Best University of Michigan Department of History Podcasts (2025)

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Season 5, Episode 6: "Does It Matter?": Legacies of the First World War 33:25

12M ago33:25

33:25

Nationalism. Emerging technology. Militarization. Destroyed bodies. Total war. In this episode, three historians reconsider the dominant themes of the First World War—which are as relevant today as they were a century ago. Cheyenne Pettit studies Canadian and British conflicts over the treatment of venereal disease during World War One. Matthew Her…

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Season 5, Episode 5: Not Just for Scholars: Democratizing the Archives 33:25

1y ago33:25

33:25

Archives are central to the work of historians. But they are not just for scholars. In this episode, we talk with an archivist, an archival theorist, and a historian, all working to democratize these spaces, what they hold, and who can access them. Professor Patricia Garcia will help us think about the archives through a critical lens. Archivist Br…

1
Season 5, Episode 4: Constructed Categories: Syriac Christians and the Immigration Act of 1924 24:22

1y ago24:22

24:22

One person, missionary EW McDowell, influenced the fate of Syriac Christians ahead of the US Immigration Act of 1924. In this episode, Hannah Roussel interviews James Wolfe about McDowell, whose writings and testimony before Congress opened up the dialectics about the nature of the category “Asiatic.”…

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Season 5, Episode 3: “Peace to the World”: Lessons from the Soviet Antiwar Underground 35:29

1+ y ago35:29

35:29

Alexander McConnell talks with Olga Medvedkova, a Soviet antiwar activist whose arrest garnered worldwide attention in 1983. In light of the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, what can we learn from Medvedkova and the Soviet peace movement?By University of Michigan Department of History

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Season 5, Episode 2: Waiting with Mozart 34:03

1+ y ago34:03

34:03

Join Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1777 as he waits, in an aristocrat’s antechamber in Munich, for a conversation that could change his life. What did it mean to wait in the past? Who waited? How did it shape society and culture, and how did it define social interactions?By University of Michigan Department of History

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Season 5, Episode 1: Curating the Remnants of Enslavement: A Conversation with Jason Young 28:30

1+ y ago28:30

28:30

In this episode, Paige Newhouse interviews Jason Young, co-curator of Hear Me Now: the Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, a traveling exhibit housed at the University of Michigan Museum of Art centering enslaved artisans and the stoneware they produced.By University of Michigan Department of History

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Season 4, Episode 3: Clesippus and the Candelabrum: Imagining Disability in Ancient Rome 28:37

2y ago28:37

28:37

The funerary inscription of Clesippus tells an impressive story of illustrious honors and administrative achievements in Ancient Rome. But there is another story, one of a man who navigated slavery, disability, and the sexual advances of the woman who owned him.By University of Michigan Department of History

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Season 4, Episode 2: Forging Property from Struggle in South Africa 41:00

2y ago41:00

41:00

In 1911, a contested horse race sparked one of the largest movements by Black South Africans to reclaim colonized land. How does the history of the Native Farmers Association offer a glimpse into alternate futures of property ownership in South Africa?By University of Michigan Department of History

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Season 4, Episode 1: Laboring for the Puerto Rican Vote 28:15

2y ago28:15

28:15

What happens when ten Puerto Rican men try to register to vote in 1950s Connecticut? Their eligibility is contested, and Democrats and Republicans become embroiled in a heated debate that ends at the Connecticut Superior Court. The ten Puerto Rican men, however, get lost at the wayside … we don’t even know all ten of their names. How much of their …

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Season 3, Episode 4: The Two Monsieurs 25:20

3y ago25:20

25:20

In 1836, two tailors transformed the fashion industry forever when they opened the first chemiserie, a shirt store, in Paris. Their radical feat? They tailored a shirt. In this episode, John Finkelberg tells the story of how Monsieurs Pierret and Lami-Housset essentially invented the precursor to the modern button-down shirt. Within a few years, th…

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Season 3, Episode 3: The Real Housewives of Medieval London 24:12

3+ y ago24:12

24:12

In medieval London, survivors of the Black Death found themselves living in a world that was both very familiar and also very different. The loss of so many people created a severe labor shortage, forcing employers to raise wages. With higher wages, more people could purchase more items, live in spacious homes, and employ domestic workers to help c…

