A podcast dedicated to the history of everything (and the great work that scholars are doing at the Metropolitan State University of Denver).
Matthew Maher is a Senior Lecturer of History. He has been teaching at 海角直播 Denver since 1995 and specializes in World, Social, and Labor History. Among his passions are reading philosophy, drinking coffee, bowling, and loudly performing punk-rock music.
Monica Black is Adjunct Faculty in the History Department and an Academic Advisor. She has been teaching at 海角直播 since 2007 and specializes in the History of Women and Gender, and U.S. history.聽 Monica spends time working on her farm raising goats, turkeys, chickens, ducks and bees. She is a devotee of loud rock music.
Jennifer Koshatka Seman is a Lecturer of History who has taught at 海角直播 Denver since 2017. She specializes in Latin American, U.S., and Borderlands history and is the author of Borderlands Curanderos. Outside of teaching and research, she performs with the art-rock/noise-rock band: Shiny around the Edges.
Anahi Russo Garrido is the Associate Professor and Chair/Director of Gender, Women and Sexualities Studies/The Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy, GITA at 海角直播-Denver. Anahi's book, Tortilleras Negotiating Intimacy: Love, Friendship, and Sex in Queer Mexico City is the first ethnography in English to focus primarily on women鈥檚 sexual and intimate cultures in Mexico.
This episode features 海角直播-Denver history professors David Yee, Monica Black, Matthew Mahr, and Jennifer Koshatka Seman, as well as history student Niko, all in conversation about David's book, Informal Metropolis: Life on the Edge of Mexico City, 1940-1976.
Part 1 of our series on Witches featuring an impromptu performance of The Late Lancashire Witches.
Brian Weiser has published a book, Charles II and the Politics of Access, and several articles on topics such as representations of and to Charles II, shaming rituals in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, and the military revolution鈥檚 effects upon honor and absolutism. His current project is: 鈥淭he Playwright, the Horsegelder and the Vicar鈥檚 Wife: Shame and Shaming in Elizabethan England." His interest in Brome and Heywood鈥檚 The Late Lancashire Witches derives partly from teaching a course on Magic in early modern Britain, and partly because the play features a skimmington, a shaming ritual designed to humiliate husbands who were beaten by their wives.
As the U.S. assault on Iran rages, we asked our resident Middle East expert Alex Boodrookas to provide some historical perspective. Dr. Boodrookas is an Assistant Professor of History at 海角直播 Denver specializing in the Modern Middle East; Labor History; Immigration; Decolonization. His book is published this April by Stanford University Press and is entitled Comrades Estranged: Labor and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century Persian Gulf.
Part One of this series focused on early 17th-century English witches and the 鈥淩ipped from the Headlines鈥� play, The Late Lancashire Witches. In this episode, we fly across the ocean to the Americas. Matt, Monica, and Jenny 鈥� along with special guest and practicing Witch, Cassie Gibbs (also our amazing History Department Academic Coordinator) 鈥� discuss how ideas about witches were constructed by religious institutions and thinkers, and how that landed in the Americas from the colonial period to the present. We critically interrogate the binaries that are so bound up in ideas about witches: 鈥渟cience鈥� vs. 鈥渕agic;鈥� 鈥済ood鈥� vs. 鈥渂ad;鈥� 鈥渉ealer鈥� vs. one who 鈥渉arms;鈥� 鈥渃urandera鈥� vs. "bruja.鈥� Especially, we question how gender and race operate in all of this witchy history. We had a blast recording this episode and hope you enjoy.
We are so excited to have our esteemed colleague here at the 海角直播-Denver History Department, Dr. Shelby Balik, author of Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England鈥檚 Religious Geography (Indiana University Press, 2014), to drop her knowledge on the history of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Dr. Balik currently has two new book projects in the works, and she teaches courses in American Religion, American Slavery, and early American history. Professor Balik also teaches social studies methods courses and the Senior Seminar. In our fascinating conversation with Dr. Balik, we cover the myths and facts of the 鈥渇irst Thanksgiving鈥� (Spoiler Alert: The Pilgrims did not always wear black nor did they have gigantic buckles in the middle of their hats), how the Wampanoags might tell this story a bit differently, what the menu was probably like and why, and importantly, how and why Thanksgiving became a national holiday, what did enslaved people experience Christmas holidays, and throughout we address the question: What purposes has celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas served over time? We hope this gives you some food for thought for the holidays.
Francisco Barbosa was a beloved Professor of Latin American History at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Metropolitan State University of Denver. His untimely passing was a blow to all of us personally, yet through the herculean efforts of his colleague and (ex) wife Erika Blum, his extraordinary work on Nicaraguan youths and their pivotal role in the Sandinista Revolution has finally been published: Insurgent Youth: Sandinista Students, Global Youth Cultures & Revolution in Nicaragua. On Monday, September 14, a reception and book discussion was held at the University of Colorado's Norlin Library in Boulder, Colorado. The next day, Matthew Maher sat down with Erika Blum, Victoria Gonz谩lez-Rivera, and Jeffrey Gould to talk about the new book and Francisco's life. This podcast documents that discussion.
