Making of a Historian

In my conversation this week with my colleague Amada Beltran, we talk about some of the biggest problems in history: the state, modernity, and how on earth do historians come to understand the past? Amada talks about how her careful study of wills showed her a key moment in the relationship between the family, the church, and the modern state in 19th century Mexico. I won't spoil it for you here, but it's a great piece of detective work. Listen if you're curious about modernity, the Catholic Church, the Habsburgs, or the Emperor Maximilian, the crummy Bourbon monarch of Mexico. Check out the show notes at Historian.Live If you like the show, subscribe, tell your friends, leave a review!

This week we have on PhD Candidate B.K. Williams, who talks to us about the history of Indonesia after the Second World War. If you're like me, you probably can't keep your Sukarnos and your Suhartos straight. But B.K. helps us look at the rich story of war, independence, repression, and development. With a walk-on part from Mr. Richard Nixon. Both me and B.K. had colds, so there is unfortunately some coughing this episode. If you like the show, be sure to subscribe! Rate us and review us! And check out the website at historian.live

If you like the show, subscribe! Give us a rating on iTunes! Tell your in-laws! This episode we learn all about the Lebanese Civil War, which lasted a whopping FIFTEEN YEARS from 1975 to 1990. If you know anything about the Lebanese Civil War, you know that it is complicated. It’s sometimes presented as a sectarian conflict—Christians against Muslims; but it’s also a conflict between the city and the country, a regional conflict, and a stage for the Cold War. But this episode will help you understand all the ins and outs of the conflict. PhD Candidate Emily Whalen, from UT Austin (now on a pre-doc at Yale) explains the history of the Lebanese Civil War remarkably clearly. For Whalen, the civil war is a way of understanding democracy, pluralism, and the nation. Along the way we learn about the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Mandate system, and we talk about whether the nation-state is really worth it.

In this episode we talk to returning guest, Craig Johnson, about the history of right wing politics. Craig tells us how the right wing developed after the French Revolution, why historians tend to ignore it, and how to understand fascism. Follow Craig on Twitter (https://twitter.com/HistOfTheRight) and Medium (https://medium.com/@HistOfTheRight/)

You HAVE to check the shownotes for this one. Go to https://www.historian.live/home/2019/4/17/episode-130-battle-raps-of-the-high-middle-ages RIGHT NOW There? Good. Our guest today Dr. Jenna Phillips has been kind enough to give us a great series of musically accompaniments to today's talk. Dr. Phillips tells us about a fascinating form of singing in the high middle ages that’s basically like medieval battle rap. Two singers debate a topic in song, and make appeals to two judges, who then declare the winner. It’s a great episode because it has everything. We discuss just what on earth the High Middle Ages are through talking about the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Then Jenna takes us into the world of popular singing: the troubadours and the crusaders. Finally we talk about one particular style of singing, the juex partis. Then, as an added bonus, Dr. Phillips talks to us about how an archival discovery let her understand how people actually sang the jeux partis back in the day.

This is such a great episode. I am proud to welcome Professor Ted Underwood, author of the new book, Distant Horizons. Professor Underwood uses computers to understand long-term, large-scale changes in literature. We don't talk about the methodological stuff, though--instead Professor Underwood gives us a really rich history of how literature over the past three hundred years has changed. How have we developed new genres? How have those changed? How has the gender of writers changed? And how have those writers written about men and women? If you're curious about digital humanities, the history of literature, or you're just and English lit buff, this will be a must-listen. Apologies for my sound quality on this one. I got a new mic... and accidentally... spoke into the wrong end. Check out more show notes at historian.live

This episode I sit down with Berkeley Professor of Latin American and Atlantic History Elena Schneider to talk about her fantastic new book, the Occupation of Havana. It's a fantastic conversation. We talk about one of the big wars of the 18th century--the Seven Years War. And we focus in on one part of the war: the British siege on the Cuban city of Havana. We usually forget this story because when the war ended, Havana was returned to the Spanish. Professor Schneider tells this story, uncovering the forgotten histories of the black people who kept the city going during the siege and occupation. This is such a great episode. Especially worth a listen if you're into Atlantic History, Cuban history, or military history. You can find the book on Amazon, and follow Professor Schneider on Twitter @elenaschneid

This week's episode, I talk about the history of chemistry with historian of science Henry Schmidt. We focus on one of the most important elements: nitrogen. Nitrogen is incredibly important for plant and animal growth. It also makes up over three quarters of the air. How did people figure out what nitrogen was? And once they did figure out what it was, how did they think to use it. Henry traces this wild idea of the circulation of nitrogen that points to a way of thinking about natural resources as if they are not expendable. Spoiler alert: it kinda leads to mercantilism. We had some recording problems on this one, unfortunately. My computer ate an INCREDIBLY fascinating discussion me and Henry had about the history of milk adulteration. We'll get him back on soon and re-do it so you all can learn all the crazy stuff I learned about the history of milk.

