Context

Hello listeners! Over the next few weeks, we will be posting a curated collection of episodes focusing on themes surrounding Democracy. In this special series, expect to learn about voter apathy, media literacy, the electoral college, and the changing face of media. These episodes were funded in part by the Federation of State Humanities Councils through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional funding has also been provided by US Bank. Hope to get you connected!

14 Apr 202229s

Look at a map of the United States and you'll see the familiar cluster of states in North America, plus Hawai'i and Alaska in boxes off to the side. But what about Puerto Rico? What about American Samoa? The country has held overseas territory--lands containing millions of U.S. nationals--for the bulk of its history. They don't appear often in textbooks, but the outposts and colonies of the United States have been central to its history. This talk explores what U.S. history would look like if it weren't just the history of the continental states but of all U.S. land: the Greater United States. Bio: Daniel Immerwahr (pronounced IM-mer-var, he/him pronouns) is a professor of history at Northwestern University, where he teaches global history and U.S. foreign relations His first book, Thinking Small (Harvard 2015), a history of U.S. grassroots antipoverty strategies, won the Organization of American Historians' Merle Curti Award for best work of U.S. intellectual history. His second, How to Hide an Empire, a retelling of U.S. history with the overseas parts of the country included in the story, was a national bestseller and won the Robert Ferrell book prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Immerwahr is currently working on two research projects, one focusing on the pop culture of U.S. global hegemony, the other a book about nineteenth-century urban catastrophes. Immerwahr's writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Slate, The Nation, and The New Republic. Watch the video here.

23 Mars 20221h 3min

During the twentieth century, hundreds of communities in the American West disappeared, and no one seemed to care. River development projects – massive dams built for irrigation, hydroelectricity, and flood control – displaced or destroyed towns, tribal communities, farmsteads, and ranches on the Snake, Colorado, Columbia, and other rivers. Recovering these lost histories is the mission of The Atlas of Drowned Towns, a multimedia and multi-platform public history project (drownedtowns.com). This talk with introduce and explain the objectives and vision of The Atlas of Drowned Towns, exploring some of the questions lurking under the surface of reservoirs: How did these displaced communities respond to their removal – with enthusiasm, acquiescence, or/and resistance? Why did they respond in those ways? What was it like to live in and have to leave these places? And what can we in the 21st century learn from the history of displacement, as we face a future that threatens more such displacement? Bio: Bob H. Reinhardt is an associate professor in the Department of History at Boise State University, where he teaches, researches, and writes about the history of the American West, environmental history, public history, and the history of public health. Bob is the author of the The End of a Global Pox: America and the Eradication of Smallpox in the Cold War Era (University of North Carolina Press) and Struggle on the North Santiam: Power and Community on the Margins of the American West (Oregon State University). His professional experience includes serving as the Executive Director of the Willamette Heritage Center museum in Salem, Oregon, a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, and teaching positions at Western Oregon University and Willamette University. Bob is also the founder and director of the Working History Center at Boise State University. Do you know of other such displaced communities? Do you know more about these places? Were these communities not actually drowned by river development projects? Share your knowledge with The Atlas of Drowned Towns before or after the event at drownedtown.com. Watch the video here.

9 Mars 202258min

An overview of Sacajawea from 1805-106 and the Lewis and Clark Expedition's time in Lemhi County, Idaho. Jumping back to today, a look at the different portrayals and representations of Sacajawea throughout the 20th and 21st century and the establishment and mission of the Sacajawea Center today. Bios: Suzy Avey, Director of the Sacagawea Interpretive, Cultural, and Educational Center, Salmon, ID Mike Crosby, Historian and Author Watch the video here.

8 Feb 202256min

In 1847, Presbyterian missionary Henry Spalding acquired handmade Nez Perce artifacts and sent them from north-central Idaho to his friend and supporter, Dudley Allen, in Ohio in exchange for commodities. This was the fate of many early Native American materials, to be appropriated by non-Natives and removed from the hands and lands that created them. The shirts, dresses, baskets, horse regalia, and more—called the Wetxuuwíitin’ (formerly Spalding-Allen) Collection—would not return to their rightful home until they were purchased by the tribe from the Ohio Historical Society in 1996 for $608,100. On November 23rd, 2021, the Ohio History Connection (formerly the Ohio Historical Society) returned $608,100 to the Nez Perce Tribe. Burt Logan of the OHC stated that if the collection was “in the possession of the Ohio History Connection today, we would freely return these items to their rightful home.” The reclamation of these Nez Perce artifacts is the subject of a new WSU Press book, “Coming Home to Nez Perce Country,” published in June 2021. Bios: Nakia Williamson-Cloud, Director Nez Perce Tribe Culture Resource Program Trevor Bond, Associate Dean WSU Libraries and Director of the WSU Center for Arts and Humanities Watch the video here.

