Public Historians at Work
35 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingWelcome to “Public Historians at Work,” a podcast series from the Center for Public History at the University of Houston, Texas. Our vision at CPH is to ignite an understanding of our diverse pasts by collaborating with and training historically minded students, practitioners, and the public through community-driven programming and scholarship. In this podcast series, we speak with academics, writers, artists, and community members about what it means to do history and humanities work for and with the public. Check us out at www.uh.edu/CLASS/cph or find us on social media @UHCPHistory. Executive Producer: Dr. Kristina Neumann ([email protected])
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Episodes
Immigrant Stories: Salomon Imiak
March 02, 2024 19:00 - 16 minutes - 11.1 MBOver the course of the 20th century, Houston evolved into a global city as immigrants from across the world came to call the city home. In this special supplement, undergraduate students from the University of Houston explore Houston’s undertold immigrant stories. Together, they reveal a range of experiences that uncover often overlooked textures of the city. In this episode, students recount the lives of Jewish-Latin Americans who settled in 1960s and 1970s Houston. These immigrants belo...
Immigrant Stories: Sara Esquenazi
January 29, 2024 02:00 - 12 minutes - 8.66 MBOver the course of the 20th century, Houston evolved into a global city as immigrants from across the world came to call the city home. In this special supplement, undergraduate students from the University of Houston explore Houston’s undertold immigrant stories. Together, they reveal a range of experiences that uncover often overlooked textures of the city. In this episode, students recount the lives of Jewish-Latin Americans who settled in 1960s and 1970s Houston. These immigrants belo...
Immigrant Stories: Kuperman and Hebraica Houston
January 28, 2024 19:00 - 14 minutes - 10.1 MBOver the course of the 20th century, Houston evolved into a global city as immigrants from across the world came to call the city home. In this special supplement, undergraduate students from the University of Houston explore Houston’s undertold immigrant stories. Together, they reveal a range of experiences that uncover often overlooked textures of the city. In this episode, students recount the lives of Jewish-Latin Americans who settled in 1960s and 1970s Houston. These immigrants belo...
Recovering Hidden Histories: The Sephardic Latinx Oral History Project
January 28, 2024 15:00 - 48 minutes - 33.5 MBIn Spring 2022, Dr. Mark Goldberg (Associate Professor of History, University of Houston) decided to try something new with his undergraduate history course. As a way of enriching his students’ engagement with Jewish Latinx culture, Goldberg partnered with Holocaust Museum Houston to guide his class through the recording and archiving of six interviews with members of this community. A year later on November 28, 2023, Goldberg sat down with one of his undergrads, Miranda Ruzinsky, to reflect...
Finding Radical Hope: 100 Years of Stories
January 08, 2024 03:00 - 17 minutes - 12 MBIn the practice of public history, how the wider community receives a project is just as important as the intentions behind its creation. As work done for and with public audiences, the exhibits, media, and spaces we cultivate form a dialogue where agency is shared, emotions are welcome, and diverse experiences are honored. As Dr. Stephen Vider comments in Season 2, “I think that we place so much emphasis on the intellectual value of our research, but I think many people engage with history ...
Celebrating a University: 100 Years of Stories
January 07, 2024 02:00 - 44 minutes - 30.8 MBIn 2027, the University of Houston in Texas will celebrate its centennial anniversary. In honor of that upcoming milestone, the Center for Public History (CPH) partnered with UH Libraries and Houston Public Media to collect, share, and preserve stories related to the university’s legacy across one hundred years. On November 30th, 2023, the three project leaders – Dr. Debbie Harwell (Instructional Assistant Professor of History and Editor of Houston History magazine), Mary Manning (University...
Accessing Disability History: Cathy Kudlick and Fran Osborne
January 13, 2023 00:00 - 56 minutes - 38.6 MBIn 1977, over 100 people with disabilities and their allies occupied a federal building in San Francisco for almost a month. Part of the national 504 Sit-In, this remarkable protest sought to finally sign into law Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973), which would make it illegal for any federally funded facilities or programs to discriminate against individuals based on their disability. Not only was the protest successful, it paved the way for the passing of the Americans with Disab...
Transmitting Infectious Historians: Lee Mordechai and Merle Eisenberg
January 02, 2023 22:00 - 51 minutes - 35.1 MBWhat do millennia-old plagues have to do with the current COVID-19 pandemic? In this episode (recorded on May 11, 2022), Dr. Kristina Neumann sits down with Drs. Merle Eisenberg (Assistant Professor of History, Oklahoma State University) and Lee Mordechai (Senior Lecturer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem), late antique & medieval historians and hosts of the podcast Infectious Historians. Now with over 100 episodes, this dynamic series engages past disease outbreaks and contemporary questions ...
