NHC Podcasts

Bill Leuchtenburg speaks about presidential history at the National Humanities Center Board of Trustees reception at the Morgan Library, New York, NY on June 8, 2016.

In 1996, an exhibition entitled “Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African American Women Artists,” was produced for the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art's contribution to the Olympic games held in Atlanta, Georgia. Today, Jontyle Theresa Robinson (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) is undertaking a multi-tiered initiative to reflect upon and advance the work of that exhibition thirty years later.

The British writer, reformer, and criminologist George Cecil Ives lived through a transformation in our collective understanding of sexuality. Born in 1867, Ives found early inspiration in the Classical tradition and witnessed the rise of sexology and psychoanalysis before his death in the mid-twentieth century. But Ives did not simply observe these social changes; he chronicled them exhaustively through his published works, correspondence, scrapbooks, and a three-million-word diary. Brian Lewis (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) has analyzed these records to help us to understand how individuals actually experienced these philosophical and social shifts.

As an art form, opera has proven to be simultaneously entertaining and relatable to diverse audiences, even though it has also been characterized by associations with whiteness and elitism. Naomi André (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) is working to tell a more comprehensive and inclusive story of this genre by constructing a history of Blackness in opera from the nineteenth century to the present.

In March 1850, five men and two women were photographed in the studio of South Carolina artist Joseph Zealy. When these daguerreotypes were uncovered in 1976, they quickly became some of the best-known pre-Civil War images of enslaved African Americans. Gregg Hecimovich (NHC Fellow, 2015–16; 2022–23) is asking important questions about why these images were captured, how they were lost for so long, and what they might tell us about legacies of white supremacy and enslavement in the United States.

Theatrical productions allow playwrights and audiences alike to engage with historical and contemporary social realities. But what are the consequences when particular types of dramatic texts and performances are inadequately disseminated and preserved? Elena Machado Sáez (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) is analyzing the ways that Latinx theater in the United States depicts forms of activism and resistance while building shared archives and communities.

The influence that Nina Simone and Langston Hughes have had on American music, literature, and culture can hardly be overstated. However, the relationship between these two figures has received little to no attention from scholars to date, despite their long history of collaboration. W. Jason Miller (NHC Fellow, 2022–23) is conducting research into this partnership in order to inform new understandings about the intersections between art and politics in the Black Arts Movement of the mid-twentieth century.

This lecture illuminates the field of international possibility seen by a leading fraction of young Americans in the 1920s. It offers a counter-narrative to the well-worn account of American “expatriates” who succumbed to the seductions of Paris and soon returned home chastened. A far larger stratum of would-be writers lived outside the United States without desire to be “expatriates,” found vocations in journalism, brought the world home to American audiences, and allowed these international ventures to shape their lives.

When the Panama Canal opened in 1914, it not only revolutionized international trade, but brought about new developments in public health. While diseases like yellow fever and malaria were seen as an inherent threat of “the tropics” by the Americans and French, the process of constructing the canal actually created conditions in which such diseases could proliferate more freely. In this podcast, Paul S. Sutter (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), professor of history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, discusses the complex interplay of natural and cultural catalysts that can produce and spread disease. Understanding the ways that human activity can bring vectors and viral pathogens together is crucial to reckoning with historical, contemporary, and future public health challenges.

For the past twenty years, Nigerian filmmaking has dominated media production in Africa and among African diasporic communities. One of the most influential figures in this industry is the writer, director, and producer Femi Odugbemi, whose work is an example of the "socially responsible cinema" that has been under-explored in scholarly analyses of Nollywood. In this podcast, Paul Ushang Ugor (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of English at Illinois State University, considers how Odugbemi's screen media uses popular cultural forms to encourage public awareness of political and ethical issues in Nigeria and across Africa. By exploring this national film tradition, we can examine both the transformative power of art in a postcolonial context and the global influences that have informed the development and popularization of Nollywood.

Nineteenth-century American paintings frequently depict foreign settings, from the Caribbean to the Arctic. Many of these artworks seem to reveal moments of cultural exchange or scientific inquiry, but they have rarely been seen as evidence of the growing imperialist tendencies of the United States throughout this century. In this podcast, Maggie Cao (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, considers how the aesthetics and subject matter of nineteenth-century American art can better help us to understand imperialism as a global and historical concept. By examining paintings from this period, we can trace how complex attitudes about cultural relations were represented and disseminated to a wider public.