This week I bring you a wild conversation with my friend S. Prashant Kumar, who's writing a dissertation in the history of time itself. To tell this story he's looking at a bunch of cosmological inquiries in India. We talk about the beginning of the story, this telling moment when a smart young man on the make, Reuben Burrow, went to India to make his fortune. He worked as a surveyor. But he also mucked around with astronomy and anthropology, and believed that he had discovered proof of the existence of paradise.... He believed that by studying Indian astronomical data, he had found evidence of a time when the earth had not spun on its axis, when there were no seasons, and when everything was perfect. It's a great conversation, and I can't wait for you to hear it. As always, check out show notes at historian.live

"Every generation of historians is really just trying to understand their parents," my colleague Sarah Stoller tells me in his week's interview. And that's what we do--we go back to the 70s, 80s and 90s to learn about the history of working parents. Check out show notes at historian.live

In this episode, we talk with PhD Student Varsha Venkatasubramanian about the history of dams in the 20th century. Dams became symbols of development for both capitalist and communist regimes: they provided electricity, water, and big building projects. Then in the 1980s, spurred by a controversial dam project in India, the popular perception of dams started to shift. Maybe dams were dangerous! They displaced people, and destroyed natural habitats. Was the destruction worth the development? How as anyone to tell? Join us for a really interesting conversation that really GOES PLACES.

We were going to save this one for when the new royal baby came, but I loved the conversation so much I just couldn't wait. In this episode I talk with Dr. Michelle Beer about early modern queenship. Now I used to think that Queens were relatively powerless, but in this conversation Dr. Beer sets me straight. Queens had a lot of power, and used that power in rich and complicated ways. There was politics in what clothes the queen wore, and how the king acknowledged the new royal baby, and how the royal couple were married. For more of Beer's work, check out her new book! Queenship at the Renaissance Courts of Britain, available from Boydell and Brewer press.

To celebrate the release of the latest expansion for Civilization 6, Gathering Storm, we're going to be talking about the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is World Wonder introduced in Civ 6: Gathering Storm that lets you build an exceedingly long canal. On this episode I talk to historian Kyle Jackson about how the Panama Canal got built. You'll learn about American canal envy, yellow fever, and how the Panama Canal was nearly the Nicaragua Canal.

This marks the beginning of a new season for the show. We’ll be doing a series of interviews with historians at every stage of their career: early career grad students, folks on the job market, and honest-to-goodness tenured historians. In this episode, we are graciously joined by Professor of History and South and Southeast Asan Studies, Peter Zinoman. We talk about how the story of the Vietnam War has changed, and the importance of learning Vietnamese History. If you have a suggestion for a person you think should be on the show, send me an email!

One of the BIG THINGS these days are the ‘Digital Humanities’—a set of approaches that bring the power of computers to traditional humanistic questions. I was asked to present an introductory talk about Digital Humanities: here is a version of that talk. The problem is that people aren’t really sure just what the Digital Humanities are. The joke is that every conference, talk, meet-up or working group about DH begins with the question “Just what is Digital Humanities.” I think that’s because there are two different views of what DH should be. First is the ‘soft’ view—DH is just a ‘big tent’ designation for whatever it is that humanists do when they get access to computers. Second is the ‘hard’ view—DH is a fundamentally different way of doing scholarship, that might not even be particularly humanistic. A lot of detractors of Digital Humanities take the hard view. They say that DH is a con-game. Practitioners say that it’s just a collection of methods, but really it’s a sneaky trick of the neoliberal establishment to replace politically radical humanistic scholarship with merely useful computer tricks. I think that BOTH the hard view and the soft view are true. DH is confusing because it is a method-led scholarly project, rather than a theory-led project. The past generation really got the most wind in its sails from theories—new theoretical orientations that let them see their subject in new lights, and make new claims. And so they look at DH and wonder where the theory is. But DH is firstly a bunch of methods. What both camps kinda miss out on is that eventually the new methods WILL lead to new theoretical orientations, new projects, and new problems. It’s just that we don’t know EXACTLY what those are.