Valuing Emotion around the HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Stephen Vider
October 26, 2022 21:00 - 41 minutes - 28.3 MBAccording to Dr. Stephen Vider (Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University), capturing feeling is just as important to public history as transmitting knowledge. Whether collecting an oral history or cultivating a museum exhibit, Dr. Vider emphasizes the ethical responsibility to honor people’s bodily and emotional responses to history. As he tells UH History graduate Timothy Vale (PhD, 2022) in their conversation recorded on May 6, 2022, valuing the full human experience has played...
Valuing Emotion around HIV/AIDS: Stephen Vider
October 26, 2022 21:00 - 41 minutes - 28.3 MBAccording to Dr. Stephen Vider (Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University), capturing feeling is just as important to public history as transmitting knowledge. Whether collecting an oral history or cultivating a museum exhibit, Dr. Vider emphasizes the ethical responsibility to honor people’s bodily and emotional responses to history. As he tells UH History graduate Timothy Vale (PhD, 2022) in their conversation recorded on May 6, 2022, valuing the full human experience has played...
Archiving Cancer Care at MD Anderson: Javier Garza
October 04, 2022 20:00 - 38 minutes - 26.2 MBIf a medical institution’s mission is to make cancer a relic of the past, the archivist’s role is to collect, preserve, and make that history available. So says Javier Garza, Senior Library Analyst and Archivist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Historical Resources Center in Houston, TX. In his interview with graduate student Allison Anderson – recorded on November 19th, 2021 – Garza describes how he got involved in the dynamic and communal effort to document and digitally disseminate the ...
Publishing Under-told Stories of Houston: Debbie Harwell
September 21, 2022 23:00 - 42 minutes - 29.3 MBThere are many ways to produce public history, but one of the most unique publications comes from the University of Houston. Houston History magazine is a student-written and edited publication dedicated to the under-told stories of one of the largest and most diverse metropolitan regions of the United States. Join Dr. Debbie Z. Harwell (Instructional Assistant Professor of US History, University of Houston) and PhD candidate Caitlyn Jones for their November 8, 2021, conversation about a rec...
Publishing Under-told Stories of Houston: Debbie Harwell
September 21, 2022 23:00 - 42 minutes - 29.3 MBThere are many ways to produce public history, but one of the most unique publications comes from the University of Houston. Houston History magazine is a student-written and edited publication dedicated to the under-told stories of one of the largest and most diverse metropolitan regions of the United States. Join Dr. Debbie Z. Harwell (Instructional Assistant Professor of US History, University of Houston) and PhD candidate Caitlyn Jones for their November 8, 2021, conversation about a rec...
Amplifying History in Healthcare: Ronit Stahl
September 19, 2022 19:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBWith debates about healthcare dominating the news, the past resonates all the more. American historian Dr. Ronit Stahl (Associate Professor of History, University of California: Berkeley) clearly illustrates this principle in her conversation with Dr. Mark Goldberg on February 11, 2022. Whether understanding the 2014 Hobby Lobby ruling about the birth control insurance mandate, the claim of religious hospitals to conscience rights and public funds, or the Trump administration’s ban on transg...
Amplifying History in Healthcare: Ronit Stahl
September 19, 2022 19:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBWith debates about healthcare dominating the news, the past resonates all the more. American historian Dr. Ronit Stahl (Associate Professor of History, University of California: Berkeley) clearly illustrates this principle in her conversation with Dr. Mark Goldberg on February 11, 2022. Whether understanding the 2014 Hobby Lobby ruling about the birth control insurance mandate, the claim of religious hospitals to conscience rights and public funds, or the Trump administration’s ban on transg...
Making Big Data Talk for Public Health: Merlin Chowkwanyun
August 12, 2022 23:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MBDigital and Analog. Big data and Qualitative Research. Humanities and STEM. Activism and Academia. For some, these concepts may seem like polar opposites, but each is integral to the work of Dr. Merlin Chowkwanyun, a historian at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. In his conversation with Dr. Josiah Rector on Dec. 7th, 2021, Dr. Chowkwanyun details his varied career on the intersection of history, data, and health advocacy. From publishing online once secret documents fro...
Preserving Protest in Russia: Alexandra Arkhipova
June 20, 2022 18:00 - 35 minutes - 24.4 MBYou might not think of a night in jail as a “nice time,” but for public anthropologist, Dr. Alexandra Arkhipova (Wilson Center, DC), her arrest in Russia in 2017 was both an opportunity for research and part of a long-standing tradition for public scholars within her country. In her interview with Dr. Alexey Golubev - recorded on March 23rd, 2022, - Dr. Arkhipova discusses the difficult work of collecting and preserving information under the oppressive regimes of the Soviet Union and Putin’s...