In the early twentieth century, psychoanalytic ideas based on the work of Sigmund Freud were taken up, translated, and even challenged by practitioners from a variety of geographic regions and backgrounds. However, the importance of psychoanalytic thought in China has not always been given adequate attention. In this podcast, Howard Chiang (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of history at the University of California, Davis, discusses how tracking the emergence and adaptation of psychoanalysis in China allows us to understand the effects of cultural and disciplinary exchange on emerging intellectual discourses. By examining China's influence on psychoanalysis, we can tell a better and more global story about the origins of this field of study.

Widely understood as a destination for leisure and pleasure, the Caribbean has drawn visitors from the global north for over a century. Women have played a central role in establishing this image of the islands, from the proliferation of women's travel writing beginning in the late nineteenth century to their active roles in shaping the tourism and hospitality industry. In this podcast, Elizabeth S. Manley (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of history at Xavier University of Louisiana, analyzes the contradictions that have fueled narratives of the Caribbean from the colonial period to the present. By examining the ways that notions of gender, commerce, global mobility, and discourses of exoticism have changed in the region over time, we can better understand how the Caribbean has been culturally constructed as a site for escape and rejuvenation.

In the 1772 court case “Somerset v Stewart,” an English court found that the concept of slavery had no basis in English law. Although this case has long been linked to the eventual abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in Britain, the emancipation of enslaved persons was a long and complex process. In this podcast, Tony Frazier (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of history at North Carolina Central University, discusses the way that this ruling had broader ramifications in a politically fraught moment. As Frazier explains, the case forces us to reexamine historical assumptions about the end of slavery and the role of institutions in emancipation.

Jane O. Newman (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 2015–16), Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine As constructed by Boccaccio, “The Decameron” is a classic collection of fourteenth-century stories, one hundred tales shared by a group of young men and women sheltering in a secluded villa outside Florence to avoid the Great Bubonic Plague. Organized around timeless themes such as the power of fortune and human will, the pain of misbegotten love, the tricks we play on one another, and the importance of virtue, “The Decameron” forms a mosaic that has influenced writers for centuries and created a lasting document about the vibrancy of life juxtaposed against the suffering caused by the Black Death. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YnmZokP3AuA https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-the-decameron/

Joy Connolly (NHC Trustee), President, American Council of Learned Societies A distinguished classics scholar as well as an accomplished academic administrator, Connolly argues in her most recent book, “The Life of Roman Republicanism” that “Cicero, Sallust, and Horace inspire fresh thinking about central concerns of contemporary political thought and action” including the role conflict plays in the political community, the conditions needed to promote an equal and just society, citizens' interdependence on one another for senses of selfhood, and the uses and dangers of self-sovereignty and fantasy. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jco7B37Gxyg https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-the-life-of-roman-republicanism/

Cara Robertson (NHC Trustee; NHC Fellow, 2004–05; 2005–06) When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892, the arrest of the couple's younger daughter Lizzie turned the case into international news and her trial into a spectacle unparalleled in American history. Everyone—rich and poor, suffragists and social conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—had an opinion about Lizzie Borden's guilt or innocence. The popular fascination with the Borden murders and its central enigmatic character has endured for more than one hundred years. Scholar Cara Robertson explores the stories Lizzie Borden's culture wanted and expected to hear and how those stories influenced the debate inside and outside the courtroom, offering a window into America in the Gilded Age. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iBSkm11B0Vo https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-the-trial-of-lizzie-borden/

Andrew Delbanco (NHC Fellow, 2013–14), Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University; President, The Teagle Foundation For decades after its founding, the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the “united” states was actually a lie. By awakening northerners to the true nature of slavery, and by enraging southerners who demanded the return of their human “property,” fugitive slaves forced the nation to confront the truth about itself, and led inexorably to civil war. Andrew Delbanco's masterful examination of the fugitive slave story illuminates what brought us to war with ourselves and the terrible legacies of slavery that are with us still. A New York Times Notable Book Selection, 2019; Winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize, 2019; Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, 2019; A New York Times Critics' Best Book, 2019 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WAvI1YmZrTA https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-the-war-before-the-war/

