Season 5, Episode 6: "Does It Matter?": Legacies of the First World War
Reverb Effect
Nationalism. Emerging technology. Militarization. Destroyed bodies. Total war. In this episode, three historians reconsider the dominant themes of the First World War—which are as relevant today as they were a century ago. Cheyenne Pettit studies Canadian and British conflicts over the treatment of venereal disease during World War One. Matthew Hershey's research explores meanings and experiences of soldiers’ suicide in the First World War. And Lediona Shahollari focuses on the 1923 Greek-Turkish population exchange during the partition of those two states in the aftermath of the Great...
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Season 5, Episode 5: Not Just for Scholars: Democratizing the Archives
Reverb Effect
Archives are central to the work of historians. But they are not just for scholars. In this episode, we talk with an archivist, an archival theorist, and a historian, all working to democratize these spaces, what they hold, and who can access them. Professor Patricia Garcia will help us think about the archives through a critical lens. Archivist Brian Williams will help us understand how to build an archive essentially from scratch. And Professor Stephen Berrey will help us understand what role the public can play in archival endeavors.
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Season 5, Episode 4: Constructed Categories: Syriac Christians and the Immigration Act of 1924
Reverb Effect
One person, missionary EW McDowell, influenced the fate of Syriac Christians ahead of the US Immigration Act of 1924. In this episode, Hannah Roussel interviews James Wolfe about McDowell, whose writings and testimony before Congress opened up the dialectics about the nature of the category “Asiatic.”
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Season 5, Episode 3: “Peace to the World”: Lessons from the Soviet Antiwar Underground
Reverb Effect
Alexander McConnell talks with Olga Medvedkova, a Soviet antiwar activist whose arrest garnered worldwide attention in 1983. In light of the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, what can we learn from Medvedkova and the Soviet peace movement?
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Season 5, Episode 2: Waiting with Mozart
Reverb Effect
Join Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1777 as he waits, in an aristocrat’s antechamber in Munich, for a conversation that could change his life. What did it mean to wait in the past? Who waited? How did it shape society and culture, and how did it define social interactions?
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Season 5, Episode 1: Curating the Remnants of Enslavement: A Conversation with Jason Young
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In this episode, Paige Newhouse interviews Jason Young, co-curator of Hear Me Now: the Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, a traveling exhibit housed at the University of Michigan Museum of Art centering enslaved artisans and the stoneware they produced.
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Season 4, Episode 3: Clesippus and the Candelabrum: Imagining Disability in Ancient Rome
Reverb Effect
The funerary inscription of Clesippus tells an impressive story of illustrious honors and administrative achievements in Ancient Rome. But there is another story, one of a man who navigated slavery, disability, and the sexual advances of the woman who owned him.
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Season 4, Episode 2: Forging Property from Struggle in South Africa
Reverb Effect
In 1911, a contested horse race sparked one of the largest movements by Black South Africans to reclaim colonized land. How does the history of the Native Farmers Association offer a glimpse into alternate futures of property ownership in South Africa?
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Season 4, Episode 1: Laboring for the Puerto Rican Vote
Reverb Effect
What happens when ten Puerto Rican men try to register to vote in 1950s Connecticut? Their eligibility is contested, and Democrats and Republicans become embroiled in a heated debate that ends at the Connecticut Superior Court. The ten Puerto Rican men, however, get lost at the wayside … we don’t even know all ten of their names. How much of their story can we uncover? In this episode, public historian Elena Marie Rosario sifts through archival records to recreate the story of these ten men, while also paying attention to how underlying themes of colonialism, ethnicity, and politics...
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Season 3, Episode 4: The Two Monsieurs
Reverb Effect
In 1836, two tailors transformed the fashion industry forever when they opened the first chemiserie, a shirt store, in Paris. Their radical feat? They tailored a shirt. In this episode, John Finkelberg tells the story of how Monsieurs Pierret and Lami-Housset essentially invented the precursor to the modern button-down shirt. Within a few years, these garments were one of the most sought-after luxury goods. Created by expert men, these revolutionary new products embodied new notions of masculinity developing in nineteenth century Paris. Except one of the tailors, Monsieur Pierret, was actually...
info_outlineSince Donald Trump stepped into the political spotlight, many have likened him to Archie Bunker, star character of the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. The comparisons were based on the crude demeanor, the vulgarity, and the racist and misogynistic views. The comparison seems apt. While the two men certainly shared some unfavorable characteristics, many of those who made the comparison focused on the apparent source for those characteristics—their shared hometown—Queens, New York.
Daniela Sheinin hadn’t given much thought to the comparison, but when she found a kitschy drinking glass at an antique mall displaying an Archie For President graphic, she thought maybe this was something to contemplate. Instead of the president as Archie, we have Archie as the president.
As she began to investigate the Bunker/Trump trope, one thing became clear. They may share a hometown, but they differ in their responses to the rapidly changing Queens neighborhoods that have come to define the borough. In this episode, we consider the many phases of Queens neighborhoods. They are marked by precisely that—fluidity and impermanence. In their transience, as the world moves onward, and the nation evolves, does progress leave something important behind? And to whom is this idea appealing? Where do Trump and Bunker fit now, in what is the most diverse region in the United States?
These questions were some of the many topics covered when Daniela conducted oral history interviews during her dissertation research. Some are featured in this episode.