Imagine John Wick. Only instead of losing his puppy, he's lost his entire family because the British let them freeze to death. And imagine now that they're all in Ireland and it's the middle of the Famine. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Black '47 . Joining us to talk about this film and the misconceptions around the Irish Potato Famine is Padraic Scanlan, author of the new book Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine . This movie is bonkers and actually has a lot to say on Irish history. ...
Mar 20, 2025•1 hr 54 min•Ep. 122
Let’s talk about sex, baby. And food too. And while we’re at it, let’s talk with Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves about how conceptions of food and sex informed one another in the minds of Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. Plus, we get into the ideas of food tourism, appropriation vs. appreciation, and our favorite food scenes in movies. About our guest: Hungry historian and novelist. Professor at the University of Victoria. Rachel Hope Cleves is the author of four award-winning works of history: ...
Mar 13, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 121
Thinking about the elders who have guided me in my life and career.
Mar 12, 2025•24 min
It's time for a critical reappraisal of President Carter. Joining me this week is Jim Barger, Jr., coauthor of the new book Jimmy Carter: River & Dreams, Rods, Reels, and Peace Deals, Plus the One that Got Away . Jim knew the late President and spoke about Jimmy Carter the angler, the environmentalist, and why he deserves another look. We also talk about Rosalynn, their relationship, and how fishing played into Carter's life in the White House and beyond. This is the conversation about a man...
Mar 10, 2025•1 hr 8 min
This morning I talk about why Hoosiers has been banned from HATM and why as a Kentuckian I am legally required to hate Indiana.
Mar 09, 2025•11 min
This week Dr. Surekha Davies joins in to talk about a different way of seeing human history--through monsters. According to her, Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. So our conversation reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. And to do so, we are talking about one of the very best Pixar films ever made: Monsters, Inc. This episode is so good that it's scary....
Mar 05, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 120
This week Dr. Will Tosh drops in to talk about the many complexities of Shakespeare's relationships, Shakespeare's role as a working writer, and the competitive landscape of playwrights of the time, along with Will's new book, Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare. About our guest: Dr. Will Tosh is interim Director of Education (Higher Education and Research) at Shakespeare’s Globe, where he is responsible for undergraduate and postgraduate course, events for adult learner...
Feb 26, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 119
Happy birthday Mr. President! Today for George Washington's birthday we invited Washington scholar Craig Bruce Smith to talk about why we still don't have a biopic of the First American, plus Craig's top five presidents ever. About our guest: Craig Bruce Smith is an associate professor of history at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era and co-authore...
Feb 22, 2025•1 hr 14 min
This week Dr. Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Dr. Derek Silva drop in to talk about 1993's The Program, starring James Caan, Omar Epps, and Halle Berry. This movie was way ahead of its time in its discussions of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), concussions, and race and sexual dynamics on campus. We talk about all of this and the cost to college athletes to play the game. About our guests: Nathan Kalman-Lamb's scholarly work sits at the intersection of social theory and the sociology of sport, with a par...
Feb 19, 2025•1 hr 29 min
Forester Dr. Lauren Oakes joins in today to talk about the urgent need for effective reforestation efforts and the complexities of understanding the state of the world's forests. Plus, we talk about the dual narrative of loss and growth in forest ecosystems, emphasizing the importance of preserving existing forests while also working on reforestation efforts. About our guest: Dr. Lauren Oakes makes environmental science accessible to non-scientists. She writes about forests, climate, and our com...
Feb 17, 2025•1 hr 1 min
This week we dive headfirst into discussions over the Fourteenth Amendment, birthright citizenship, racial discrimination, families, hope, and love with Dr. Kathryn Schumaker as we talk about 2016's Loving and her new book Tangled Fortunes: The Hidden History of Interracial Marriage in the Segregated South . About our guest: Dr. Kathryn Schumaker's scholarship is focused on intersections of race, gender, and American law. Her new book, Tangled Fortunes: The Hidden History of Interracial Marriage...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 117
Columbia University clinical psychologist drops in to talk about his research on resilience, PTSD, the importance of understanding resilience in the face of trauma, the biological responses to traumatic events, and the misconceptions surrounding PTSD. About our guest: George Bonanno is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University's Teachers College and internationally recognized for his pioneering research on human resilience in the face of loss and potential trauma. He is recognize...
Feb 10, 2025•58 min
This week Jeff Melnick, Akrobatik, and Dart Adams join in to talk about Beastie Boys’ revolutionary debut album, License to Ill as well as explore the roots of hip hop, it’s tied to urban communities, the evolution of Beastie Boys as people, and the album’s legacy nearly 40 years later.
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 38 min
Ed Zwick is the man behind many of the movies and tv series you know by heart: Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, Shakespeare in Love, thirtysomething, My So Called Life, and more. And this week, he stops in to talk about his 40+ years of working in Hollywood- the hits, the flops, and everything in between. We talk about our mutual love of history, as well as his thoughts on how history informs his storytelling. There's so much in this conversation and I am so excited t...
Jan 30, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 115
How is power tied to land? Who gets to have it and what do people do once they get it? What do we do about climate change and is there a way to preserve the globally lands across the spectrum? These are some of the questions we ask award winning political scientist Dr. Michael Albertus in this episode. About our guest: Michael Albertus is professor of political science at the University of Chicago. The author of four previous books, his writing has appeared in the New York Times , Washington Pos...