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall (NHC Fellow, 1996–97), Julia Cherry Spruill Professor Emerita of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, National Humanities Medal Recipient Descendants of a prominent slaveholding family, Elizabeth, Grace, and Katharine Lumpkin grew up in a culture of white supremacy. But while Elizabeth remained a lifelong believer, her younger sisters chose vastly different lives. Seeking their fortunes in the North, Grace and Katharine reinvented themselves as radical thinkers whose literary works and organizing efforts brought the nation's attention to issues of region, race, and labor. “Sisters and Rebels” follows the divergent paths of the Lumpkin sisters, who were “estranged and yet forever entangled” by their mutual obsession with the South. Tracing the wounds and unsung victories of the past through to the contemporary moment, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall revives a buried tradition of Southern expatriation and progressivism; explores the lost, revolutionary zeal of the early twentieth century; and muses on the fraught ties of sisterhood. Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, 2020 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qzURU3xlQ_M https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-sisters-rebels-struggle-for-soul-of-america/

Mia Bay (NHC Fellow, 2009–10), Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair in American History, University of Pennsylvania From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, “Traveling Black” explores when, how, and why racial restrictions took shape and brilliantly portrays what it was like to live with them. It also recounts the many forms of resistance deployed in the prolonged fight for freedom of movement across the United States. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sJW0wRhtMc4?t=113 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fresh-off-the-press-traveling-black/

Martha S. Jones (NHC Fellow, 2013–14), Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women's movement did not win the vote for most Black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own. In “Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All,” historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of Black women—Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more—who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GAkgz7oYPV8 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-vanguard-black-women-broke-barriers-won-vote-equality-for-all/

Tsitsi Ella Jaji (NHC Fellow, 2017–18), Associate Professor of English, Duke University Zimbabwean poet and scholar Tsitsi Ella Jaji discusses and reads selections from “Mother Tongues: Poems,” her award-winning second book of verse, in which she explores our relationships with language, from the first words we learn to the vows we swear, examining how generations of love and loss are inscribed in our every utterance. Winner of the Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize, 2018 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VOqFPca5AoI?t=12 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fresh-off-the-press-mother-tongues-poems/

Kim F. Hall (NHC Fellow, 2016–17), Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Professor of Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University Since her first book, “Things of Darkness,” appeared in 1996, Kim F. Hall's work has helped generate a new wave of scholarship on race in Shakespeare and Renaissance/Early Modern texts. For this talk, she places “Othello: The Moor of Venice” in an Afrodiasporic family story by exploring appearances of Othello and “Shakespeare” in the African Diaspora, specifically at sites of the Black freedom struggle. Hall suggests that we learn much about modern Blackness from how Afrodiasporic peoples evoke, appropriate, and contest “Shakespeare” in their quest to make legible new political Black identities. The talk covers the role of Shakespeare in constructions of Blackness and race; the appropriation of Shakespeare by Black communities; the policing of canonical literature along racial lines; and the race and gender politics of the American stage and popular media. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-o7wtZt4Dqc https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-othello-was-my-grandfather/

Thomas M. Lekan (NHC Fellow, 2009–10; 2010–11; 2022–23), Professor of History, University of South Carolina Demonstrating the conflicts between international conservation, nature tourism, decolonization, and national sovereignty, “Our Gigantic Zoo” explores the legacy of Bernhard Grzimek, Europe's greatest wildlife conservationist, who portrayed himself as a second Noah, called on a sacred mission to protect the last vestiges of paradise for all humankind. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eu-NQrLFhLM?t=106 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fresh-off-the-press-our-gigantic-zoo/

Andrew Jewett (NHC Fellow, 2013–14), Elizabeth D. Rockwell Visiting Professor of Ethics and Leadership, University of Houston “Science under Fire” reconstructs a century of battles over the cultural implications of science in the United States, showing how suspicion of scientific methods and motivation has played a major role in American politics and culture since the 1920s with profound repercussions that continue to affect everyday life in the current moment. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eV6427lvAXM?t=171 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fresh-off-the-press-science-under-fire-challenges-to-scientific-authority-in-modern-america/

Bart D. Ehrman (NHC Fellow, 2009–10; 2018–19), James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In clear and compelling terms, Bart D. Ehrman recounts the long history of the afterlife, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. He discusses ancient guided tours of heaven and hell, in which a living person observes the sublime blessings of heaven for those who are saved and the horrifying torments of hell for the damned. As a historian, Ehrman obviously cannot provide a definitive answer to the question of what happens after death, but by helping us reflect on where our ideas of the afterlife come from, he assures us that even if there may be something to hope for when we die, there is certainly nothing to fear. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zGzXbZCHddw https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-heaven-and-hell-a-history-of-the-afterlife/

