NextGen Humanities

This time around we’re talking about the history of segregation and discrimination against native people in Alaska. Our guest today is Holly Guise, Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico. Her work recovers the untold and unrecorded stories of what life was like for native Americans in Alaska around the period of the Second World War. She’s travelled all around that enormous state to understand this history from native people themselves, to allow them to tell their own stories, even if that comes into conflict with the official history. You can find more on her work on her Academia.edu profile or on the University of New Mexico website. Also follow her on Twitter @hollyguise You can find me on Twitter at @nextgenhum. Thanks to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music. 

Welcome back to the NextGen Humanities PodcastThis time around we’re talking about the black liberation movements throughout the 20th century and beyond the borders of the United States. It’s a great pleasure to be able to introduce Wendell Adjetey (A-jay-tay), Assistant Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal. He completed his PhD at Yale University and then was a fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and a lecturer in the Department of History. Dr. Adjetey’s research has garnered many prizes and fellowships. In addition to his scholarly work, he has written articles for The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Walrus, and The National Post.Wendell Adjetey is a premiere scholar who has done the dirty work in the archives to uncover untold stories about the history of black liberation movements and how the US and Canadian governments worked to undermine them. He’s bringing a wealth of new information together to form a truly North American story, rather than one that’s limited by the confines of the United States. His website is linked above at his name where you can find more of his publications.Keep an eye out for his upcoming book. Thanks to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music. 

In this episode we talk to Laura Davies (King's College – Cambridge) about how her work on 18th century British literature can inform the way we think about death in the present. Dr Davies teaches, researches and writes on British literature of the long eighteenth century, with a particular interest in life writing and the textual representation of experiences and ideas that resist language or narration, including sound, time, death, spiritual visions, and dreams. She’s also the co-founder of an interdisciplinary and multi-platform project called “A Good Death?” Its goal is to provide us with new cultural and linguistic forms to talk about and deal with death. In this episode we discuss her work on figures such as Samuel Johnson, and talk about what it means to die well. You can find her work on Google Scholar. And the "A Good Death?" project is located here. Thanks to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music. 

This episode features Prof. Mandisa Haarhoff from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Her work focuses on modern literature in southern Africa, more specifically the farm novel or Plaasroman. The conversation extracts some of the most important elements of her work, such as how white writers managed to deny the existence of black people in southern Africa or assert their own nativeness on the continent, while treating actual natives as foreigners. She has numerous articles that can be found on Google Scholar. Her book will be available soon. Thank you to the show's producer Agata Tumiłowiczand to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music. 

In this episode we sit down with Steffen Rimner, Assistant Professor in the History of International Affairs at University College Dublin. He has taught at Utrecht University, Harvard University, and Columbia University, and held affiliations at Yale University, the University of Oxford, Waseda University, and the University of Tokyo (Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia).Prof. Rimner's work covers a wide range of topics connected with China and Japan and their place in the world. We discussed his recent book Opium's Long Shadow (Harvard UP 2018), which traces how opium went from a freely traded product to an illicit item, tightly controlled by governments across the world. As you'll see from our discussion, the origins of global drug control have strong resonance with the present. The world is still dealing with many narcotic crises, and by understanding how it all began, we can carve out a better pathway forward. You can find Steffen Rimner's work on Google Scholar. Thanks to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music. https://www.zacharymazur.com/

In this episode we sit down with Miranda Sachs who has a PhD in history from Yale University and is currently a Senior Lecturer at Texas State University. Her academic work has thus far covered the history of childhood in modern France, but as our conversation shows, it has relevance well beyond that context. We talk about generational perspectives, the shifting definitions of childhood and adulthood over the past century. You can find her articles online or follow her on Twitter @miranda.sachsWhile you're at it, give me a follow too! @nextgenhumIf you're interested, here are her (light) reading suggestions on the history of childhood:Sarah Walters, “’Child! Now you are’: Identity Registration, Labor, and the Definition of Childhood in Colonial Tanganyika, 1910–1950,” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 9, no. 1 (2016): 66-86.Susan J Pearson, “ ‘Age Ought to Be a Fact’: The Campaign against Child Labor and the Rise of the Birth Certificate,” The Journal of American History 101, no. 4 (2015): 1144-1165.Thanks to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music. https://www.zacharymazur.com/

This week we are talking to Jasna Žmak (Department of Dramaturgy, Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb, Croatia). In addition to her academic work that spans across disciplines such as performance studies and gender studies, Žmak is also a creative artist, novelist, scriptwriter, screenwriter and dramaturg. We talk about what her work looks like these days, how she uses her training in the humanities to create art and what keeps her striving to achieve more. Below you'll find a selection of her recent publications. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @jasnazmak.As always you can keep to date with on Twitter at @nextgenhum PUBLICATIONS – BOOKS2020 Those Things – Essays on Female Sexuality (One stvari – eseji o ženskoj seksualnosti), Fraktura, Zagreb2019 Lecture as Performance, Performance as Lecture – on the Production of Knowledge in the Arts (Predavanje kao izvedba, izvedba kao predavanje – o proizvodnji znanja u umjetnosti), Leykam International, ZagrebPUBLICATIONS – BOOK ARTICLES2016 Dramaturgy, what a Queer Thing to Do!, The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance, ed. Konstantina Georgelou, Efrosini Protopapa & Danae Theodoridou, Amsterdam: Valiz, pp. 149-1562016 Continuous Invisibility, Cultural Ties in the Balkans, ed. Davor Mišković, Rijeka: Drugo More, pp. 63-70 (with Vedrana Klepica)2015 Performing Lectures, Practising Composition: Making Practice. Texts, Dialogues and Documents 2011−2013, ed. Kirsi Monni & Ric Allsopp, Helsinki: University of the Arts, pp. 264-275 (with Konstantina Georgelou)2012 High Hopes, Performing Politics, Politisch Kunst machen nach dem 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Nikolaus Müller-Schöll, André Schallenberg & Mayte Zimmermann, Hamburg: Theater der Zeit (with Reinhard Strobl)https://www.zacharymazur.com/

In this episode we sit down with historian Bryan Kozik, PhD to talk about his work on Reformation era Central Europe and how he is shifting the conversation in his field. With a focus on bishops and changes happening at the local level, he gives us a better sense of this momentous epoch in world history. His fresh perspective shows how we can start to better understand the changing definitions of Europe and how religion should remain a key factor when assessing history. Bryan Kozik's reading suggestions: For a terrific, accessible illustration of the heterogeneity of pre-Reformation Western Christianity:Richard Wunderli, Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen (1992)For scholarly but accessible surveys to the Reformations era:Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (2005)Carlos Eire, Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650 (2016)For introductions to more varied, specialized topics in Reformations history:Andrew Pettegree, ed. The Reformation World (2002)R. Po-chia Hsia, ed., A Companion to the Reformation World (2004)Howard Louthan and Graeme Murdock, eds., A Companion to the Reformation in Central Europe (2015)Music by Adam Pisarkiewiczhttps://www.zacharymazur.com/

Welcome! This episode is just chance to say hello. Check out my interviews in the other episodes. Thanks to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music