Engaging Social Justice Activism through Public History: Denise Meringolo
February 09, 2022 20:00 - 53 minutes - 36.6 MBIn order to define, assess, and theorize what we do as public historians, we first need to know our own past as a field. So says Denise Meringolo, a distinguished professor of History at the University of Maryland: Baltimore County. In this final episode of Season 1, recorded on November 5th on 2021, Dr. Meringolo talks with Dr. Leandra Zarnow about her personal journey as an accidental historian and how this led to a discovery of the deep, radical roots of public history. Through their conv...
Engaging Social Justice Activism through Public History: Denise Meringolo
February 09, 2022 20:00 - 53 minutes - 36.6 MBIn order to define, assess, and theorize what we do as public historians, we first need to know our own past as a field. So says Denise Meringolo, a distinguished professor of History at the University of Maryland: Baltimore County. In this final episode of Season 1, recorded on November 5th on 2021, Dr. Meringolo talks with Dr. Leandra Zarnow about her personal journey as an accidental historian and how this led to a discovery of the deep, radical roots of public history. Through their conv...
Stories from the Third Ward: Feeding the Third Ward
February 09, 2022 18:00 - 14 minutes - 10.2 MB***WINNER OF THE 2022 UH MEDIA AND MOVING IMAGE STUDENT PRIZE COMPETITION, CRITICAL CATEGORY*** In this special episode, Jovan Slaughter - a UH graduate student in Public History - tells the story of Cream Burger, a family-owned burger joint on the edge of the UH campus. Opened in the early 1960s by her parents, Beverly Greenwood talks about her family’s 60-year mission to feed their community throughout the many changes of Third Ward. This episode was researched and recorded by Jovan Sla...
Replaying American History through Sports: Dr. Frank Guridy
August 02, 2021 01:00 - 42 minutes - 29 MBA history of sports can be a history of the United States. So says Dr. Frank Guridy, an American historian at Columbia University and author of the book, The Sports Revolution: How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics (University of Texas Press, 2021). In his conversation with Dr. Mark Goldberg on April 13, 2021, Dr. Guridy explains how issues of race, labor, gender, and politics materialize in the stadium, whether it is segregated teams under Jim Crow or singing the national anth...
Replaying American History through Sports: Frank Guridy
August 02, 2021 01:00 - 42 minutes - 29 MBA history of sports can be a history of the United States. So says Dr. Frank Guridy, an American historian at Columbia University and author of the book, The Sports Revolution: How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics (University of Texas Press, 2021). In his conversation with Dr. Mark Goldberg on April 13, 2021, Dr. Guridy explains how issues of race, labor, gender, and politics materialize in the stadium, whether it is segregated teams under Jim Crow or singing the national anth...
Listening for Latina/o Voices: Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez
July 20, 2021 02:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBFor journalist and oral historian Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, her mission is clear: to record the experiences and contributions of Latinas and Latinos within the United States. As she explains to Dr. Josiah Rector during their conversation on March 2nd, 2021, for too long have her people been underrepresented within primary sources and scholarship. After noticing this lacuna in histories about WWII especially, Dr. Rivas-Rodriguez set out to establish the Voces Oral History Center at UT Austi...
Listening for Latina/o Voices: Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez
July 20, 2021 02:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBFor journalist and oral historian Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, her mission is clear: to record the experiences and contributions of Latinas and Latinos within the United States. As she explains to Dr. Josiah Rector during their conversation on March 2nd, 2021, for too long have her people been underrepresented within primary sources and scholarship. After noticing this lacuna in histories about WWII especially, Dr. Rivas-Rodriguez set out to establish the Voces Oral History Center at UT Austi...
Stories from the Third Ward: Third Ward's Eldorado Ballroom
July 12, 2021 15:00 - 12 minutes - 8.81 MBIn this special episode, Rebecca Archer - a UH graduate student in Art History - tells the story of the Eldorado Ballroom, Houston’s “Home of Happy Feet.” Established in 1939 by Anna Dupree, this historic, black-owned music venue in the Third Ward launched the careers of many entertainers and featured some of the greatest acts of the 20th century. This episode was researched, recorded, and produced by Rebecca Archer for the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. To learn ...
Stories from the Third Ward: The Art and Legacy of Dr. John T. Biggers
July 07, 2021 02:00 - 21 minutes - 14.8 MBIn this special episode, Sheri Schrader – a UH graduate student in Art History – details the life of Dr. John T. Biggers, a prominent African-American artist centered in the Third Ward. Learn about his career as an influential muralist and educator while serving as the founding chairman of the art department at Texas Southern University. This episode was researched and recorded by Sheri Schrader for the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. To learn more about Dr. Bigge...