Catherine M. Cole (NHC Fellow, 2006–07), Divisional Dean of the Arts and Professor of Dance and English, University of Washington “Performance and the Afterlives of Injustice” reveals how the voices and visions of artists in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo can help us see what otherwise evades perception from the injustices produced by apartheid and colonialism. Examining works by contemporary performing artists Brett Bailey, Faustin Linyekula, Gregory Maqoma, Mamela Nyamza, Robyn Orlin, Jay Pather, and Sello Pesa, Cole demonstrates how the arts are “helping to conjure, anticipate, and dream a world that is otherwise.” Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_BlCyoW6rD4 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-performance-and-the-afterlives-of-injustice/

John McGowan (NHC Fellow, 2017–18), John W. and Anna H. Hanes Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In “Pragmatist Politics,” John McGowan suggests that perhaps the best response to the cynicism and despair that permeate contemporary American politics is a return to pragmatism. Offering an expansive vision of what the United States should be, McGowan combines the thinking of philosophers like John Dewey and William James with the ethos of comedy to imagine what American life could be like if we more fully embraced values such as love, forgiveness, and generosity that are too often left out of our political discourse. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rND1RsZb3sI https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-pragmatist-politics-making-the-case-for-liberal-democracy/

Laura F. Edwards (NHC Fellow, 2007–08), Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, Princeton University Laura F. Edwards's compelling book considers the sweeping transformation of American law produced in the wake of the Civil War. Through her analysis of constitutional amendments, Supreme Court decisions, and legal claims espoused by everyone from national politicians to everyday citizens, Edwards demonstrates how the notion of rights became so integral in post-Civil War America, especially in the lives of African Americans, women, and organized laborers. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1AP81lTCJ0U https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-a-legal-history-of-the-civil-war-and-reconstruction/

David Bromwich (NHC Trustee), Sterling Professor of English, Yale University Since at least as far back as the expansion of the Vietnam War and the lies and coverups that brought down Richard Nixon, every presidency has further centralized and strengthened executive power, producing the political conditions for our present crisis. In “American Breakdown,” David Bromwich provides an essential analysis of the forces in play beneath the surface of our political system. His portraits of political leaders and overarching narrative bring to life the events and machinations that have led America to a collective breakdown. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8w4KtFCgHZc https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-american-breakdown-the-trump-years-and-how-they-befell-us/

Laura T. Murphy (NHC Fellow, 2017–18), Professor of Human Rights and Contemporary Slavery, Sheffield Hallam University “Freedomville” is the story of a small group of enslaved villagers in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, who founded their own town of Azad Nagar—Freedomville—after staging a rebellion against their slaveholders. But Laura T. Murphy, a leading scholar of contemporary global slavery, who spent years researching and teaching about Freedomville, found that whispers and deflections suggested that there was something troubling about Azad Nagar's success. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Z4BvpfGfNvQ https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fresh-off-the-press-freedomville-story-of-21st-century-slave-revolt/

Joseph Luzzi (NHC Fellow, 2004–05), Professor of Comparative Literature, Bard College On a cold November morning, Bard College professor Joseph Luzzi found himself racing to the hospital—his wife, Katherine, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, had been in a horrible car accident. In an instant, Luzzi became both a widower and a first-time father. In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, Luzzi relied on the support of his Italian immigrant family to grieve and care for his infant daughter. But it wasn't until he turned to the Divine Comedy—a poem he had devoted his life to studying and teaching—that he learned how to resurrect his life, passing from his own grief-stricken inferno through the purgatory of healing, and ultimately stepping into the paradise of rediscovered love. “In a Dark Wood” is a beautifully written hybrid of heartrending memoir and a meditation on the power of great art to give us strength in our darkest moments. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JcL4go2pnf0 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/video/virtual-book-club-in-a-dark-wood/

Kathleen DuVal (NHC Fellow, 2008–09), Bowman & Gordon Gray Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has revitalized the study of early America's marginalized voices. Now, in “Independence Lost,” she recounts an untold story as rich and significant as that of the Founding Fathers: the history of the Revolutionary Era as experienced by slaves, American Indians, women, and British loyalists living on Florida's Gulf Coast. Winner of the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award, 2015; Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey History Prize, 2016; Finalist for the George Washington Book Prize, 2016 Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4fmEZJhe7w8 https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-independence-lost/