Jan 27, 2025•1 hr 1 min
This week we return to the second podcast we ever released here at Historians At The Movies: 2014's CHEF starring Jon Favreau, Sophia Vergara, John Leguizamo, and Robert Downey, Jr. We talk not only about whether or not this is the best food movie ever made, but about the rise of social media and #foodporn. About our guests: Emily Contois, Ph.D., researches media within consumer culture, focusing on how identities are formed at the vital intersection of food, the body, and ideas about health. Sh...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 21 min
We get a lot of requests around here about how to make time for the gym, how to get started, and what to do when you are there. So I asked Dr. Vanessa Miller and Dr. Pat Wyman to join me to talk about their varied experiences in weight training, still being academics, and what the gym means to them in their lives. About our guests: Vanessa Miller (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Education Law at Indiana University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work is centered on exploring cri...
Jan 18, 2025•1 hr 11 min
This week we return to one of the first HATM Podcasts about one of the first films we ever did on the Historians At The Movies watch party: Lincoln . Joining us are two of the most dynamic historians working today: Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky and Dr. Megan Kate Nelson. We get into Lincoln's presidency, the role of his cabinet, as well as somehow ranking the hottest presidents. This one is a ride. About our guests: Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a presidential historian and the Executive Director of the...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 113
This week author and bridal shop owner Jillian Forsberg drops in to talk about the stories behind helping people tie the knot, why Bridezillas don't exist, and her favorite memories from 17 years in the business. Plus, she reveals the process behind writing her latest historical fiction, The Rhino Keeper . This is a really fun conversation. About our guest:Kansas author Jillian holds a master’s degree in public history from Wichita State University and a bachelor’s degree in communication and hi...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 5 min
This week we return to the Vault and have only one question: IS THERE A CAVE? Two scholars ready to get medieval on us all: Thomas Lecaque and John Wyatt Greenlee. We're celebrating the great epic that wasn't: The 13th Warrior . This movie is so good and so bad at the same time that it's hard to quantify. But we're gonna do it anyway. We're talking Vikings, the Abassid Empire, man-bears, and maybe the greatest language scene in film history. Grab some mead, because it's made from honey, just lik...
Jan 08, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 112
This week astrophysicist Dr. Kelsey Johnson and I talk about how we know what we know, the Big Bang, black holes, and turtles all the way down, all of which can be found in her new book I nto the Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos . This is a mind blowing conversation with a brilliant and wonderful human. About our guest: Dr. Kelsey Johnson teaches students both inside and outside of the classroom, using astronomy as a gateway science to nurture curiosity and support sc...
Jan 06, 2025•1 hr 15 min
This week we reach back into the archive for our first visit from Dr. Mary Hicks to talk about the brilliance of Master and Commander and to talk with Mary about her research into African Mariners in the South Atlantic. About our guest: Mary Hicks is a historian of the Black Atlantic, with a focus on transnational histories of race, slavery, capitalism, migration and the making of the early modern world. Her first book, Captive Cosmopolitans : Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slave...
Jan 01, 2025•54 min•Ep. 111
This week we venture back to one of our earliest podcast episodes to talk about Die Hard with Annette Gordon-Reed and Craig Bruce Smith. We know Die Hard is a Christmas movie, but is it the quintessential 80s film? Find out when you listen in.
Dec 24, 2024•55 min
A Charlie Brown Christmas is undoubtedly in the pantheon of holiday tv shows. This week pop culture historian Blake Scott Ball drops in to talk about how that almost didn’t happen, as well as the politics of Peanuts in the 20th century.
Dec 18, 2024•1 hr 11 min
First the first time ever, HATM has a guest host! This week John Wyatt Greenlee steps on the other side of the mic to talk with David Perry and Matthew Gabriele about Sean Connery, Medieval detectives, and their new book, Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe .
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 108
This week Pulitzer Prize winner Emily Nussbaum joins to talk about the 90s, Generation X, and the rise of reality television during our discussion of Reality Bites. About our guest: Emily Nussbaum is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and previously, was the magazine's television critic. She worked as an editor and a writer at New York Magazine, where she created The Approval Matrix. She's also written for Slate, The New York Times, Lingua Franca and Nerve, among other publications. In 2016, she...
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 107
HOO BOY this week Roman historians Dr. Sarah Bond and Dr. Bret Deveraux drop in to talk about Ridley Scott's ode to his first film, uh, ancient Rome, Gladiator II . We talk about the legacy of the first film, our impressions of the new release, and the actual history behind Gladiator II. This discussion is pretty epic. Stay tuned and subscribe. About our guests: Dr. Sarah E. Bond is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Iowa. She is interested in late Roman history, epigraphy, l...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 106
This week Dr. Robert Colby joins us as we talk about one of the most powerful—and one of the most challenging—films in recent memory: 12 Years A Slave. We also talk about Rob’s new book which examines the trade of enslaved people during the American Civil War. About our guest: Robert Colby is an Assistant Professor of American history, focusing on the era of the American Civil War. Dr. Colby’s research explores the social, military, and political experience of the Civil War era with a special em...
Nov 20, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 105
This week Kevin Rusnak and Emily Carney drop in to talk about the movie that made us all dream of going to Space...or at least Cape Canaveral. This episode gets into an era of nostalgia around the Space Shuttle program, the changing role of women inside NASA, and how the Challenger disaster affects how we remember this movie. About our guests: Kevin M. Rusnak is the Chief Historian of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton...
Nov 14, 2024•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 104
This week Craig Bruce Smith and Robert Greene II drop in to debate whether The Terminator was the most important film made in the 1980s, plus ranking the biggest action stars from 1980 to 2000. About our guests: Craig Bruce Smith is an associate professor of history at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era and co-authored George Washington’s Lessons i...
Nov 06, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 103
