Podcast appearances and mentions of Drew Gilpin Faust

It's been five years since the start of the pandemic. Some 1.2 million Americans died of COVID. That's a lot of grief. But our loss is much more than death. Many lost the friendship of the workplace. And for a subset of teenagers, there was the loss of two years of high school. And the list goes on. Many of us are still left unmoored. But maybe our collective grief can bring us together.Original Air Date: March 08, 2025Interviews In This Hour: What happens when a nation doesn't grieve? — What the Civil War can teach us about American grief — How a funeral singer helps us to mournGuests: David Kessler, Drew Gilpin Faust, Lauren DePinoNever want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast.Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.

What was it like for a girl to grow up in Virginia in the days of legal segregation and civil rights battles? What was it like to go to college in the days of the women's and anti-war movements? The first female president of Harvard (2007-18), DREW GILPIN FAUST, and I are contemporaries, and we look back together at our young years in the South and our paths through the Sixties and beyond, as we talk about her memoir, NECESSARY TROUBLE: Growing Up at Midcentury. You can learn more at drewfaust.com Faust-09-30-2024-raw.2 

Tonight on The Last Word: Supreme Court justices seem skeptical of Colorado removing Trump from the state's presidential ballot. Plus, Trump's attorney argues that January 6th was not an insurrection. Also, President Biden is cleared in the special counsel docs probe. Laurence Tribe, Neal Katyal, Andrew Weissmann, Drew Gilpin Faust, and David Blight join Lawrence O'Donnell.

Historian Drew Gilpin Faust discusses her new memoir, "Necessary Trouble: Growing up at Midcentury," with Paul Simon Public Policy Institute Director John Shaw.

What are the dangers of not acknowledging what has gotten better? How do we understand the marks history leaves on individuals? And what does a former president of Harvard think of higher education in the US today? We hear from historian, civil rights activist, and the first woman president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust, about how her story and how activism can actually make a difference. What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate. For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In conversation with Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton A postwar coming-of-age memoir about life in a conservative family in segregated Virginia, Drew Gilpin Faust's Necessary Trouble recounts her break from the racial and gender norms of the era and the means by which her involvement in the civil rights and antiwar movements led to her career as a historian of those very fights. The Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University and its president from 2007 to 2018, Faust formerly served as dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and taught at the University of Pennsylvania for 25 years. Her many books include This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, winner of the Bancroft Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; and Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, winner of the Francis Parkman Prize. Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton is the president of the Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Telelevangelism and A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World. His other work has appeared across a range of media, including The New York Times, CNN, Time magazine, and PBS. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 10/11/2023)

In this Washington Post Live conversation from Sept. 20, Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian and the first female president of Harvard University, discusses her new book, “Necessary Trouble: Growing Up Midcentury,” which chronicles her path toward civil rights activism, and puts her scholarship on the Civil War into greater context.

Drew Gilpin Faust is the definition of an activist historian. How did this happen? Her life story is instructive. https://mcclanahanacademy.com https://brionmcclanahan.com/support http://learntruehistory.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brion-mcclanahan/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brion-mcclanahan/support

As we mark the 60th Annerversay of the March on Washington, it takes us back to the issues of mid-century America.  So it's only appropraite to be joined by Drew Gilpin Faust, a Bancroft and Francis Parkman Prize winner and former Harvard president. Her memoir, "Necessary Trouble: Growing Up in Midcentury," is more than a personal story; it's a lens into the pivotal moments of the 1950s and '60s. Faust's life personifies the era's turning points, illustrating that history isn't just a collection of facts but a tapestry woven through lives lived. Her journey from racial and gendered assumptions to civil rights activism serves as a microcosm of the societal transformations that continue to shape us today. My conversation with Drew Galpin Faust: 

Growing up in the South, Drew Gilpin Faust rejected the narrative she was fed about slavery and the Civil War. She writes about her journey to activism and becoming the first woman president of Harvard University in Necessary Trouble. She spoke with Terry Gross about being groomed to be a Southern lady, affirmative action, and why we need to confront our uncomfortable past.