Alexis Pauline Gumbs (NHC Fellow, 2020–21), Independent Scholar, Writer, and Activist The second book in an experimental triptych, “M Archive ”is a series of poetic artifacts that speculatively documents the persistence of Black life following the worldwide cataclysm we are living through now. Engaging with the work of the foundational Black feminist theorist M. Jacqui Alexander, and following the trajectory of Alexis Pauline Gumbs's acclaimed visionary fiction short story “Evidence,” “M Archive” is told from the perspective of a future researcher who uncovers evidence of the conditions of late capitalism, anti-Blackness, and environmental crisis while examining possibilities of being that exceed the human. By exploring how Black feminist theory is already after the end of the world, Gumbs reinscribes the possibilities and potentials of scholarship while demonstrating the impossibility of demarcating the lines between art, science, spirit, scholarship, and politics. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JNf8XMg2a7Q https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-m-archive-after-the-end-of-the-world/

Martin Summers (NHC Fellow, 2013–14), Professor of History, Boston College Founded in 1855 to treat insane soldiers and sailors as well as civilian residents in the nation's capital, Saint Elizabeths became one of the country's preeminent research and teaching psychiatric hospitals. From the beginning of its operation, Saint Elizabeths admitted black patients, making it one of the few American asylums to do so. “Madness in the City of Magnificent Intentions” charts the history of Saint Elizabeths and demonstrates how race was central to virtually every aspect of the hospital's existence, from the ways in which psychiatrists understood mental illness and employed therapies to treat it to the ways that black patients experienced their institutionalization. Martin Summers argues that assumptions about the existence of distinctive black and white psyches shaped the therapeutic and diagnostic regimes in the hospital and left a legacy of poor treatment of African American patients, even after psychiatrists had begun to reject racialist conceptions of the psyche. Yet black patients and their communities asserted their own agency and exhibited a “rights consciousness” in large and small ways, from agitating for more equal treatment to attempting to manage the therapeutic experience. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yF6kTij23vY https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-madness-in-the-city-of-magnificent-intentions/

Annette Gordon-Reed (NHC Trustee), Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History, Harvard Law School; Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor, Emeritus, University of Virginia Primarily set at Monticello, where Jefferson not only developed his Enlightenment values but oversaw the workings of a slave plantation, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” looks to shed light on perhaps the most complex of America's Founding Fathers. Two of the world's leading scholars of Jefferson's life and accomplishments, Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf, join forces to fundamentally challenge much of what we think we know and help create a portrait of Jefferson that reveals some of the mystery at the heart of his character by considering his extraordinary and capacious mind and the ways in which he both embodied and resisted the dynamics of his age. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sTZ2uKmwP0k https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-most-blessed-of-the-patriarchs-thomas-jefferson-and-the-empire-of-the-imagination/

William D. Cohan (NHC Trustee) Written by their Andover classmate, journalist William D. Cohan, “Four Friends” tells the stories of Jack Berman, the child of impoverished Holocaust survivors, who used his unlikely Andover pedigree to achieve the American dream, only to be cut down in an unimaginable act of violence; Will Daniel, Harry Truman's grandson and the son of the managing editor of The New York Times, who does everything possible to escape the burdens of a family legacy he's ultimately trapped by; Harry Bull, a careful, successful Chicago lawyer and heir to his family's fortune who took an inexplicable and devastating risk on a beautiful summer day; and John F. Kennedy, Jr., whose story we think we know, told here with surprising new details that cast it in an entirely different light. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gwokOKLPxzI https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/virtual-book-club-four-friends-promising-lives-cut-short/

Joseph Allen Boone (NHC Fellow, 2009–10), Gender Studies Professor in Media and Gender and Professor of English, Comparative Literature and Gender Studies, University of Southern California Taking its inspiration from “Great Expectations,” “Furnace Creek” teases us with the question of what Pip might have been like had he grown up in the American South of the 1960s and 1970s and faced the explosive social issues—racial injustice, a war abroad, women's and gay rights, class struggle—that galvanized the world in those decades. Deftly combining elements of coming-of-age story, novel of erotic discovery, Southern Gothic fiction, and detection-mystery thriller, Furnace Creek offers a contemporary meditation on the perils of desire, ambition, love, loss, and family. Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/G2VorSEJWVk https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/fresh-off-the-press-furnace-creek-a-novel/