Stories from the Third Ward: Beautifying Third Ward
June 28, 2021 21:00 - 15 minutes - 10.5 MBIn this special episode, Ana Girard - a UH graduate student in Art History - relays her interview with Houstonian artist Maya Imani Watson. A prolific artist in multiple mediums, Watson specifically discusses her two mini murals beautifying Third Ward. This episode was researched and recorded by Ana Girard for the Center for Public History at the University of Houston. For more on Maya Imani Watson, please see her personal website. http://www.mayaimaniwatson.com/ To see her murals and o...
Stories from the Third Ward: Female Physicians of Houston Negro Hospital (Riverside General)
June 14, 2021 19:00 - 21 minutes - 15.1 MBIn this special episode, Allison Anderson - a UH graduate student in U.S. history - tells the story of five African American female physicians who served the Third Ward community. This episode also provides the history of the Houston Negro Hospital (now Riverside General), which was established on June 19th, 1926, as the first non-profit hospital for black Houstonians. This episode was researched and recorded by Allison Anderson for the Center for Public History at the University of Housto...
Stories from the Third Ward: Women of Houston’s Student Civil Rights Movement
June 10, 2021 18:00 - 10 minutes - 7.1 MBIn this special episode, Brandy Black - a UH graduate student in anthropology - tells the story of the Texas Southern University women who organized and participated in Houston’s Student Civil Rights Movement. Although many of these women remain unknown, Black highlights three preserved in the archives: Holly Adrienne Hogrobrooks, Deanna Lot Burrell, and Halcyon Sadberry Watkins. This episode was researched, recorded, and produced by Brandy Black for the Center for Public History at the Uni...
Capturing Indigenous Community through Film: Carla Ulrich
June 09, 2021 19:00 - 30 minutes - 21.2 MBWhen filmmaker Carla Ulrich talks about her work, the word that emerges over and over again is “community.” A director, writer, and producer based out of Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories of Canada, Ulrich has over ten years of experience making independent films which tell indigenous stories. In her conversation with Dr. Kairn Klieman recorded on December 11, 2020, Ulrich explains that filmmaking serves both to protect and promote her community. Documentary and dramatic films authenti...
Stories from the Third Ward: Looking Out from Emancipation Park
June 02, 2021 16:00 - 25 minutes - 17.8 MB***WINNER OF THE JOSEPH A. PRATT HOUSTON HISTORY PRIZE (CENTER FOR PUBLIC HISTORY), 2022*** In this special episode, Caitlyn Jones - a UH graduate student in public history - tells the story of Emancipation Park in Houston's historic Third Ward. Founded in 1872 by formerly enslaved people to host Juneteenth celebrations, the park remains a pillar of the community, a symbol of the long tradition of Black resistance, and a testament to Black life in Houston. This episode was researched, rec...
Cultivating Public Memory during Disease and Disaster: Richard Mizelle
April 06, 2021 03:00 - 44 minutes - 30.5 MBThe past contains stories that are complex and messy, heavy and painful. Nevertheless, it is the obligation of the historian to talk about these crucial topics and make them accessible to people far beyond the university. This is the driving mantra of Dr. Richard Mizelle, Associate Professor of History at the University of Houston and scholar of race, medicine, and disasters, both environmental and manmade. During his interview with Dr. Wes Jackson, recorded on December 17, 2020, Dr. Mize...
Documenting People through Food, Stories, and Art: Amy C. Evans
April 01, 2021 00:00 - 35 minutes - 24.6 MBIn this episode of Public Historians at Work, Dr. Monica Perales sits down with Amy C. Evans, a Houston-based artist and oral historian, to talk about her work documenting people’s diverse stories over good food and art. In their conversation recorded on December 4, 2020, Amy describes the organic process through which she came to identify as a public historian, first working as an oral historian with the Southern Foodways Alliance and more recently as an independent documentarian and artist...
Honoring Black Agency in an American Democracy: Martha S. Jones
March 25, 2021 00:00 - 40 minutes - 27.5 MBHistorians “are an essential core, an essential thread of the world of ideas, of meaning, of insight and more. The question is how to make that manifest.” So says Dr. Martha Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. In her conversation with Dr. Leandra Zarnow recorded on October 16, 2020, Dr. Jones discusses the obligation she feels to step into the public square, whether it is elevating the deep contribution of African Ame...
Tweeting through Race, Policing, and Social Change: Brian D. Behnken
March 23, 2021 18:00 - 42 minutes - 29 MBWhether asked in class or on Twitter, public historian Dr. Brian Behnken has gotten used to hearing one question, “Why didn’t I know this before?” In this episode, Dr. Behnken, Associate Professor of African American and Mexican-American civil rights activism at Iowa State University, talks with Dr. Monica Perales about the hunger of public audiences for more contextualization of contemporary issues. Through their conversation recorded on October 1, 2020, we learn about the challenges and ...