer focuses on the heated period of 1963-1966, and President Lyndon Johnson’s effort to pass a civil rights bill. Johnson has been credited as the chief architect of the passage of the ultimate bill, but Zelizer shifts focus to Congress and the variety of interest groups lobbying for and against the bill. In doing so, Zelizer argues that credit for the civil rights acts must be more widely shared. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, “Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics” (Oxford UP, 2015)
28/06/2015 Duración: 17minJennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox are the authors of Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics (Oxford UP,2015). Lawless is a Professor of Government and the Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University. Fox is a Professor of Political Science at Loyola Marymount University. The two conducted surveys of over 4,000 younger Americans. What they find is that their young Americans rarely think, talk or consider politics. While many seem to care about the world, this infrequently translates to running for office or aspirations to work in politics. They find: Just 11 percent of respondents said that they had thought about running office “many times” while 61 percent said they “never” considered it. Asked if various jobs paid the same, they find just 13 percent of respondents said they would want to be a member of Congress, versus 37 percent who chose business executive and 27 percent school principal; only 19 percent indicated that a future goal was to become a p
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Ted A. Smith, “Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics” (Stanford UP, 2014)
23/06/2015 Duración: 01h14minPeople living in the modern west generally have no problem criticizing religiously-justified violence. It’s therefore always interesting when I discuss John Brown, a man who legitimized anti-slavery violence Biblically. My most recent batch of students sought to resolve this tension by declaring John Brown to be “crazy but right.” In his new book Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics (Stanford University Press, 2014), Ted A. Smith unravels the tensions that led to my students’ ambiguous conclusion. By providing a profound ethical meditation on Brown and his fellow raiders to challenge how people, particularly Americans, think about morality; the relationship between religion, the state, and violence; and to the possibilities of judgment and redemption, Smith illustrates how an ethical and philosophical reading of history can help us to better understand the world we live in, what we should do, and of the importance of going beyond just what we ought to do. Learn more about your ad choices
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Philip A. Wallach, “To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis” (Brookings, 2015)
22/06/2015 Duración: 27minPhilip A. Wallach is the author of To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (Brookings Institution Press, 2015). Wallach is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. There has been a lot written about the financial crisis of the late 2000s, but little with the attention to important concepts from political science. Wallach investigates the various federal strategies to address the meltdown of the financial sector from the perspective of legitimacy, seeking to understand what we can learn about this idea from the unprecedented expansion of federal power. From efforts to save the failing investment banks, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, to the passage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), federal officials applied a largely ad-hoc approach that Wallach deems “adhocracy” often substituting expedience for legal authority. While this worked in the short-term, Wallach probes where this leaves the country and speculates about what will come in t
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Akinyele Omowale Umoja, “We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement” (NYU Press, 2013)
20/06/2015 Duración: 52minThe historiography of the southern Civil Rights Movement has long focused on the tactic of non-violence. With only a few notable exceptions, most scholarship locates the use of armed self-defense and other forms of armed resistance in northern cities while temporally, we usually think of these strategies as rising to prominence only later in the movement. Akinyele Omowale Umoja, Professor and Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Georgia State University, tells us this common narrative omits a long and rich history of armed resistance in the southern Black Freedom Struggle. His new book, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement (New York University Press, 2013), traces the roots of this armed resistance in Mississippi. His book shows black Mississippians had a long tradition of armed self-defense extending well before the iconic Civil Rights campaigns in the state. Moreover, when the movement came, self-defense remained. The book shows armed self-defense co-exi
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Andrew Hartman, “The War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
20/06/2015 Duración: 01h12minAndrew Hartman is associate professor of history at Illinois State University. His book A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (University of Chicago Press, 2015) provides a whirlwind tour through the most salient debates of what became known as the culture wars of the late twentieth century. As a set of debates and political tussles the culture wars reflected America’s struggle to deal with the vast changes left by 1960s and more complex than a simple left/right, secular/religious binary that characterized public discussion. Beginning with the normative Americanism fragmenting under the influence of the New Left, Hartman shows us how the watershed decade set the terms for the cultural wars. Public intellectuals such as Paul Goodman and C. Wright Mills to rock stars such as Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and the comedy duo the Smothers Brothers marked the changes. Seemingly everything about American life from sexual mores to national history was up for renegotiation. Hartman places the ge
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Rory Carroll, “Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela” (Penguin Books, 2013)