Tonight on The Last Word: Donald Trump's bond is set at $200,000 in the Georgia election case. Also, Mark Meadows files a motion to dismiss the charges against him. And a former Harvard president protested segregation in Virginia at age nine. Andrew Weissmann, Neal Katyal and Drew Gilpin Faust join Lawrence O'Donnell.

Zibby speaks to professor, historian, and author Drew Gilpin Faust about Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury, a brave and poignant memoir about Drew's privileged childhood in the segregated South and the birth of her questioning spirit. Drew describes instances of the “necessary trouble” she created growing up (like writing a strongly worded letter to Eisenhower in support of school integration at age 9). She also talks about her career in higher education, particularly what she achieved as president of Harvard.Purchase on Bookshop: https://bit.ly/3E6JyaKShare, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens! Now there's more! Subscribe to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books on Acast+ and get ad-free episodes. https://plus.acast.com/s/moms-dont-have-time-to-read-books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Growing up in the South, Drew Gilpin Faust rejected the narrative she was fed about slavery and the Civil War. She writes about her journey to activism and becoming the first woman president of Harvard University in Necessary Trouble. She spoke with Terry Gross about being groomed to be a Southern lady, affirmative action, and why we need to confront our uncomfortable past.

Amid the uncertainty and sense of lack of leadership in American politics and government, and other sectors, there's a burst of interest in one of our most consequential presidents: Franklin Roosevelt.In this episode of the Serve to Lead podcast, award-winning presidential historian and journalist Jonathan Darman discusses his highly readable and extensively researched new book, Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President. The Next Nationalism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Critical Acclaim“With superb insight into human nature, Jonathan Darman has written a compelling and illuminating account of how a battle with a virus shaped the life of the man to whom the fate of everything would fall. Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggles with polio steeled him for the great struggles of the Depression and of World War II, and Darman tells that story in vivid and convincing detail.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship “A brilliant, fresh, and vivid book that shows us how a well-meaning and ambitious gentleman turned into the world figure who led Americans to conquer the Great Depression and fight to victory in global war . . . Jonathan Darman brings us new insights into FDR (a difficult job at this late date) at the same time as he shows us how a leader is made.”—Michael Beschloss, presidential historian“This fascinating story of how Franklin D. Roosevelt was forged by polio is a moving personal drama. More than that, it's a valuable book for anyone who wants to know how adversity shapes character. By understanding how FDR became a deeper and more empathetic person, we can nurture those traits in ourselves and learn from the challenges we all face.”—Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci“Franklin D. Roosevelt has been a strangely elusive figure to biographers, but he comes vividly to life in Jonathan Darman's moving and insightful portrait. A gifted historian and writer, Darman has given us a parable of redemption through suffering, a sensitive portrait of a marriage, and a fascinating study of the acquisition of power. This is the gripping story of how a lightweight playboy became a great world leader.”—Evan Thomas, author of First: Sandra Day O'Connor“This moving portrait of Franklin Roosevelt's rise to power gives us new insights on his inner life. Jonathan Darman writes with grace, ease, and a keen eye for human detail as he tells the story of FDR in his crucible years. It's about the making of the man before the presidency, before his greatness, and what he had to do and face before he could become who he really was.”—Peggy Noonan, columnist for The Wall Street Journal“At a time when suffering and resilience have taken on new meaning for us all, Jonathan Darman offers us a compelling and compassionate portrait of a man who did extraordinary things because he came to understand both.”—Drew Gilpin Faust, bestselling author of This Republic of SufferingAbout the AuthorJonathan Darman is a journalist and historian who writes about American politics and the presidency. He is the author of Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis that Made a President. His book Landslide: Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America told the story of a thousand transformative days in the 1960s through the eyes of two iconic American presidents.As a former national political correspondent for Newsweek, Jonathan covered the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Mitt Romney and wrote extensively about other major figures in national politics and media. He covered the 2004 presidential campaign for the magazine's special election project, which garnered the National Magazine Award for Single Topic Issue. Jonathan has also appeared frequently as a commentator on politics and presidential history on broadcast television, cable news and public radio.Jonathan is a graduate of Harvard College where he studied American history and literature. He lives in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley.Image Credit | Author photo by Nina Subin, from jonathandarman.com. Get full access to The Next Nationalism at jamesstrock.substack.com/subscribe

