American Campus Podcast

Request a future episode topic  here We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything  here References and suggested readings: Martin J. Murray. 2025. Insurgent Politics in the Lone Star State: Remembering the Antiwar Movement in Austin, Texas, 1967-1973 . University of North Texas Press. Beverly Gage. 2023. G-man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century . Pengui...

On all our favorite topics: imperialism, homosociality, liberalism, hazing!  Make a request for future episodes here We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here References and suggested readings: John F. Morris. 2025. Students to Soldiers: Secret Military Education at Elite Schools, 1815–1945 . University of Virginia Press. Max Egremont. 2012. Forgotten Land: Journeys...

On the academy’s decline since 2011. References and suggested readings: Bryan Alexander. 2026. Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis . Johns Hopkins University Press.  2023. Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis . Johns Hopkins University Press.  2022. Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education . Johns Hopkins University Press.  Tressie McMillan Cott...

Make a request for future episodes here We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here Cheers! Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Make a request for future episodes here We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here References and suggested readings: Laura K. Field. 2025. Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right . Princeton University Press.  Publius Decius Mus (Michael Anton). September 5, 2016. “ The Flight 93 Election .” Claremont Review of Books . Sam Tanenhaus. 2025. Buckley: The Life...

1920s style! Make a request for future episodes here We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here References and suggested readings: Hunter M. Hampton. 2025. The Gridiron Gospel: Faith and College Football in Twentieth-Century America . University of Illinois Press.  John Eisenberg. 2017. Ten-Gallon War: The NFL's Cowboys, the AFL's Texans, and the Feud for D...

High school organizers have much to teach us about young peoples' political priorities. Make a request for future episodes here ! We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here ! References and suggested readings: Aaron G. Fountain Jr. 2025. High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America . University of North Car...

ft. John Dewey. Make a request for future episodes here ! We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here ! References and suggested readings: Andrew Feffer. 2019. Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism . Fordham University Press.  Daniel Immerwahr. 2018. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States . Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Éd...

Remember your old school yearbook photos? Where are they now? Make a request for future episodes here ! We're prepping for a future mailbag episode, ask us anything here ! References and suggested readings: Kate Eichhorn. 2025. School Yearbook: The Untold Story of a Cringey Tradition and Its Digital Afterlife . University of Chicago Press.  Michael A. Messner. 2025. The High School: Sports, S...

Trad wives make great teachers. Make a request for future episodes here ! We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here ! References and suggested readings: Catherine Tebaldi. 2025. Alt-Education: Gender, Knowledge and Far-right Metapolitics . Routledge.  Janet MacIntosh. 2024. Kill Talk: Language and Military Necropolitics . Oxford University Press. Chelsea Ebin. 2024....

On (corporate) foundation investments in knowledge production. Make a request for future episodes here ! We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here ! References and suggested readings: Emily Hauptmann. 2022. Foundations and American Political Science: The Transformation of a Discipline, 1945-1970 . University Press of Kansas.  ACP episode on eugenics and the origins...

The straight college strikes back! References and suggested readings: Richard S. Price. October 6, 2025. The straight college strikes back: 1990s backlash against inclusive campuses . Politics, Groups, and Identities . Megan Brenan. May 29, 2025. “ Record Party Divide 10 Years After Same-Sex Marriage Ruling .” Gallup. David A. Reichard. 2024. Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in...

References and suggested readings: Alison Bashford. 2025. Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic . University of Chicago Press.  Naomi Oreskes. 2003. Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History Of The Modern Theory Of The Earth . CRC Books. Alison Bashford faculty page Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

grift, edtech, enshittification References and suggested readings: Justin Raden. October 23, 2025. Higher Ed’s Rush to Adopt AI is About So Much More Than AI . Defector.   American Vandal podcast and Substack Moira Weigel. “ Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School .” b2o Molly White [citation needed] Gil Durán. 2026. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy . Simon & Schus...

References and suggested readings: Celene Reynolds. 2025. Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX . Princeton University Press.  “ What colleges (don’t) do about sexual violence with Nicole Bedera .” American Campus Podcast . May 28, 2025. Susan Faludi. 2006. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women . Crown. Juliet Hooker. 2025. Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of...

Brought to us, in part, by the race scientists References mentioned this episode: Henry Reichman. 2025. Understanding Academic Freedom, 2nd edition . Johns Hopkins University Press.  J. McKeen Cattell. 1913. University Control . Joy Ann Williamson-Lott. 2018. Jim Crow Campus: Higher Education and the Struggle for a New Southern Social Order . Teachers College Press. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd. 2025....

“The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a "Harvar...

Oh my! References and suggested readings: Naomi Oreskes. 2025. Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know about the Ocean . University of Chicago Press.  Naomi Oreskes. 2021. Why Trust Science? Princeton University Press. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. 2011. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climat...

References and suggested readings: Andy Hines, ed. 2025. University Keywords . Johns Hopkins University Press.  Alyssa Battistoni. 2025. Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature . Princeton University Press. Emily Callaci. 2020. “On Acknowledgments.” American Historical Review 125 (1): 126–31. Justin Raden. October 23, 2025. Higher Ed's Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI...

As a student, she was a proud "Goldwater girl, right down to my cowgirl outfit and straw cowboy hat emblazoned with the slogan 'AuH20." -Hillary Clinton, Living History , 2003. References and suggested readings: Nicholas Buccola. 2025. One Man's Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle over an American Ideal . Princeton University Press.  Hajar Yazdiha. 2023. The Struggle for...

The money behind truth. References and suggested readings: Maribel Morey. 2021. White Philanthropy: Carnegie Corporation's An American Dilemma and the Making of a White World Order . University of North Carolina Press.  miamisocialsciences.org virtual forums Gunnar Myrdal, American Dilemma  volume I Gunnar Myrdal, American Dilemma  volume II John Fabian Witt. 2025. The Radical Fund: How a Ban...

References and suggested readings: Brad Bolman. 2025. Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles . University of Chicago Press.  Benjamin Alberto Schultz-Figueroa. 2023. The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research Into Animal Life . University of California Press.  Gustave Flaubert. Madam Boverie . Bluesky @bolman.bsky.social  Instagram @labdogbook Email Brad at bbolman@tulane.edu   Text...

A lesson on dark money influence in campus culture wars References and suggested readings: Isaac Kamola. Spring 2025. Understanding the Evolving Culture-War Vernacular . Academe Magazine.   Isaac Kamola. 2019. Making the World Global: U.S. Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary . Duke University Press. Ralph Wilson and Isaac Kamola. 2021. Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing...

From a student of Saul Bellow and Barack Obama. References and suggested readings: John K Wilson. August 2025. “ 100 Years Ago, the Scopes Monkey Trial Discovered Academic Freedom .” Chronicle of Higher Education. John K. Wilson. 1995. The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education . Duke University Press. Fara Dabhoiwala. 2025. What Is Free Speech? The History of a...

On the rightwing origins of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. References and suggested readings: Mary Anne Franks. 2024. Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment . Bold Type Books.  Mary Anne Franks. 2019. The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech . Stanford University Press. University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report Lauren Lassabe...