09/06/2015 Duración: 03minHistorically, Venezuela is known as one of the most stable Latin American nations of the twentieth century. The subsequent discovery of oil transformed Venezuela into a petrostate. Yet wealth inequality dramatically increased. Against this economic and social disparity, Hugo Chavez rose to power, becoming one of a number of dynamic Latin American politicians. But what legacy did Chavez leave behind after his death in 2013, and how has his successor, Nicholas Madruo, fared in continuing the Bolivarian Revolution? Rory Carroll is a journalist with The Guardian and spent a number of years in Venezuela. His book, Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela (Penguin Books, 2013), recounts his time in Latin America. Speaking to Venezuelans on both side of the political spectrum, from farmers to ex-politicians and government insiders, Carroll discovers that opinions of Chavez’s presidency are sharply divided. However, many agree that Hugo fundamentally changed the destiny and vision of Venezuela. Learn more about your ad ch
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Charis Thompson, “Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research” (MIT Press, 2013)
08/06/2015 Duración: 01h13minCharis Thompson‘s Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research (MIT Press, 2013) is an important book. Good Science explores the “ethical choreography” of the consolidation of human embryonic stem cell research in the first decade of the twenty-first century, drawing important implications for the possible futures of stem cell research by looking carefully at its past and developing an approach to what Thompson calls “good science.” The book compellingly argues that “a high level of political attention to the ethics of the life sciences and biomedicine…is a good thing for science and democracy,” especially as we have now reached “the end of the beginning of human pluripotent stem cell research.” Part I of the book (Stem Cell Biopolitics) explores early attention to the embryo debate. Ch. 2 looks at stem cell research as it’s widely understood to engage ethical concerns, describing the “pro-curial frame” of stem cell research in the period under scrutiny, when promoting stem cell innovation in
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Kevin M. Schultz, “Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship that Shaped the Sixties” (W. W. Norton, 2015)
02/06/2015 Duración: 01h08minIn Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship that Shaped the Sixties (W.W. Norton, 2015), Kevin M. Schultz has given us a lively and colorful narrative history that captures the character of two complex men and the times in which they lived. Juxtaposing a conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and the radical Norman Mailer against a liberal establishment brings into sharp relief what the men shared and the source of their conflict. Both men agreed that there was something amiss of about American society and sought to build a movement against the entrenchment of liberal bureaucratic control and the threat of totalitarianism. With clashing visions for a new national politic, they were both surprised by the constituency that they each attracted and grew more alike as they responded to the movements they had fomented. Through their writings, public and private encounters, and an overlapping network of friends and political acquaintances we get a glimpse in the elite power dynamics that shaped the sixties. By atte
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Michael Gould-Wartofsky, “The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement” (Oxford UP, 2015)
01/06/2015 Duración: 19minMichael Gould-Wartofsky is the author of The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is a PhD candidate in Sociology at New York University. There has been a lot written about the Occupy Wall Street movement, but little with the sophistication and personal touch of Gould-Wartofsky’s new book. What emerged in the fall of 2011 in Lower Manhattan had roots in similar protests going on across Europe, but soon spread to over a thousand US cities. As a participant observer from the very earliest days of the movement, Gould-Wartofsky blends writing styles and perspectives as he deepens what we know about social movements, in general. He maps the various tactics, factions, and motivations that drove the movement, but also what it felt like to be in Zuccotti Park. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Miriam Pawel, “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez” (Bloomsbury Press, 2014)
29/05/2015 Duración: 01h13minCesar Chavez founded a labor union. Launched a movement. And inspired a generation. Two Decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant Latino figure in U.S. history.” So reads the inside flap ofMiriam Pawel’s new biography The Crusades of Cesar Chavez (Bloomsbury Press, 2014). However, while many are acquainted with the iconography of Chavez as the leader of the Farmworker Movement that took on California’s powerful grape industry during the mid-to-late 1960s, much less is known about Chavez himself and his personal and organizational background prior to the formation of the National Farm Workers Association (the precursor to the United Farm Workers or UFW) or the internal dynamics and struggles between Chavez and his top brass. With great detail and empathy, Pawel provides a complex portrait of Chavez as a visionary and tireless organizer whose humility, strategic brilliance, and improbable success was matched only by his own arrogance, tactical blunders, and embarrassing defeats. We hope you e
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Michelle Ann Stephens, “Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and the Black Male Performer” (Duke UP, 2014)
28/05/2015 Duración: 55minWhy would Bert Williams, famous African-American vaudeville performer of the early twentieth century, feel it necessary to apply burnt cork blackface make-up to his already dark skin, in order to emphasize “blackness”? According to Michelle Ann Stephens, this was one question about the space between realness, race, and performance that led her to write Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and the Black Male Performer (Duke University Press, 2014). Stephens investigates the history of the concept of the skin, especially in relation to the notion of the flesh, and how they are both re-written by colonialization, and the idea of racial difference. Stephens turns to the work of four iconic black male stars whose careers span the twentieth century–including Bert Williams, Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and Bob Marley–and explores the dynamic between the gaze, representation and technology, and how these performers challenged notions of race, sexuality, and skin/flesh in the act of performing. Stephens uses psychoanalyt
