Penn Press Podcasts

David R. Swartz, Asbury University historian and author of Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism, discusses the overlooked history of the America's evangelical progressives. Swartz talks about the differences between Christian fundamentalists and other evangelicals, and the influence of people such as Ron Sider, Mark Hatfield, and Jim Wallis.

First posted on February, 2011. Robert Dale Parker is James M. Benson Professor in English and Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois. Parker's collection of poetry, Changing Is Not Vanishing, reinvents the early history of American Indian literature and the history of American poetry by presenting a vast but forgotten archive of American Indian poems. In this podcast, Parker discusses the editing process and reads selected poems from his book.

Albert J. Churella, Associate Professor in the Social and International Studies Department at Southern Polytechnic State University and author of The Pennsylvania Railroad, Volume 1: Building an Empire, 1846-1917, talks about his monumental history of the transportation giant. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest privately owned business corporation in the world. Churella discusses the birth of this enterprise and its relationship to America's natural, technological, and political landscape.

John P. Spencer, Associate Professor of Education at Ursinus College and author of In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform, talks about the work of a leading public educator who was assassinated in 1973. Spencer shares Foster's success stories and struggles in the Philadelphia and Oakland school systems, and explains what Foster's comprehensive, bridge-building approach can teach us in an age of finger-pointing debates about failing urban schools.

Victoria W. Wolcott, Associate Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, SUNY and author of Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America, discusses an overlooked aspect of twentieth-century public accommodations controversies. Wolcott tells how African Americans and their allies fought to integrate parks and playlands across the United States, often in the face of violence and intimidation.

Ruth Mazo Karras, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval Studies at the University of Minnesota, reminds us that traditional marriage was not the only option for couples in medieval Europe. Her new book Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages examines the various relationships that took shape during that period.

Lehigh University political scientist Saladin M. Ambar, author of How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency, discusses the role that governorship played in shaping America's executive branch. Ambar talks about the influence of governors and presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Bob La Follette, and Rutherford Hayes. He also discusses the implications of this leadership legacy for the 2012 presidential election.

Penn Press's own Sara Davis reads selections from The Satires of Horace, translated by A.M. Juster. In the Satires, the Roman philosopher and dramatic critic Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-3 B.C.), known as Horace, provides trenchant social commentary on men's perennial enslavement to money, power, fame, and sex. Juster's striking new translation relies on the tools and spirit of the English light verse tradition while taking care to render the original text as accurately as possible.

Historian John Cheng discusses the early culture of popular science fiction. Cheng's new book, Astounding Wonder: Imagining Science and Science Fiction in Interwar America, examines the origins of the genre and its community of fans. Cheng shows how pulp science fiction magazines of the 1920s and 30s reflected mainstream views of race and gender while inspiring both professional scientists and amateurs to pursue research.

Shawn Leigh Alexander, Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and interim director of the Langston Hughes Center at the University of Kansas, discusses the efforts of T. Thomas Fortune, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and other leaders featured in his book, An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP.

Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about his award-winning book Peasant Scenes and Landscapes: The Rise of Pictorial Genres in the Antwerp Art Market.

Michael B. Katz, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the history of urban inequality and answers the question posed by the title of his latest book Why Don't American Cities Burn?

Originally posted on Oct 1, 2010. Naomi F. Miller, Katherine M. Moore, and Kathleen Ryan from University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology discuss the facets of Sustainable Lifeways, how humans adapt to changes in their environment over time.

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May 5, 2011. Listen to a candid talk with Martin H. Krieger, Professor of Planning at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning, and Development and author of Urban Tomographies. Krieger's latest book scans contemporary Los Angeles to illuminate different aspects of a community, from work to worship.

February 1, 2011. Robert Dale Parker is James M. Benson Professor in English and Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois. Parker's collection of poetry, Changing Is Not Vanishing, reinvents the early history of American Indian literature and the history of American poetry by presenting a vast but forgotten archive of American Indian poems. In this podcast, Parker discusses the editing process and reads selected poems from his new book.