In one of her undergraduate history seminars, Harvard professor Drew Gilpin Faust recently discovered that the majority of her students could not read cursive. To them, it was like a foreign language. This is not surprising as cursive was not part of the Common Core educational standards introduced in 2010, though half of the nation's states, including California, now include cursive in their curriculum. Some argue that computers have made the need for handwriting obsolete. But research suggests that handwriting, and cursive in particular, helps children read better and retain knowledge. What is lost when we cannot write or read in cursive? We'll talk to experts on handwriting, and we'll hear from you: Is cursive relevant anymore and how's your handwriting? Guests: Drew Gilpin Faust, Arthur Kingsley University professor in History Organization, Harvard University - Faust is the former president of Harvard University; recent article for the Atlantic is titled, "Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive" Robert Wiley, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro Virginia Berninger, professor emeritus, University of Washington College of Education Sandra Gutierrez, associate DIY Editor, Popular Science; recent article, "Wait, It's Not to Late to Get Good Handwriting"

In one of her undergraduate history seminars, Harvard professor Drew Gilpin Faust recently discovered that the majority of her students could not read cursive. To them, it was like a foreign language. This is not surprising as cursive was not part of the Common Core educational standards introduced in 2010, though half of the nation's states, including California, now include cursive in their curriculum. Some argue that computers have made the need for handwriting obsolete. But research suggests that handwriting, and cursive in particular, helps children read better and retain knowledge. What is lost when we cannot write or read in cursive? We'll talk to experts on handwriting, and we'll hear from you: Is cursive relevant anymore and how's your handwriting? Guests: Drew Gilpin Faust, Arthur Kingsley University professor in History Organization, Harvard University - Faust is the former president of Harvard University; recent article for the Atlantic is titled, "Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive." Robert Wiley, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Virginia Berninger, professor emeritus, University of Washington College of Education. Sandra Gutierrez, associate DIY Editor, Popular Science; recent article, "Wait, It's Not to Late to Get Good Handwriting."

Occasionally it is the other way around, but more than I'd like to admit cultural moments shape what the church believes and practices. Last week I read This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust. The book was about death and the carnage of the Civil War. It was a brutal book, not one I would necessarily recommend. Roughly 2% of the population, an estimated 620,000 men, lost their lives in the line of duty. Taken as a percentage of today's population, the toll would have risen as high as 6 million souls. The human cost of the Civil War was beyond anybody's expectations. Soldiers who enlisted had about a one in four chance of dying! Up until the Vietnam War, the number killed in the Civil War surpassed all other wars combined. The concept of the "Good Death," a classical idea given Christian shape by the Second Great Awakening, was challenged in the Civil War. Some began to wonder if dying for one's country or a cause would count. The brutality of the Civil War changed the doctrine of the end times for much of the protestant church. Here is what Norman Kraus says, "Dispensational theology furnished a reasonable explanation for how God could be sovereign over a world that seemed to be increasingly evil. Americans had difficulty retaining postmillennial optimism in view of the Civil War and World War I, the development of slums, immigration, rising crime, big business, and other social conditions related to industrialization. Dispensationalism made sense to many Calvinists who were pessimistic about individual human nature and it followed that society as a whole was in the same condition. Just as individual salvation requires a miracle from heaven, so would society if it were to be changed." (Dispensationalism in America, p.60) I also read Pale Rider, the story of the Spanish Flu of 1918. It was a particular moment in history that drove that virus around the world and changed history. NOTES: This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney Dispensationalism in America by C. Norman Kraus Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address RECAP & TAKEAWAYS: Our hope is that listeners will stop and ask themselves how much their beliefs are shaped by historical moments as much as they are by the Scriptures. We are all products of the moment we find ourselves in. The only way to escape or see more clearly is to transcend time by reading history or to transcend space by becoming familiar with the church of Jesus throughout the globe. GET IN TOUCH: We'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email or question at comment@cithonahillpodcast.com. Or, leave us a voice recording at https://www.speakpipe.com/cityonahillpodcast. MUSIC: Little Lily Swing, Tri-Tachyon, Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International, https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Tri-Tachyon/the-kleptotonic-ep/little-lily-swing Sorry, Comfort Fit, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Germany (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 DE), https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Comfort_Fit/Forget_And_Remember/03_Sorry

