Drafting the Past

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter speaks with the brilliant and delightful Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson . Dr. Carter Jackson is a professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, and a prolific speaker and writer, with essays everywhere from The New York Times to the Atlantic and Los Angeles Times , and appearances in documentaries and countless podcasts and news programs. She is executive prod...

For this episode Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Margaret O'Mara. Margaret is a professor of modern American history at the University of Washington, and the author of multiple books, including Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley and Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century . Her most recent book is The Code: Silicon Valley and t...

In this episode, I was thrilled to welcome historian—and fellow Missourian—Kimberly Harper to the show. I am especially delighted by this episode because I get many requests to feature guests who have written history books while off of the tenure track or outside of academia, and Kim is a great example of that. I find guests for the show in a lot different ways – sometimes they are people I am a l...

In this episode, Kate welcomes historian Dr. Nathan Perl-Rosenthal. Nathan is a professor history at the University of Southern California. His first book, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution , came out in 2015. His new book just came out this month, February 2024, from Basic Books. It's called The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It , and it tells the histor...

For Episode 40 , Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Grace Elizabeth Hale . Grace is the Commonwealth Professor of American Studies and History at the University of Virginia, and the author of four books. Her two most recent are Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture , which was published by UNC Press in 2020, and In the Pines: A Lynching, a Lie, a Reck...

Welcome back to the third season of Drafting the Past! I'm thrilled about the lineup of historians that I'll get to bring to you this year. I know you're going to love them. That includes today's guest, Dr. Benjamin Park . Ben is an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University, and the author of three books. His first two were American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of...

At the end of the year, a flurry of "best books of the year books hit publications. For the last episode of 2023, I wanted to try something a little different on Drafting the Past. Rather than come up with my own best books list, I asked listeners to call in and leave a message with the best history book they read in 2023 (it didn't have to be published this year). I loved hearing about the books...

In this episode, Kate spoke with historian Dr. Martha Hodes . Dr. Hodes is a professor of history at New York University and the author of multiple previous books focused on the nineteenth century, including The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century , and Mourning Lincoln , which won multiple awards and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her mos...

For this episode I was lucky enough to speak with a historian and writer I have long admired, Dr. Catherine McNeur . Catherine's first book, Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City , first came out in 2014, and it is one of my favorite environmental histories. So I was more than a little excited to learn about her new book out this year, Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten...

For this episode, host Kate Carpenter interviews Dr. Tanisha C. Ford. Tanisha is a writer, historian, and professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of three books and many articles on subjects at the intersection of politics and culture, and especially on Black fashion and social movements. Her first book, Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and...

In this episode Kate is joined by historian Dr. Bruce Dorsey . Bruce is a professor of history at Swarthmore College. In 2002, he published his first book, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City , and he is also the co-editor of the book Crosscurrents in American Culture . His new book is called Murder in a Mill Town: Sex, Faith, and the Crime that Captivated a Nation . In it, Bruc...

In this episode, I interviewed Dr. Sarah McNamara, assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University , about her new book, Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina Sout h (UNC Press, 2023). From her website: "McNamara is dedicated to sharing her scholarship with broad audiences through public history and community engagement. She developed the project, "Nuestra Historia," an historical memory and pr...

This episode features Dr. Samantha Muka, whose enthusiasm for her work is pretty much guaranteed to improve your day. Sam's first book is Oceans Under Glass: Tank Craft and the Sciences of the Sea , in which she investigates how a community of aquarium users have created and shared knowledge about how to take care of marine life in captivity. Sam is an assistant professor at the Stevens Institute...

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Katrina Phillips. Katie Phillips is an associate professor of history at Macalester College. She is the author of Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and Performances of Native American History , which focuses on the past and present of three Western performances that purport to show Indigenous history, but do so from the perspective of white settlers. Katie is a...

Welcome back to Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history. I'm your host, Kate Carpenter, and this is the 30 th episode of Drafting the Past! In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd about the process of writing and revising her debut book, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars (UNC Press, 2023). Lauren is a historian of higher educatio...

My guest this week is historian Dr. Anna Zeide . Anna is an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech , where she is also the founding director of the food studies program, as well as the author of two books. The first, Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry , won a James Beard award , and her most recent book, U.S. History in 15 Foods , was published...

In this episode, it was my pleasure to interview science journalist Melissa Sevigny about her new book, Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Colorado River . She is the science reporter for Arizona Public Radio as well as the author of two previous books, Mythical River: Chasing the Mirage of New Water in the American Southwest , and Under Desert Skies:...

For Episode 27 of Drafting the Past, I was delighted to be joined by historian Dr. Carly Goodman . Carly is a historian, a senior editor for the Made by History section at the Washington Post , and the Communications Coordinator for Nationalities Service Center, an immigration agency. Her first book, Dreamland: America's Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction , came out in May from the Unive...

In this episode, I was so excited to finally talk with writer and historian Dr. Aaron Sachs . Aaron researches and teaches environmental history at Cornell, and he is the author of four books and one edited collection. I've been eager to talk with Aaron for several years, ever since I first heard about the Historians are Writers! group that he led at Cornell (should out to Daegan Miller and Laura...

In this episode Kate Carpenter interviews writer and historian  Dr. Kidada Williams . Dr. Williams' most recent book is I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction , which came out with Bloomsbury this year. She is also one of the co-creators of #CharlestonSyllabus , which began as a collection of resources on Twitter in response to the racist massacre at...

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Louis Moore . Lou is a sports historian and a professor of history at Grand Valley State University. He has published two books: We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality , and I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915 . He also writes essays for many outlets and...

For this episode, Kate Carpenter spoke with Dr. Andrew Wehrman , an associate professor of history at Central Michigan University. Andrew's first book, The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution , came out in December 2022, and he has also published many essays and op-eds on the subjects of epidemics, public health, inoculation and vaccination. I thoroughly enjoy...

Host Kate Carpenter interviews author Lyndsie Bourgon . Lyndsie is a journalist and oral historian, and her first book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods , was published by Little, Brown Spark in 2022 and examines the past and present of tree poaching. More broadly, Lyndsie writes about the environment and its entanglement with history, culture, and identity. I was delighte...

Host Kate Carpenter interviews historian and writer Dr. Andrew Simon, who studies media, popular culture, and the modern Middle East and teaches at Dartmouth University. His first book, Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt , was published in 2022 by Stanford University Press. Andrew also holds the distinction of being the first Drafting the Past guest who hoped to become a profess...

In this episode, I spoke with historian, podcaster, speaker, and wellness instructor Dr. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela . Natalia is an associate professor of history at The New School. Her first book, Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture , was published in 2015. She is a co-host of the weekly podcast Past Present , and also hosted the amazing podcast Welcome to Your...