25 Jan 202258min

The Berlin Wall, Polish Solidarity, Tiananmen Square, the dissolution of the Soviet Union: the end of the Cold War created cultural and political reverberations around the globe. Americans celebrated the United States’ triumph over the Soviet Union, having “won” a conflict that had dominated international affairs for half a century. Yet the end of the Cold War wrought changes in American culture that are sometimes difficult to trace, especially in comparison to the waves of revolution and mass demonstration that characterized other parts of the world between 1989 and 1991. This talk will explore some of the subtle ways that the end of the Cold War influenced American culture, many aspects of which have only become apparent in the three decades since. I contend that the experience of the 1980s and 1990s not only helps us understand American culture in the era since September 11, 2001, but also lends insight into the lasting influence of these decades in American culture today, from pop culture to politics. Bio: Dr. Sarah Robey is Assistant Professor of History at Idaho State University, where she teaches courses in American history, the history of the Cold War, the history of science and technology, and the history of energy. Her research focuses on the intersection of American culture and public life and the history of nuclear science and technology. Her first book, Atomic Americans: Citizens in a Nuclear State, will be published with Cornell University Press in early 2022. She also has a forthcoming chapter in Energy Cinema (West Virginia University Press, 2022), which explores how popular entertainment served as public nuclear education in the early Cold War. Robey holds a PhD in History from Temple University and has held past fellowships at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and the Philadelphia History Museum. Watch the video here.

19 Okt 202156min

In this talk, Riché Richardson reflects on the life, activism and continuing significance of civil rights leader Rosa Parks. Richardson draws on the leader’s legacy and work with children to reflect on her own life path, mentors, and early community service work as a student at the historic St. Jude Educational Institute in Montgomery, Alabama that established foundations for her current work as a university professor and artist who has continued to engage Rosa Parks in both writing and art. Richardson discusses her most recent book, Emancipation’s Daughters: Reimagining Black Femininity and the National Body, which includes a chapter on Parks, along with Richardson's body of art quilts featured in solo shows at the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery in 2008 and 2015. Bio: Riché Richardson is professor of African American literature in Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center who was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2001, she received a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her interviews have been highlighted in news media such as NBC’s The Today Show and Nightly News, CNN, Al Jazeera’s Newshour, and the New York Times. Her Op-Eds have appeared in the New York Times, Public Books and Huff Post. She has published nearly 40 essays in journals and edited collections. Her first book, Black Masculinity and the U.S. South: From Uncle Tom to Gangsta (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007), was highlighted by Choice Books among the "Outstanding Academic Titles of 2008." Her new book, Emancipation's Daughters: Reimagining Black Femininity and the National Body, was published in 2021 by Duke University Press. She is the editor of the New Southern Studies book series at the University of Georgia Press. She is also a visual artist whose art quilts have been featured in several solo and national exhibitions. Watch the video here.

5 Okt 20211h

John Denver is one of America’s greatest country-folk singer/songwriters. With over 30 albums in his discography, Denver was more than just a performer. He was an actor, environmentalist, and humanitarian whose efforts continue to be celebrated. He had a raw talent and unique ability to capture the essence of everyday issues through music that seemed to flow from him with deep conviction, especially through the song, Take me Home, Country Roads which is one of the four state anthems of West Virginia. Bio: Robert Santelli was named Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum® in Los Angeles in 2006. Under his leadership, the Museum opened new museums in three domestic markets, curated over 65 exhibits, many of which traveled internationally; produced over 600 public programs; and formed educational partnerships with the White House and The Kennedy Center. Santelli is a noted blues and rock historian, contributing to Rolling Stone and The New York Times, smong other periodicals, as well as the author of more than a dozen books on American music, including Greetings From E Street and The Bob Dylan Scrapbook, both New York Times bestsellers. Santelli was one of the original curators of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, moving to Cleaveland in 1995 to become the museum's first Director of Education and Vice President of Public Programs. In 2000, he bacame CEO of the Experience Music Project (now MoPOP) in Seattle, the first-ever interactive music museum. Santelli also developed the UK's first pop music museum, the British Music Experience. In 2012, Santelli co-produced Woody At 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection, which earned him a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Historical Album. Following the Merger of the GRAMMY museum and the GRAMMY Foundation in 2017, Santelli wa named Founding Executive Director and currently oversees the Museum's outside projects and traveling exhibits. Watch the video here.

27 Sep 20211h