In 1923, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – the famous author of Sherlock Holmes –  embarked on a worldwide speaking tour.  But this tour was not to sell books of his famous detective.  Instead, it was to win converts to spiritual,ism – the idea that through seances, knocking, and advances in photography, the living could commune with the dead.  With hundreds of millions grieving in the years following the First World War and the Spanish Flu, Sir Arthur felt that the world needed to hear his message, including the Latter-day Saints of the Salt Lake Valley.   When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arrived in Salt Lake City, it was not exactly his first experience with the Latter-day Saints.  In 1887, he published the mystery, A Study in Scarlet – the first adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.  The intrepid Sherlock (using the "Science of Deduction") uncovers the horrors of murder, kidnapping, and forced marriages among the Latter-day Saints in the Salt Lake Valley.  Sir Arthur launched the career of his famous detective, as it were, by playing up the most wild stereotypes of the Latter-day Saints.  But his impression of the Latter-day Saints would undergo a profound transformation, and the author of "A Study in Scarlet," who imagined Mormon Women with faces that only showed "the traces of unextinguishable horror" would come to praise the "brave and earnest women" and the "rugged, hard-faced men" among the Latter-day Saint Pioneers.  To learn more about the information in this episode, please check out the following (excellent!) sources: Michael W. Homer, "Recent Psychic Evidence: The Visit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Utah in 1923," 52 Utah Historical Quarterly 3 (1984), available at https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume52_1984_number3/s/143282.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet (1887)Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008)."A. Conan Doyle to Lecture on Psychic Proofs," The Utah Chronicle (9 May 1923), p. 1."Spirit Proofs are Advanced," S. L. Trib. (12 May 1923), 1.  Key Terms: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, A Study in Scarlet, Brigham Young, Latter-day Saints, Polygamy, Utah Territory, Pioneer Museum, Amasa M. Lyman, John A. Widtsoe, Spiritualism, Seance, Ghosts, Spirits, Cenotaph, World War I, Spanish Flu, American Civil War. 

Historian Richard Samuelson turned up for Friday evening happy hour this week, with 14-year-old Oban in hand, to kick around this week’s less-than-neat headlines. Is it merely a coincidence that Jen Psaki chose April Fools’ Day to have the news come out that she’s going to join MSNBC? Irony is truly dead. Meanwhile, on the great existential question of the week—”Team Smith” or “Team Rock”—Lucretia disdains either choice, while affirming the general principle that “violence is always the answer.” Steve offers up that “King Richard,” the film for which Will Smith won his best actor Oscar, is in some small ways a conservative film, though it suffers the typical over-exaggeration of all sports movies, so it gets no better than a C. This week it was revealed that despite Judge and soon-to-be-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s supposed embrace of “originalism” in her confirmation hearing, she doesn’t believe in the philosophy of the American founding that is the core of constitutional originalism rightly understood. (She told Sen. Grassley in answer to a questionnaire that she has “no opinion” about whether human beings have natural rights. Which fits with not knowing what a woman is.) Yet another reason to vote No on her nomination. Finally, we revisit Samuelson’s 2014 satire/prophecy that Harvard would embrace “egalitarian admissions” in about they way they are in fact starting to do just now. As they say, the only genuine and reliable news source these days is the Babylon Bee. Sample: In a move designed to foster diversity and to create a university that “thinks like America,” Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the President of Harvard University announced yesterday that the school will embrace egalitarian admissions. The school will no longer give priority to students with good grades, high SAT scores, and impressive extra-curricular activities. Such policies have, Dr. Faust acknowledged, created an “elitist” and “inegalitarian” atmosphere at the college. “It is unacceptable in 2014 to be favoring the intelligent over the unlearned, and the energetic over the slothful,” she proclaimed. The war on satire continues.