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Season 3, Episode 2: Navigating Pregnancy: A Century of Prenatal Care 31:17

3+ y ago31:17

31:17

Why do we have the prenatal visit schedule that we have today? Where did it come from? What was the evidence for the recommended schedule of prenatal visits, and why hasn’t the schedule changed in nearly 100 years, despite medical advances? How can doctors amend that schedule to both increase equitable access to healthcare and keep parents and babi…

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Season 3, Episode 1: Music Time in Africa 31:35

3+ y ago31:35

31:35

The adventure began in 1961, when Leo Sarkisian and his wife Mary were living in West Africa. They traveled across the region documenting traditional and pop music for Tempo Records. But one day, Edward Murrow came to Guinea and asked if Leo would be willing to join the Voice of America. Leo Sarkisian signed up and in 1965 created Music Time in Afr…

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Season 2, Episode 6: Surviving Patriarchal Violence at Home: Incest Victims in the Progressive Era 35:19

4y ago35:19

35:19

Beatrice was fifteen years old when her mother died. By day, she assumed her mother’s role as the caregiver and housekeeper for her family in Chicago. By night, her father used her as a sexual substitute for his deceased wife. The rape and incest continued in secret for two years, until Beatrice appealed to the Chicago Municipal Court for protectio…

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Season 2, Episode 5: A Prison by Any Other Name: Imagining Childhood Criminality in 1920s Chicago 35:08

4y ago35:08

35:08

Michael sat in the intake room, waiting for his friend to arrive. He didn’t expect family to visit. By then, his mother had passed and he was estranged from his father. Without other visitors, he was eager to help his new friend, sociologist and criminologist Clifford Shaw. Shaw had taken an interest in the boys at the St. Charles School for Boys, …

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Season 2, Episode 4: Mother Caravan: Disappearance and Resistance along the Migrant Trail 35:02

4y ago35:02

35:02

When disappearances along the migrant routes through Mexico skyrocketed in the 1990s and early 2000s, largely due to the domino effect set off after changes in regional border policy, mothers of the disappeared came together once again. What began as an expedition to locate their children, marching from embassies to migrant shelters to public marke…

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Season 2, Episode 3: Envisioning Eternity: Women and Purgatory in the Seventeenth-Century Spanish World 35:24

4+ y ago35:24

35:24

In the seventeenth century, Spaniards understood Purgatory to be as much of a place—indeed one capable of being seen and even visited—as its newly established colonies in the New World. Otherworldly spaces like hell, purgatory, and limbo became part of a “colonizing imaginary,” a worldview that included the cartographic project of mapping and claim…

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Season 2, Episode 2: The Unnatural Vice: King Henri III, Sodomy, and Modern Masculinity 35:50

4+ y ago35:50

35:50

On August 2, 1589, the King Henri III of France was assassinated. In a series of accusations that pointed to his policies, his pastimes, and his desires, they called Henri a sodomite. Sodomy accusations gesture towards the unchristian and unmanly comportment of the accused. And yet the content of sodomy accusations has changed much over the past mi…

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Season 2, Episode 1: Revival and Reckoning: A Colonial Museum in Postcolonial Italy 35:04

4+ y ago35:04

35:04

This year marks the opening of Il Museo Italo Africano, “Ilaria Alpi” or the Iliaria Alpi Italo-African Museum in Rome, Italy. A revival of the former Italian Colonial museum (1923-1971), it has been renamed for its present-day reinstallation. Colonial museums and their collections are tangible representations of the historic and unequal relationsh…

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Season 1, Episode 7: Archie Bunker for President! 23:41

5y ago23:41

23:41

Since Donald Trump stepped into the political spotlight, many have likened him to Archie Bunker, star character of the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. The comparisons were based on the crude demeanor, the vulgarity, and the racist and misogynistic views. The comparison seems apt. While the two men certainly shared some unfavorable characteristics, …

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Season 1, Episode 6: Policing Gold: Law Enforcement in the Shadow of the LA Olympics 32:54

5y ago32:54

32:54

Los Angeles’s international reputation was on the line. As they prepared to host millions of visitors to the city for the 1984 Olympic Games, planners expressed their anxieties about one issue in particular—crime. To ensure a successful, safe event, planners opted for a massive display of police power. As athletes, spectators, and press from around…