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Beatrix Hoffman, “Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930” (U of Chicago, 2012)
28/05/2015 Duración: 56minDisputes over the definitions or legality of ‘rights’ and ‘rationing’ in their various guises have animated much of the debate around the United States Affordable Care Act. Many legislators and vocal members of their constituency have strong convictions about the state of our current national health care system and where it is going. Far fewer, however, understand how our current state of affairs is the product of a quite recent and contingent history, which is precisely what Beatrix Hoffman‘s Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930 (University of Chicago, 2012) sets out to explain. While Hoffman’s scope is the U.S. as a whole, she draws out the local consequences of sweeping wartime and post-war reform by focusing on various cities, notably Chicago. Using a framework that addresses the reciprocal roles of rights and rationing as articulated by physicians, policymakers, and patients throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, she presents a concise history that spea
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Julian E. Zelizer, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society” (Penguin Press, 2015)
22/05/2015 Duración: 54minIn recent decades, as Democrats and Republicans have grown more and more polarized ideologically, and gridlock has becoming increasingly standard in Congress, there has been a noticeable pining for the good old days when bipartisanship was common, and strongmen like Lyndon B. Johnson occupied the White House, ready to twist a few arms or trade a little pork when narrow interests threatened the general welfare. Liberals have perhaps been most vulnerable to this myth of late, with journalists repeatedly calling on Obama to bust through the unprecedented obstruction of the last few years by channeling the spirit of LBJ, who delivered more progressive legislation than anyone, save FDR. But as the eminent political historian Julian E. Zelizer writes in his new book The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (Penguin Press, 2015), this view of the past falls short on a number of counts. When LBJ first took over, he faced the same “do-nothing” Congress that had impriso
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Lawrence Jacobs, “Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation” (U Chicago Press, 2015)
18/05/2015 Duración: 24minLawrence Jacobs is the author (with James Druckman) of Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Jacobs is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Just how responsive is the president to the public? In theory, we all hope very, but increasingly we worry that presidents have grown more distant from the wishes of the public. In Who Governs?, we get an empirical answer to that question that is at once novel and also deeply disturbing. Jacobs and Druckman explore how presidents, since Kennedy, have used public opinion polling to craft public messages and shape public priorities. Polling has grown significantly since the 1960s, both in its utilization, and also its sophistication, and presidents, especially Ronald Reagan, have given increasing attention to their results. But rather than using polls to closely adhere to the average
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Mariana Candido, “An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
17/04/2015 Duración: 01h00sMariana Candido‘s book An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World. Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge University Press, 2013) is a powerful and moving exploration of the history and development of the port of Benguela. Founded by the Portuguese in the early seventeenth century, Benguela, located on the central coast of present-day Angola, was the third largest port of slave embarkation on the coast of Africa. In discussing the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on African societies, Candido looks at the formation of new elites, the collapse of old states, and the emergence of new ones. Her book offers a new perspective on the importance of the South Atlantic as a space for the circulation of people, ideas, and crops. But what makes this book truly distinctive is how Candido digs beneath the surface of her evidence to give readers a sense of the lived experiences and feelings of all involved in the trade: the unfortunate victims and those who benefited from the violent capture and selling of huma
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Kirt von Daacke, “Freedom Has a Face: Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia” (UVA Press, 2012)
16/04/2015 Duración: 01h30sIn this podcast I talk to Kirt von Daacke about his 2012 work, Freedom Has a Face:Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia (University of Virginia Press, 2012). Professor von Daacke is Associate Professor of History and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. In this interview a few topics we discuss are: * Sources and methods for piecing together a picture of life in Albemarle County and the use of legal documents as a window into a past society * The relationship between law on the books and the actual behavior of the inhabitants of Albemarle County * Free people of color’s experiences with the legal system * The possibilities and the pitfalls awaiting unmarried women of color in the rural antebellum South * Some implications of Freedom Has a Face for future work on African American history Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Paula T. Connolly, “Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010” (U of Iowa Press, 2013)
26/03/2015 Duración: 52minThe “peculiar institution” upon which the US nation was founded is still rich for examination.Perhaps this is why it is a subject to which 21st century authors continue to return. In this exploration of slavery, Paula T. Connolly, author of Slavery in American Children’s Literature 1790 – 2010 (University of Iowa, 2013), provides an expansive study of the ways in which proslavery and abolitionist literature framed discussions of slavery for the future of the nation: children. One of the questions to which Connolly’s investigation responds is whether US authors of children’s literature frame discussions of slavery in similar ways that writers of adult literature do. In the course of our conversation Connolly notes, “Many of us like to believe that we frame slavery differently for adults and children, but it’s simply not true.” Thus, readers will find that, similar to books for adults, children’s literature has conventional motifs of the subservient and grateful slave, or the kind and heroic master, for exampl