In celebration of Walter Edgar's Journal at 21, this week's episode is an encore from 2012. In Ric Burns' American Experience documentary, Death and the Civil War, he explores the 19th century idealization of a “good death,” and how that concept was brutally changed by battles like that at Gettysburg.With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before -- permanently altering the character of the republic and the psyche of the American people.Burns joins Dr. Edgar to talk about the film, and the ways in which the Civil War forever changed the way Americans deal with death. Also taking part in the discussion are David W. Blight, Professor of American History at Yale University, and the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale; and Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the Lincoln Professor of History in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008) forms the basis for Burn's documentary.

Esteemed American historian Drew Gilpin Faust, 28th President of Harvard University, discusses her work as a Civil War historian and uncovers the pivotal role universities play in modeling cultural and political understanding and strengthening American society. Recorded March 20th, 2018

Episode Notes In this episode, Samantha and Aaron step back from examining actual pieces of lore in order to share their own personal paranormal experiences. They examine the reasons why eye-witness testimonies of supernatural phenomena need to be handled with care, the ways their own experiences influence the way they interpret those from others, and how their training as historians has prepared them to analyze sources. Time Stamps History of Paranormal Research- 2:20 Analyzing Sources- 13:46 Personal Stories- 15:55 Legend or Lie- 39:47 Interpreting the Paranormal- 44:06 The Desire to Have an Encounter- 54:07 Sources For this episode we relied on a lot of articles to help us explain some of the thoughts we had about why people believe in the paranormal, what can influence that belief, and the power of biases. In case you'd like to look at these, we've divided them into helpful categories. On the Public's Belief in Ghosts Why do People Believe in Ghosts? (The Atlantic) [The Truth about the Paranormal] (BBC)(https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20141030-the-truth-about-the-paranormal) Why do We Like a Scary Story? (Oxford Open Learning) On Dark vs. Supernatural Tourism Dark Tourism, Explained (Washington Post) Dark Tourism: The Most Haunted Destinations in the World (Culture Trip) On Why We Like to Feel Scared Why People will Pay to Feel Scared (The Atlantic) On Cryptids So Why do People Believe in Bigfoot Anyway? (California Magazine) Have Scientists Finally Killed off the Loch Ness Monster? (The Conversation) Why Won't Scientific Evidence Change the Minds of Loch Ness Monster True Believers? (The Conversation) For a complete look at the Fox sisters and some pieces of nineteenth-century spiritualism, this Smithsonian article provides a good overview. Samantha also relied on previous research regarding the idea of a “Good Death” and the Civil War from Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. Aaron and Samantha visited the Michigan Bigfoot Conference in this episode of The Saucer Life The quotation that begins the second part of the episode is from Aaron's book The Chaos Conundrum. (Amazon affiliate link purchases help support Great Lakes Lore!) Visit our website and follow us on... Instagram Facebook Twitter Great Lakes Lore is produced by Cheeso Media.