Contemporary audiences may be familiar with the phenomenon of “breaking the fourth wall” in television, film, theater, and other forms of media. In these instances, creators and performers address the audience directly or draw attention to the conventions of a performance in a way that disrupts its immersive or continuous nature. In this podcast, Mark Evan Bonds (NHC Fellow, 1995–96; 2021–22), professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, examines what it means to break the fourth wall in classical music composition and performance. Understanding the way that composers like Franz Joseph Haydn used their compositions to subvert audience expectations can help us to understand the ways that styles of music appreciation have changed from the Enlightenment to the present day.

The emergence of commercial aviation in the early twentieth century redefined global commerce by facilitating the movement of people and goods at previously unimaginable speeds. In Hong Kong, however, this phenomenon was not an inevitable development, and the growth of its aviation industry reflected a complex interplay between political interests, geographical realities, and economic alliances. In this podcast, John D. Wong(NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of humanities and social sciences at The University of Hong Kong, traces the ways in which the growth of commercial aviation in Hong Kong turned the city and surrounding region into an economic powerhouse while facilitating an exchange of ideas that shaped the modern age.

In 70 CE, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans led early Christians to claim that this event was an example of divine retribution for the death of Jesus. Narratives promoting this cause-and-effect story of vengeance circulated widely throughout Europe in the medieval period, with frequent alterations designed to appeal to local constituencies and to advance particular political and religious agendas. In this podcast, Timothy L. Stinson(NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of English at North Carolina State University, explores the way that these “vengeance narratives” were both perennial and adaptable. Although the medieval versions of these stories encouraged anti-Judaic bias and persecution, the template of such narratives persisted throughout later ages even while featuring different groups. By understanding how these stories were continuously transformed over time, we can develop a better sense of the way that they helped to shape religious and national forms of identity across Europe.

Prior to the modern era, autobiographical narratives were primarily authored by members of elite classes of society, giving modern-day historians relatively limited insight into the ways that lower-class individuals experienced political, cultural, and economic events of their time. However, the surviving documents that constitute an exception to this rule can give us unprecedented glimpses of everyday life in earlier eras. In this podcast, Jacob M. Baum (NHC Fellow, 2021–22), associate professor of history at Texas Tech University, outlines the insights that primary sources like the autobiographical notebook of Sebastian Fischer, a deaf sixteenth-century shoemaker, can provide for studies of early modern disability history. Fischer's manuscript not only describes what life was like during this period for an artisan with hearing impairment, but also provides a window into the way that major historical events like the Protestant Reformation were experienced by individuals who lacked economic status and political power.

For the past several decades, authorities have become increasingly concerned about the threat posed by emerging diseases—not only to public health, but also to political and economic stability at a global scale. Attention has been particularly focused on tropical hotspots such as west and central Africa, where human encroachment has increased the likelihood of encountering novel pathogens, with potentially disastrous consequences. In this podcast episode, Gregg Mitman, Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History, Medical History, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, explores the ecological, economic, political, and social forces that have simultaneously turned regions of west Africa into profitable sites of natural resource extraction, productive enclaves of biomedical research, and hot zones for pandemic threats. nationalhumanitiescenter.org/gregg-mitman-bloodborne-invasion-politics-of-disease

Over the past several decades, neuroscientific studies have been invoked in order to justify policy decisions and associated legislation. Although such scientific findings are always subject to change or re-interpretation, increasingly, the logic of “brain science” is being equated with a kind of fundamental truth. Practically, this often leads to justifications for programs ranging from cursive writing educational mandates among primary school students to holistic medical interventions intended to prevent mental decline in older age. In this podcast, Jordynn Jack, Chi Omega Term Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explores how contemporary public rhetorical strategies have advanced the idea that we are “neurological subjects,” with identities located in and constructed through our cognitive abilities. Ultimately, Jack's work invites us to consider how we understand and use science in our personal lives and in the public sphere.

