Join me in this, my very first side project episode, a look at the overwhelmingly important historical, cultural, and political impact of Clotilda, the last known American ship to bring slaves from Africa as part of the Atlantic slave trade. The shipwreck was located just a few years ago and its future raises some important questions. Clotilda is an American story, a global story, that you absolutely must know. I was amazed too, despite what a different era I obviously researched here, how many ...
Apr 06, 2022•1 hr 44 min
While I'm traveling/on a pod break for just a few weeks, I thought I'd offer a sneak peek into the Patreon bonus episodes. This was the first one I ever did, so forgive any sound issues or rambling. I only scratched the surface, but in it I explore a few stories of Titanic's chefs and cooks. The stories of crew are rich and complex, and I wish we knew even more. If you're on the fence about becoming an Unsinkable patron, perhaps this might give you a sense of what the bonus episodes offer. See y...
Mar 21, 2022•49 min
I'm excited to bring you an interview with Jim Myers, who is the Education Executive for both Titanic Museum Attractions (Branson, Missouri, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee). We speak about the museum's goals of memorializing both the survivors and the victims of Titanic, its role as an interactive attraction, its efforts to broaden educational programs around the ship, and also just some of Titanic's achingly human stories. I managed to only mention James Cameron's Titanic ONCE...can you believe it...
Mar 11, 2022•1 hr 10 min
Join me as I chat with author Hazel Gaynor, who has SUCH a refreshing take on Titanic's legacy; her book, The Girl Who Came Home, is a peek into some of the smaller, gorgeously human moments aboard the ship, and specifically those of the Irish immigrants she focuses on. This book is a fictionalization of the ship's real Irish passengers know as the Addergoole 14, who we talk a bit about in terms of collective grief and their legacy. We touch on the role of historical fiction in helping us all to...
Mar 04, 2022•1 hr 4 min
This episode is dedicated to every man/woman/child suffering and in fear in Ukraine right now. To help, donate: To UNICEF, which helps children in urgent need of help, and right now you can flag your donation for Ukraine: https://www.unicefusa.org To World Central Kitchen, which works to FEED people in conflict zones, disaster zones, and they're in Ukraine and on the borders right now: https://donate.wck.org/give/393234#!/donation/checkout For a brief recent history of Ukraine: https://www.npr.o...
Feb 28, 2022•23 min
*(Quick note: I had some minor sound issues for this episode and I'm aware the audio quality is not quite up to standard--don't worry, this will be sorted out by next episode!) Join me as I detail of the life of Joseph Laroche, the sole black man on the Titanic, whose story is so much more than that factoid of a label would lead one to believe; his life intersected with crucial moments in Haitian history and in French history, and his marriage to a woman named Juliette highlights so many facets ...
Feb 26, 2022•1 hr 39 min
In this last episode for my series on the 1997 movie, I go off script and recount the Titanic cultural phenomena but also the very personal feelings I have about it and how it relates to our understanding of the ship, film history, memory, grief. I also go over the many/pervasive pop culture references from the past 25 years, including some that listeners wrote in about. This is a grab bag. This is me coming to terms with my love of a thing. This is Titanic Forever. Join me. *A special thanks to...
Feb 21, 2022•1 hr 38 min
In some ways I think I've been waiting to record this episode for 25 years, but I wouldn't have been ready until this moment. I cover the ways in which the Titanic disaster has been viewed along gender lines and how the cultural history of it has been shaped by gender. I examine how the character of Rose, from 1997's Titanic, fits into the historical fabric of 1912 but also how she inspired and influenced a generation of young women (and men I'm sure!). I also highlight some crucial women's righ...
Feb 11, 2022•1 hr 46 min
Author Gareth Russell and I have a wonderfully in-depth conversation about the complexities of the lives of several of Titanic’s first-class passengers. If you follow the pod, you know I talk a lot about the Titanic mythologies, these long-held visions of some of the storied passengers, and we address many of them in a blunt way. It’s quite refreshing. We also talk importantly about the creation of historical narrative and how a person’s own beliefs, emotions, prejudices inform how they interpre...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 31 min
This second installment turns partly into an exploration of some of the real passengers aboard the ship and their portrayals in James Cameron's film--Thomas Andrews, Margaret Brown, Archibald Gracie. I also discuss, with quite a bit of detail, how Cameron and his crew seamlessly constructed the ship and the sinking from a combination of practical, digital, and hybrid shots. Toss in a little bit of set gossip and me (of course, who is shocked) defending the finished product against those who doub...