Dec 2, 2010. Rogers M. Smith is Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and the editor of Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs, a new volume on the politics and economics of human migration.

Nov 1, 2010. Anne Trubek, journalist and Associate Professor at Oberlin College, recounts her travels to writer's house museums across the United States. She has visited Hannibal, MO, the birthplace of Mark Twain; the Hemingway house in Key West, FL; and Concord, MA, home to Louisa May Alcott and a host of other American authors.

Sept 1, 2010. Rutgers University historian Howard Gillette, Jr., author of Civitas by Design: Building Better Communities, from the Garden City to the New Urbanism, covers a century of urban planning, architecture, and reform efforts.

Aug 2, 2010. UCLA professor Felicity Nussbaum discusses the birth of celebrity culture and the changing roles of actress and women on stage and off in eighteenth-century England.

Feb 1, 2010. David Zaring of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania discusses Import Safety. What can governments, businesses and consumers do to eliminate dangerous products from the world marketplace? Zaring is co-editor, along with Cary Coglianese, Adam M. Finkel, of Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy

Sep, 2, 2009. Historian Steven Conn discusses how museums have changed over the past century and the role they play in contemporary American life.

Aug, 3, 2009. International relations scholar Mahmood Monshipouri talks about identity politics in the Muslim world.

July, 1, 2009. Joan Johnson-Freese, Professor and Chair of the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College, talks about U. S. military interests in space.

May, 1, 2009. Elise Lemire talks about the history of slavery in the Concord area, including Walden Pond, and the lives of African Americans in the area before Thoreau.

April, 1, 2009. Historian Steven P. Miller discusses the political life of the internationally renowned evangelist Billy Graham.

March, 2, 2009. Deirdre Martinez, Director of the Fels Public Policy Internship Program for the University of Pennsylvania, gives advice for students who seek political internships in Washington, DC.

February, 2, 2009. Constitution consultant and ethnic reconciliation expert Brendan O'Leary discusses How the United States can withdraw from Iraq quickly and responsibly.

December, 3, 2008. Historican Roger W. Moss and photographer Tom Crane discuss their collaboration on a series of books on Philadelphia architecture. Moss also discusses architectural history and preservation.

November, 1, 2008. Learning from Greensboro: Truth and Reconciliation in the United States authors Lisa Magarrell and Joya Wesley talk about applying the Truth and Reconciliation model in Greensboro, North Carolina to face the legacy of the Greensboro Massarcre of 1979.

October, 1, 2008. In this first Penn Press podcast, Eugenie Birch and Susan Wachter, editors of Growing Greener Cities: Urban Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century, discuss the environmental issues facing cities today.

Jul 1, 2010. Award-winning poet Len Krisak discusses his new translation of Virgil's Eclogues and reads some selections from the book of classic poems.

Apr 1, 2010. Historian and book expert Robert Darnton discusses literature of slander and libel in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France and reveals the names of history's forgotten muckrackers, including the author of The Bohemians.

Mar 1, 2010. Cultural historian George Cotkin calls for a "healthy dose of befuddlement" in considering some of the most controversial episodes of the last hundred years.

Dec, 1, 2009. David Suisman, historian and co-editor of Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, discusses the role of sound in the history of the twentieth century from early bootleg records to Tokyo Rose to CB radio.

Nov, 3, 2009. Scott Gabriel Knowles, historian and editor of Imagining Philadelphia: Edmund Bacon and the Future of the City, discusses the legacy of the famous urban planner.

Oct, 1, 2009. Historian Lisa Rosner dispells myths surrounding the Burke and Hare murder case and their client, Dr. Robert Knox. Rosner explains burking, and shared details about the victims of the nineteenth-century serial killers.

June, 2, 2009. Nancy Bentley talks about the interaction between literary culture and nascent mass culture at the turn of the twenthieth century.

January, 5, 2009. Historian Eric C. Schneider discusses the history of the heroin trade in New York City and other American cities.