John and Tara get together to talk about author Colson Whitehead’s visit to Centre's campus this past week and why his award-winning novel The Underground Railroad is so interesting as a contribution to wider historical discussion, our preparation for the semester to come, and some historical context for discussion of the Second Amendment to the… Continue reading Centre Trail Podcast 6: Colson Whitehead visits campus, the spring beckons
Author: John
The Underground Railroad and Using History in Fiction
This past Monday Centre College hosted a Pulitzer Prize winner: Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad, for which he received this year’s prize for fiction, as well as the National Book Award. We invited Colson as the college had adopted the book as our choice for the first year common reading experience, a practice… Continue reading The Underground Railroad and Using History in Fiction
Past and Present: Public Monuments
Last week the Centre College History Program hosted the first of three events this autumn featuring members of our program and colleagues invited from other programs to discuss large historical questions with our students. We chose as our first topic the question of what roles public monuments play in society and how different communities have… Continue reading Past and Present: Public Monuments
Women in Modern China: Presenting the Past
A New York Times op-ed published this past Monday has generated a considerable amount of attention, particularly in conservative spaces, with US Senator Ben Sasse among many complaining about its apparent glossing over of the grisly realities of Chinese Communist rule in China. "flaws" = approximately 100,000,000 killed by communism last century, half of them… Continue reading Women in Modern China: Presenting the Past
Centre Trail Podcast 5: Black Panther, Africa and Race
Jon Earle welcomes Centre student Evan Aroko to discuss representations of Africa in film, specifically around the upcoming release of the Marvel Studios film Black Panther. The film offers of a new and interesting framework for interpreting narratives of violence and Western intervention in Africa, and also fits into a specific present-day context of representations… Continue reading Centre Trail Podcast 5: Black Panther, Africa and Race
Centre Trail Podcast 4: Baseball and Natural Disasters
Tara and John talk a little baseball in this episode of the Centre Trail podcast, before Tara hits the road, if only for a few minutes, to visit our colleague Sara Egge for some historical context on how Americans experience and talk about natural disasters.
Recommending a History Book
A good friend got in touch this week and asked me to recommend a book for a family member of his who is in a History book club. The idea was that his good friend the historian could recommend something really interesting. “They have done quite a bit of memoir recently so perhaps break away… Continue reading Recommending a History Book
Centre Trail Podcast 3: Memory and History in the Classroom
Tara and John sit down to discuss memory in the classroom. We talk about personal memories of the September 11 attacks and relate it to our process in the classroom for creating connections to students. It raises a lot of interesting questions, not least of which the problem of historians’ need for distance from a… Continue reading Centre Trail Podcast 3: Memory and History in the Classroom
Monty Python and History in Public
Stealing an idea from my good friend and colleague Tara Strauch, I have started sharing songs with my students in the moments before class begins this semester. These are in theory linked to the topic for that day, though not always. This past Friday for example, I was ready for the week to end and… Continue reading Monty Python and History in Public
#myworstgrade
John talks about a negative experience studying for his MA and what to learn from it.
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