Jan 31, 2022•1 hr 35 min
This is part one of a truly surgical look at the making of James Cameron's Titanic , arguably one of the most popular/successful/beloved/fill-in-any-blank film of all time. Even if you're not a true Titanic-movie person, this will be of interest to you, for the painstaking links Cameron goes to in order to re-build the ship and the world of 1912. For a list of my source material, see my Bookshop Affiliate page: https://bookshop.org/shop/unsinkablepod Or visit my website's blog: https://www.unsin...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 36 min
The Six is available online for a week starting tomorrow, January 22, 2022! Get your ticket for The Six here: https://watch.eventive.org/fhff/play/61c5f6235a819200d56d0547 Here's the film's description, courtesy Friday Harbor Film Fest's website: When RMS Titanic sank on a cold night in 1912, barely 700 people escaped with their lives. Among them were six Chinese men. Arriving in New York with the other survivors, the six were met not with compassion, but suspicion and slander. Less than 24 hour...
Jan 21, 2022•1 hr 9 min
Hi guys, I'm jumping on the feed to re-release my episode on James Cameron's 2003 documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, which details the expedition he took BACK to Titanic in 2001...with...Bill Paxton! This is one of my favorite episodes to date, and I think it's a nice companion piece to the main Cameron episode I just posted. Welcome, also, to new listeners from all over the world!! Thanks so much to ALL my listeners and your support. If you're enjoying the pod, please rate and review! For my Jame...
Jan 18, 2022•56 min
Whoa times about twenty, because this is a beast of an episode that grew its own legs. Here is my rundown of the life, career, and activism (yes, activism) of James Cameron, director of 1997's Titanic. To properly understand the film and its resonance in popular culture, I think its essential to understand the man who took us back to the ship. The clip of Cameron speaking about his childhood is from a Ted Talk, and the link is here: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_cameron_before_avatar_a_curious...
Jan 17, 2022•2 hr 27 min
In this, my first book-centered episode, I chat with best-selling author William Hazelgrove about his book One Hundred and Sixty Minutes: The Race to Save the RMS Titanic, which unpacks and challenges a lot of the long-standing mythologies surrounding the ship's history. Using interwoven stories of wireless operators, rescue efforts of nearby ships, and the motivations and actions of those faced with decisions that tragic night, Hazelgrove's work brings a fresh perspective to very old questions....
Jan 10, 2022•1 hr 10 min
This episode has been in the works for many months, for there is a LOT of material out there about scientist and oceanographer Robert Ballard, one of the discoverers of the wreck of Titanic in 1985 and a veritable explorer of the deep. In this episode I present a biographical sketch of his astounding life and career but also historicize it, as well as try to take you as a listener back to that moment of discovery aboard the ship Knorr in 1985. The wreck is an integral part of the cultural histor...
Dec 21, 2021•1 hr 51 min
I've been training for this for 25 years, you guys! Today I shake up the Unsinkable feed with an experimental, rather spontaneous, rather improvised episode about Leonardo DiCaprio. He's our Jack Dawson, of course, but in many ways Jack Dawson has also been dead for a long, long time. Bear with me as I go off-script for the first time EVER on this podcast to share my thoughts on his filmography, his place in modern film history, and how we've landed at the metaphorical doorstep of his latest fil...
Dec 16, 2021•1 hr 58 min
I re-visited the 1958 classic A Night to Remember, the first and main British cinematic interpretation of the sinking; it was based, of course, on the book of the same name by Walter Lord and I speak to Lord’s work and influence as well. I really wanted to bring some true academic analyses to this film AND address the comparisons of it to James Cameron’s 1997 film. So there’s some of both. Let me know what you think! The article I mention by Sarah Street is in a collection called The Titanic in ...
Dec 07, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Join me for an in-depth portrait of Titanic survivor Helen Churchill Candee, whose 90 years of life coincided an incredible number of times with rather huge historical moments and social developments in the twentieth century. Her story takes us down the road of women's suffrage and early feminism, of course to Titanic's decks, later even to the battlefields of World War I (where her fate intersects with a young Ernest Hemingway's) and then to the farthest corners of then-unexplored Asia. She's f...