This week, we conclude our Divinity Dialogues Gomes Award podcast series with a reflective conversation between Dean Hempton and our 2021 Gomes Friend of the School honoree, Drew Gilpin Faust. Faust holds several titles, including President Emerita of Harvard University and Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor. She has also been a longtime partner and advocate for the Divinity School and was recognized as this year's Friend of the School for her humane leadership, guided by a profound commitment to collaboration and an unflinching attention to the past in service of a more just future. This episode includes an excerpt from the discussion Dean Hempton had with President Emerita Faust at the award ceremony in May 2021.

Drew Gilpin Faust and Elder Craig A. Cardon discuss the spiritual significance of education.

Over the years, many people have commented on the last words of Joseph Smith.  But Hyrum's last words have received little attention.  His final words - "I am a dead man" - would have been significant to Americans in the nineteenth century, Americans who valued the Christian art of dying well.  This concept of the “good death” had long been a core of Christian practice.  Dying was an art and the tradition of ars moriendi had specific rules going back to at least the 15th Century.   On this episode, we'll explore what it meant to die well, especially when death came by violence, leaving no time for the traditions of final words and admonishments.  To learn more about what dying well meant to 19th Century Americans, please check out Drew Gilpin Faust, "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008).

Using lessons from America's history, Drew Faust teaches the role of humility and hope in both becoming educated and understanding death. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jules takes a broader look at death from a social perspective by comparing the plague of 14th century Europe and the American Civil War. These time periods are seemingly incommensurate, but they're worth comparing to gain a perspective on the social effects of mass death. Links for further reading Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th century Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, Covid-19: The Great Reset Ars Moriendi Translation (the shorter version) Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering Drew Gilpin Faust, The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying Transcription of a letter by James Robert Montgomery Videos Death & the Civil War | Library of Congress Brad Harris – Context: Reflections from A Distant Mirror Lerone Bennett Jr. C-Span Interview (~snippit taken from around the 24 min mark) --- Follow us on Social Media: Twitter Facebook Medium Patreon --- Join the discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/noeasyanswerspodcast

I get asked all the time, "Hey Dr. McClanahan, what books should I read on the War?" A listener sent me Drew Gilpin Faust's list. Before I even read it, I knew it would be establishment nonsense. So, in honor of Dr. Faust, here is my list. She wouldn't approve, which means you will. Hint: No Foner, No Faust, No Blight, No McCurry. https://mcclanahanacademy.com https://brionmcclanahan.com/support http://learntruehistory.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brion-mcclanahan/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brion-mcclanahan/support

An esteemed historian (This Republic of Suffering) and president emeritus of Harvard, she suggests that the widespread misuse of “disinterested” to mean “uninterested” rather than "objective" reflects a broad undervaluing of objectivity, open-mindedness, and intellectual honesty. Seldom has so bleak an insight given me such delight.

Four years after making Presidential, host Lillian Cunningham led a panel examining what's really unprecedented--or not--about Donald Trump's presidency. Historians Alexis Coe, Drew Gilpin Faust and Julian Zelizer joined for this live event in Boston.

Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence speaks with Drew Gilpin Faust, former president of Harvard and Civil War scholar, about the importance of the humanities.

Civil War scholar and former Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust explores the ways The Huntington's collections have served as a critical resource for our understanding of the Civil War for this 2020 Founders' Day Lecture. Although the collection started with Henry Huntington, it has expanded since the library's founding, bringing new insights about the war's causes, motivations, and consequences.

Civil War scholar and former Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust explores the ways The Huntington's collections have served as a critical resource for our understanding of the Civil War for this 2020 Founders' Day Lecture. Although the collection started with Henry Huntington, it has expanded since the library's founding, bringing new insights about the war's causes, motivations, and consequences.

