Cambridge American History Seminar Podcast

In this episode, Dr. Erin Trahey, Assistant Professor of Early American History at Cambridge, discusses a chapter from her upcoming book project, Free Women of Jamaica: Property, Race and Power in Jamaican Slave Society 1760-1834, entitled: "Power Ever Follows Property: Sugar Heiresses and the Devises Act of 1761." Take a dive into the racial, gender, and class hierarchies of colonial Jamaica with...

In this episode, Professor Fredrik Logevall discusses a chapter from the upcoming second volume of his biography of President John F. Kennedy. Theo Zenou - a PhD candidate at Hughes Hall - joins Hugh Wood to talk through JFK's character, contemporary resonance, and the debates surrounding the relationship between biography and history.

This week, Professor Angus Burgin discusses his paper, "From the New Economy to Neoliberalism" with PhD students Sam Pallis and Hugh Wood.

Professor Mario Del Pero, Professor of International History, Institut d’études politiques at Sciences Po, Paris, speaks about his paper 'In the Shadow of the Vatican' with PhD student Christopher Schaefer. The pair discuss the missionary efforts of a small group of evangelical Christians, members of the 'Church of Christ', who moved from Lubbock, Texas to Castelli Romani, Italy, in 1948. They exp...

Back to our normal format this week. Emma Teitelman, Mellon Research Fellow in American History at the University of Cambridge, talks to Lewis Defrates about her paper ‘Class and State in America’s Greater Reconstruction’Dr Teitelman’s paper discusses the efforts of groups of north-eastern capitalists in the years following the Civil War to work with the federal government to engender new forms of...

This is a special episode of the CAHS podcast, as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions Heather Ann Thompson delivers her inaugural lecture on 'American Prison Uprisings and Why They Matter Today', with introductory comments from Professor Gary Gerstle. Apologies for the quasi-'field recording' style of the audio here. Video of the lecture will be uploaded to the Cambridge History Yo...

We're back after a long winter break. The dust has been blown off, our legs have been stretched, and the Cambridge American History Seminar is up and running again! This week Peter Mancall, Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at the University of Oxford for the academic year 2019-2020 and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Professor of History and Anthropology at the U...

Robert A. Schneider, a historian of early modern France at Indiana University Bloomington, and the former long-standing editor of the American Historical Review, talks to Lewis Defrates about his paper 'The Rise and Fall of the “Resentment Paradigm” (ca 1935-1975).The paper discusses the work of postwar intellectuals such as Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipsett and Talcott Parso...

After a week away, we're back with another episode and another exciting and thought-provoking seminar paper! Katherine Paugh, an Associate Professor in North American Women’s History at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, talks to Lewis Defrates about her paper '‘Race and Venereal Disease in the Atlantic World'. The paper explores racialized understandings of venereal diseases (par...

We have a special edition of the podcast and seminar this week as we celebrate the release of our esteemed colleague Dr Sarah M.S. Pearsall’s new book, ‘Polygamy: An Early American History’. Dr Pearsall is University Senior Lecturer in the History of Early America and the Atlantic World here at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Robinson College. Here, she talks about her new book, the th...

It's that time of the week! Here's another top-notch interview discussing some new work with one of the most important and highly-acclaimed historians working today. On the podcast today we are joined by Heather Ann Thompson, a Professor History and of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan AND this year's Pitt Professor of American History of Institutions here at the Unive...

Back again after a long break, it's the podcast with the catchiest title and the freshest insights into some of the most exciting work in the field of American history. The Cambridge American History Seminar Podcast has returned for the 2019-20 academic year! In our first seminar of the year, Dr Noam Maggor (Queen Mary, University of London) and Professor Stefan Link (Dartmouth College) talk to Ca...

Final seminar and final podcast of the year! We might have some more content for you over the summer, but for now, what a way to close out the academic year! Brooke Blower, Associate Professor of History at Boston University and founding co-editor of the journal Modern American History, talks to Lewis Defrates about her paper 'Gibraltars of the Pacific', which explores the activities of one Americ...

Here's the penultimate seminar interview of the academic year, and our first time in actual recording studio! We hope your ears will thank us. Ari Kelman, Chancellor’s Leadership Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, talks to Lewis Defrates about his paper 'From Manassas to Mankato: How the Civil Wars Bled into the Indian Wars' and its place within his ongoing project explor...

Here's the second episode of Easter Term, which marks the midway point of our Easter seminars! Dr Michelle Chresfield, a lecturer in United States History at the University of Birmingham talks to Lewis Defrates about her paper 'It's in the Blood: Physical Anthropology, Genetics, and the Making of America's Triracial Isolates' and broader research on the role of social science, genetics and eugenic...

We're back, with four episodes to close out the academic year! Professor Beverly Gage, Professor of History and American Studies and the Director Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University, talks to a recently-returned-from-a-research-trip Lewis Defrates about her paper and upcoming biography 'G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the American Century'.Professor Gage talks about the longtime...

Here is the last episode of term, and it’s a big one in every sense! Professor David Blight, the Class of 1954 Professor of American History, and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, Yale University, speaks to Cambridge PhD student Yasmin Dualeh about his new book ‘Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom‘. Due to the richness of the book and the d...

The episodes keep coming! In episode six of Lent Term, Susan Carruthers, Professor of American Studies at Warwick University, talks to PhD student Clemency Anderson about her work and experiences as a historian. At the centre of discussion is Professor Carruthers' fascinating paper "Inventing the 'Dear John': Romance, Rupture, and Recuperation in World War II America", which focuses on the discour...

Another week and another episode! This week Professor Kate Masur, associate professor of history at Northwestern University, speaks to Cambridge PhD student Jeanine Quené about her paper "State Sovereignty and Migration Before Reconstruction" and its place within her wider work. Professor Masur discusses the relationship between poor laws and both African-American and immigrant populations in the...

Lent term is whizzing by- here's the fourth episode of term! Dr Andrew Hartman, a professor of history at Illinois State University and the founding president of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History, talks to PhD student Richard Saich about his paper and broader work. Dr Hartman's paper, titled 'Karl Marx and the Cycles of American Capitalism', deals with the uses of Marxian thought in the Am...

It's the third episode of Lent 2019, and a fascinating (and timely) conversation to boot! Karine Walther, Associate Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar speaks to recently submitted (congratulations!)Cambridge PhD student Tom Smith about her paper 'Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries, ARAMCO and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship, 1889-1955'.Professor Walther looks at the...

Back after a week’s sabbatical, here is the second episode of Lent term, and the first episode featuring a guest host! Barbara Savage, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the 2018-19 Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History, University of Oxford, speaks to PhD student Arvin Alaigh...

Guess who's back! It's the first Cambridge American History Seminar Podcast of 2019, and a great one to start the year with! Naomi Lamoreaux, the visiting Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge, and the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics and History at Yale University, talks to Lewis Defrates about her paper 'Monopolies in U.S. History: From Standar...

Here's the 8th and final Cambridge American History Seminar podcast of the Michaelmas term. Jane Dinwoodie, a Junior Research Follow at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, speaks to Lewis Defrates about her paper "Evading Indian Removal in the American South, 1812-1850".We talk about her work on evasive native groups in the American south, with particular focus on the 'strategies of evasion' e...

Here's the seventh episode of the Cambridge American History Seminar Podcast! Bobby Lee of Cambridge University and the Harvard Society of Fellows talks to Lewis Defrates about his paper 'Indian Boundaries, Settler Populations, and Demographic Origins of the Missouri Crisis'.We discuss Bobby's attention to Native American conflict and landclaims in the unique site of Boone's Lick, MO and its relat...