Nov 29, 2021•1 hr 25 min
After touching on some analysis of Clive Cussler's 1976 bestseller Raise the Titanic in my last regular episode, I decided to watch its 1980 film adaptation (though I feared it, to be honest). I'm so glad I did. Buckle up, because there's a lot to unpack here, not least of which is the image of a rusticled and mangled (but triumphant) Titanic finally arriving in New York Harbor by tugboat tow 70 years after it was originally due. I unpack everything here, from Russian subplots and gendered dialo...
Nov 22, 2021•45 min
People have been writing about Titanic since almost the moment she sank, and this episode is my attempt to analyze how those authors have interpreted and fictionalized the sinking. Historical fiction is a strange and often beautiful beast of a niche, and I've got great help here in understanding from Chelsea Pinkard, The Titanic Girl, who has a Titanic fiction book blog that is just absolutely stellar. Enjoy! Chelsea's blog: https://www.thetitanicgirl.com/blog Find Chelsea on Instagram: thetitan...
Nov 15, 2021•1 hr 42 min
Here I put my cards on the table: Unsurprisingly, I'm a huge James Cameron fan and absolutely enamored of his deep sea exploration. In this episode I summarize, historicize, and review his 2003 documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, which took him and a team back down to Titanic in submarines fitted with 3-D cameras he'd designed alongside his brother. There's also a lot of Bill Paxton love here--he's the host of the film, in a way, and guides us through the wreck. Full disclosure I cry every time I w...
Nov 07, 2021•53 min
I'm thrilled to bring you an interview with Steven Schwankert, co-creator of the new documentary The Six, which tells the story of the six Chinese survivors of Titanic. The film is directed by Arthur Jones and marks the very first academic attempt to track the lineage of these survivors; along the way the team of researchers uncover a trail of stories that illuminate so much about the immigrant experience, the Chinese experience, and the Chinese-American experience. See the links below for upcom...
Oct 30, 2021•1 hr 5 min
An in-depth examination of paranormal phenomenon related to the ship: the omens and premonitions of passengers, accounts from fortune-tellers, and the life and writings of spiritualist and Titanic victim William Stead (whose floating, talking head so many people claim to have seen at seances just weeks after the sinking). Oh, and, of course...a few suspected hauntings. For more detail, I recommend George Behe's book Titanic: Psychic Forewarnings of a Tragedy . Contact me: Unsinkablepod@gmail.com...
Oct 23, 2021•1 hr 33 min
I watched 1953's Titanic and it cracked open a wider discussion of class and gender than I even imagined. Join me as I examine Hollywood's Cinemascope imagining of the sinking, starring Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Wagner. It's a wild ride! For a fantastic in-depth look at the cultural and political history of Titanic and its interpretations on film, in literature, and in music, I highly recommend Steven Biel's Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster. Co...
Oct 15, 2021•43 min
This episode packs a punch (pardon the pun)! First off, I lay out some basics about the dining experience in the Edwardian era and on board Titanic in the first, second, and third classes. And then I share my interview with Veronica Hinke, author of The Last Night on the Titanic: Unsinkable Drinking, Dining and Style; this turned into a wonderful free-flowing conversation about memory and how we experience it through food and drink. And lastly, I humbly present to you a pre-Prohibition cocktail ...
Oct 09, 2021•1 hr 30 min
In this first of a series of mini-pods on Titanic-focused movies, television shows, and documentaries, I take a look at (and then can't look away from!) the 1996 CBS miniseries The Titanic. It had the unfortunate timing of a release just one year before James Cameron's epic film. This one is a doozy, come take a listen. Let me know what other films or shows you'd like me to cover soon. Email: unsinkablepod@gmail.com Insta: unsinkablepod Website: https://www.unsinkablepod.com Theme music: John Be...
Oct 02, 2021•32 min
Welcome back to Unsinkable: The Titanic Podcast! Episode two is an in-depth examination of the life of J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line (and, essentially, the owner of Titanic). History has not been kind to him, this man accused of abandoning his own ship and all those aboard her as she plunged into the sea. Here I outline his entire life, his own tragedies before and after the disaster, and attempt to answer the nagging question: did he deserve his reputation as Titanic'...
Sep 25, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Welcome to Unsinkable, a new bi-monthly podcast about Titanic hosted by me, L.A. Beadles, a writer and historian who has been obsessed with the ship since I was 13 years old. I'm a podcast novice, so please forgive any audio hiccups in this first foray! In the introductory episode, I attempt to set the tone for the pod by sharing some survivor accounts, outlining how I conceptualize the cultural history of the sinking, and laying out some of the topics I'd like to cover. I try, albeit with a bit...
Sep 12, 2021•50 min