Which songs are better because of how they're used in a TV show? Exhibit A is "The Night We Met" by Lord Huron featuring Phoebe Bridgers, which gets us talking about John Travolta, our favorite teachers, and the country's relationship to death during the Civil War. Our intro is by Andrew Byrne, and our outro is from the documentary Death and the Civil War. Want to leave us a voicemail? Just call 646-389-0767! You can email us at talkaboutsongs@gmail.com, tweet us at @talksongs, or Facebook us at facebook.com/mastas.podcast. To get access to bonus content (and vote in ranking episodes), become a patron at patreon.com/mastas.

Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard University, talks about leading the institution through a decade of change, from the financial crisis to the Trump era. Faust discusses how communicating as a leader is different from communicating as an expert, the surprising ways her study of U.S. Civil War history prepared her for the top job, and what it's like to be the first female president in the University's four-century history.

This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, we look at how in the decades before the Civil War, proslavery southerners dominated US foreign policy and promoted a vision of an ever expanding empire of slavery, both within the US but also throughout the western hemisphere. I’ll speak with historian Matthew Karp about his new book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy. Let’s start with some key background to this period. Between 1820 and 1860, the US was an emerging industrial power with the rise of factories, railroads, and large cities. But in those same years, the US enjoyed the status of the world’s most prominent slave holding society. Between 1820 and 1860, the population of enslaved people grew from 1.5 million to 4 million. Cotton production soared from 400,000 bales in 1820 to 4,000,000 bales in 1860. As southerners liked to say, Cotton was King. But while slavery grew more prominent and profitable, it also grew more controversial. The abolitionist movement grew more vocal in its condemnation of slavery. As it did so, it helped spark controversy after controversy in the 1830s through the 1840s and 1850s – controversies that often dominated national politics. Most of us remember some of the key ones: the Gag Rule, the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, and the Dred Scott decision. Throughout these controversies over the future of slavery, proslavery southerners used their political influence to defend slavery and demand the right to extend it throughout the US. But as Matthew Karp makes clear in his book, these proslavery southerners did not confine to their vision of slavery’s future to the United States. They developed in these decades before the Civil War a bold and enthusiastic vision of slavery’s growth and expansion elsewhere in the world. And to make this vision a reality, proslavery southerners pushed for US territorial expansion. Hence, the war with Mexico in 1846 that allowed the US to seize what is now much of the western United States. Equally important, they also exerted their political power to use US foreign policy and military power to protect other slaveholding societies like Brazil, Cuba, and in the years before it was annexed by the US, the independent slaveholding republic of Texas. One of their top priorities was to thwart efforts by Great Britain to end the practice of slavery. For centuries, Great Britain was one of the world’s foremost participants in slavery and the international slave trade. But in the early 1830s, Great Britain abolished slavery in its empire and made global abolition a top foreign policy concern. This move infuriated proslavery southerners and made them suspect British plots at every turn - plots they were prepared to use US power to foil. So while proslavery southerners defended slavery and pushed for expansion within the United States, they also used American power to defend slavery in places far beyond US borders, and to push for its global expansion. Among the many things discussed in this episode:  How proslavery southerners shaped US foreign policy to protect slaveholding societies like Brazil and Cuba and to promote the global expansion of slavery. Why US proslavery policy versus British antislavery efforts resembled a 19th century Cold War. Why proslavery southerners feared Great Britain would push Texas to abolish slavery. How proslavery southerners were sectionalists in domestic policy, but nationalists in foreign affairs. How proslavery southerners rejected abolitionist claims that slavery was a relic of barbarism, arguing that history was on their side. More about Matthew Karp - website  Recommended reading:  Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy (2017). Drew Gilpin Faust, The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830-1860 (1982) Paul Finkelman, Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South: A Brief History with Documents (2003) Michel Gobat, Empire by Invitation: William Walker and Manifest Destiny in Central America (2018) Robert E. May, The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 1854-1861 (1973) Robert E. May, Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Future of Latin America (2013). Related ITPL Podcast Episodes: Manisha Sinha talks about her book, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition http://inthepastlane.com/podcast-episode-004-the-abolitionist-movement-more/ Music for This Episode Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com) Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive) Lee Rosevere, “Going Home” (Free Music Archive) Blue Dot Sessions, “Sage the Hunter” (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Technical Advisors: Holly Hunt and Jesse Anderson Podcasting Consultant: Darrell Darnell of Pro Podcast Solutions Photographer: John Buckingham Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight © In The Past Lane, 2018