Though modernist ballet is often associated with European companies such as the Ballets Russes, the ideas and concepts that emerged from this movement soon found their way around the globe. In Latin countries such as Cuba, this foreign cultural form was adapted to meet local needs and provided an important way to articulate national identity. In this podcast, Lester Tomé, associate professor of dance at Smith College, discusses how artists such as Alejo Carpentier adopted and reimagined the formal methods of modernist ballet in order to promote an indigenous form of Afro-Cuban culture. In doing so, he suggests, they developed a distinctive visual language through which to resist and oppose widespread colonial stereotypes. nationalhumanitiescenter.org/lester-tome-movement-modernism-carpentiers-transatlantic-ballet

As more of our lives shift online, the question of how speech should be regulated in this digital space becomes increasingly relevant. In response, social media companies have set precedents for regulating language on their private platforms. However, these mechanisms are often designed in order to work in tandem with artificial intelligence-based algorithms that have not yet been fully developed, leaving them instead to be administered inconsistently by human content moderators. In this podcast, Janny HC Leung, professor of linguistics in the School of English at the University of Hong Kong, addresses the ethical and legal questions that arise from these attempts to monitor and evaluate—and sometimes even to block—individuals' language on social media. As she points out, the evolution of standards and practices around digital discourse has the potential to reshape the concept of free speech as we know it. nationalhumanitiescenter.org/janny-leung-language-law-and-the-limits-of-digital-autonomy

Scholars have traditionally translated the ancient Greek virtue of Sôphrosunê as “temperance” or “chastity,” implicitly suggesting that it is concerned with forms of self-control in the face of desire or dramatic bodily sensations. As a result, this concept has often been downplayed and relegated to the forgotten corners of philosophical inquiry. In this podcast, Christopher Moore, associate professor of philosophy and Classics at The Pennsylvania State University, restores and explains the complexities of Sôphrosunê for a contemporary audience. Instead of understanding this virtue as a means of moderating and restraining our behavior, we can recognize and celebrate its power to catalyze self-interrogation through an embrace of discipline. nationalhumanitiescenter.org/christopher-moore-sophrosune-self-knowledge

When we read most novels, we assume that characters are the most important components of a story. However, in noteworthy American literature of the segregation era, it is often forms of evidence that structure novelistic worlds, making us recognize and question the ways that details of ordinary life can take on particular significance. In this podcast episode, Rachel Watson, assistant professor of American literature at Howard University, considers how the treatment of evidence in literature can help us to illuminate the simultaneous development of discourses around race, criminology, and crime science. She suggests that at its best, the crime genre can challenge readers by encouraging them both to question the world around them and to suspend widely held assumptions about identity and typology. nationalhumanitiescenter.org/rachel-watson-evidence-racial-discourse-segregation-era-literature

Ryan E. Emanuel is a professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, and a citizen of the Lumbee Tribe. He works closely with Native American communities and institutions on research and outreach related to environmental justice, Indigenous rights, and broadening participation of Native Americans in higher education. He is an interdisciplinary environmental scientist who was trained to study water and ecosystems in an era of rapid global change. His research has broadened to incorporate human dimensions of the environment, including historical and present-day connections between Indigenous peoples and their territories in and around North Carolina. Emanuel’s current project merges western scholarship in environmental science, public policy, and history with Indigenous knowledges to tell the stories of water in the Lumbee world.

Charisma is a concept we typically use to refer to individuals who fascinate, attract, and captivate us in some way. The word’s modern usage, however, obscures its origins in Christian doctrine. In such contexts, charismatic figures were understood to have a kind of divinely ordained authority and spiritual influence. In this podcast episode, Molly Worthen, associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explores the evolution of charisma in the popular consciousness and its role in various historical epochs and movements. From St. Paul to contemporary populist politicians, analyzing the ineffable allure of charisma can help us to understand how power has been produced and wielded in both religious and secular contexts.

When mapping the struggle for Black freedom and racial justice, historians have often emphasized the events and organizational efforts that occurred in urban areas, largely led by men. However, in order to take Black Power politics seriously in a more comprehensive fashion, we need to understand how they also emerged from and developed in rural American communities, where the voices and leadership of women were extremely influential. In this podcast episode, Katherine Mellen Charron, associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, discusses her research into the legacies of local, community-based, rural Black women’s activism in North Carolina. By thinking about how Black Power politics, economics, and culture were affirmed and shaped by women outside of urban centers, we are better able to honor less historically visible forms of political engagement and innovation.