As the US continues to grapple with issues of race, history is proving to be an invaluable tool to underscore and discuss uncomfortable truths still governing the dynamics of race. How can history help us face and overcome troubling truths? Bryan Stevenson, founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative, speaks with Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust about his organization’s efforts to build a museum examining the legacy of slavery, racial terrorism, segregation, and police violence. Stevenson says it’s time to change the narrative and it starts with America owning up to its history.

Morning Prayers service with speaker Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University on Wednesday, August 31, 2016.

Is America turning its back on the humanities? The declining enrollment in disciplines including history, literature, language, philosophy and the arts, at colleges and universities across the country, signals a significant cultural shift. In this episode, Leon Wieseltier, contributing editor for The Atlantic, and Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust unpack why the diminished appeal of the humanities has huge cultural implications. Can this trend be reversed in a challenging age, when technology and quantification are highly revered?

FINALIST FOR THE 2016 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY.From the publisher: A groundbreaking investigation examining the fate of Union veterans who won the war but couldn’t bear the peace.For well over a century, traditional Civil War histories have concluded in 1865, with a bitterly won peace and Union soldiers returning triumphantly home. In a landmark work that challenges sterilized portraits accepted for generations, Civil War historian Brian Matthew Jordan creates an entirely new narrative. These veterans― tending rotting wounds, battling alcoholism, campaigning for paltry pensions― tragically realized that they stood as unwelcome reminders to a new America eager to heal, forget, and embrace the freewheeling bounty of the Gilded Age. Mining previously untapped archives, Jordan uncovers anguished letters and diaries, essays by amputees, and gruesome medical reports, all deeply revealing of the American psyche. In the model of twenty-first-century histories like Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering or Maya Jasanoff ’s Liberty’s Exiles that illuminate the plight of the common man, Marching Home makes almost unbearably personal the rage and regret of Union veterans. Their untold stories are critically relevant today.

Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust led Morning Prayers on the fiftieth anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march to offer reflections on her trip there as an undergraduate. She decided to answer Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to join protesters from across the country, and now understands her participation as a decisive moment in her life.

Morning Prayers service with speaker Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University, on Tuesday, September 2, 2014.

Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard University's president and eminent Civil War historian, discusses some of the forms in which the American Civil War was perceived by and represented to the American people, and the ways in which the nation dealt with the unprecedented carnage the War wrought. (February 28, 2013)

A panel discussion featuring Lawrence Bacow, president emeritus, Tufts University, member, Harvard Corporation, and president-in-residence, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Drew Gilpin Faust, president, Harvard University; Juliet García, president, University of Texas at Brownsville; and Peter Salovey, president, Yale University. The panel was moderated by Tori Murden McClure ’85, president of Spalding University, and introduced by Agnes Bundy Scanlan ’79, Smith College trustee and senior advisor with Treliant Risk Advisors.

Morning Prayers service with speaker Drew Gilpin Faust, President of Harvard University on Tuesday, September 3, 2013.

Drew Gilpin Faust, author of “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War,” talks about the new PBS documentary by Ric Burns, “Death and the Civil War,” which was based on her award-winning book. Faust is president of Harvard University.

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings, read by Daniel B. Clendenin. Essay: *"Everyone Has a Name": Holocaust Remembrance Day* for Sunday, 4 May 2008; book review: *This Republic of Suffering; Death and the American Civil War* by Drew Gilpin Faust (2008); film review: *The Dialogue: An Interview with Screenwriter Paul Haggis* (2006); poem review: *Holy Spirit* by Hildegard of Bingen.