We’re back here at the History Cafe! (along with major epidemics…maybe I should not make to big a deal of that…) But considering the current pandemic and sitting in my house on lock-down along with much of the rest of the world, it seemed lik

Wilhelm Furtwangler: Romanticism, Pure Music, and the Nazis

Mar 7th, 2018

Well, it’s been a year since my last podcast and this podcast took a couple of months to edit. Bad turn around time all around. But I’m still here and still more or less at this! I will hopefully be doing more in the future, but might have to

Geography in Game of Thrones with Elly Truitt

Feb 16th, 2017 49m 52s

I have finally done the thing – I’ve had a couple of people ask me about doing something on medievalism (Fantasy…Lord of the Rings…you know, your basic medieval themed pop culture production.) And in this case, we’re talking about Game of Thro

Brexit and Nationalism

Nov 9th, 2016 47m 27s

So as I say in the first two minutes of the podcast – I somehow recorded and even edited this podcast back in June when England voted to leave the European Union and then I failed to post it. (And then I go on to say that I want to get through

The Hedgehog and the Fox with Clare Gillis

Oct 12th, 2016 1h 7m

This month (bi-month? Something like that – I wish these happened a little more frequently) I’m again talking with my friend, medievalist and journalist Clare Gillis. In part in response to the topic popping up in the news from time to time,

A Visit to an Archive

Mar 14th, 2016 27m 6s

This month (bi-month? I’ve not been the most regular about getting something out even every other month!) I talk about one of my visits to the Cathedral archive in Spain. Archives form the core of most (though not all) historical work. Every

Islam, Pirenne, and Historiography with Clare Gillis

Jan 1st, 2016 54m 57s

Welcome to 2016! I’ve been a bit delinquent with podcasts for a couple of months, but here, finally, is a new one. This one was inspired a few months back by the youtube comment stream (crazy but true!) on a John Oliver Last Week Tonight clip:

History Cafe visits the Met with Lauren Mancia – Archeological Reconstruction

Aug 11th, 2015 1h 1m

Here is the last installment of the History Cafe visits the Metropolitan museum in New York. If you didn’t hear the first two, they are all separate topics. The first two cover the twelfth century, and late-medieval mysticism. This time, we’

Medieval Bells in Valencia Spain

Jun 3rd, 2015 33m 50s

This month I have another “live” cast recorded in the city of Valencia. Over the course of the podcast, I walk up the main bell tower of the Cathedral of Valencia to listen to the huge bell at the top, nicknamed the “micalet,” strike noon. Al

Anti-Jewish Riots in Valencia, Spain, 1391 with Abigail Agresta

Mar 23rd, 2015 52m 46s

As a follow-up to last month’s shot about violence, this month I have an interview with Abigail Agresta talking about a series of anti-Jewish riots that hit numerous cities in Spain in 1391, starting with Seville and spreading across most of Sp

History Cafe Shot – What do we mean by Violence in history?

Feb 9th, 2015 11m 48s

This month on the History Cafe, we’re trying something new. This is a relatively short podcast (10 minutes) that asks a question with a handful of examples. It is in no way exhaustive, but hopefully sparks a fair amount of thought. It is als

History Cafe visits the Met with Lauren Mancia – Medieval Mysticism

Jan 9th, 2015 52m 15s

This is part two of our History Cafe Visits the Met series and Lauren Mancia is back to talk about how objects and images interacted with Medieval ideas of mystical experience. This is the podcast where we talk about the little bed (see the im

History Cafe visits the Met with Lauren Mancia – The Cloisters Gothic Chapel

Nov 5th, 2014 52m 25s

Lauren Mancia is back and for a whole series we are calling The History Cafe Visits the Met! We recorded several podcasts live at the Met Museum looking at specific items in the collections ranging from the Gothic Chapel to the Temple of Dendu

The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba Spain

Oct 3rd, 2014 36m 14s

This is another live-in-Spain podcast, this time from the famous monumental mosque-cathedral in Cordoba. Cordoba was an important Roman provincial town, a military outpost of the Visigoths, and for centuries one of the most important seats of

The Great Famine in England with Philip Slavin

Aug 2nd, 2014 45m 59s

This episode is an interview with a friend of mine who also studies famines, although he specializes in England. The Great Famine hit most of Northern Europe – from England to Poland, Central France and parts of Northern Italy to Sweden – in 1

Church and State in Early Modern Spain

Jul 17th, 2014 16m 3s

It has been a while now, but I’m back with hopefully a string of new podcasts. First off, I have a small, on-location, observation about the relationship between church and state power in Spain. This is a topic that has lots of depth to it, a

The Royal Botanical Gardens – Madrid Spain

May 6th, 2014 13m 51s

This time on the History Cafe, I have an experiment in field recording. About a month ago, I went to Spain for a couple of weeks and while there I recorded a few sets of thoughts about Spain’s history in a couple of locations. I’ll be editing

Constance Maynard and Women’s Education with Jessica Stout

Apr 9th, 2014 54m 34s

This month on the History Cafe we’re back to an interview, again with a recent alum of mine, Jessica Stout. Most of Jessica’s work focused on nineteenth century British literature (some of which gets mentioned in the podcast.) For her histori

Politics I-5 The Investiture Controversy Part I

Apr 1st, 2014 35m 5s

This is the fifth of the medieval history lectures – it’s long enough to need two parts. In the run-through of politics, I cover major political and power questions from the end of Rome to the end of the fifteenth century. This lecture begins

Politics I-4 The Tenth Century

Feb 24th, 2014 30m 19s

This is the fourth of the medieval history lectures. In the run-through of politics, I cover major political and power questions from the end of Rome to the end of the fifteenth century. This lecture talks about the breakdown of Carolingian p

Politics I-3 Northern Successors to Rome

Feb 21st, 2014 40m 44s

This is the third of the medieval history lectures. In the run-through of politics, I cover major political and power questions from the end of Rome to the end of the fifteenth century. This lecture talks about the Western Roman Empire’s succ

Politics I-2 Byzantium and Islam

Feb 10th, 2014 40m 12s

This is the second of the medieval history lectures. In the run-through of politics, I cover major political and power questions from the end of Rome to the end of the fifteenth century. This lecture talks a bit about the structures of the Ea

Politics I-1 The End of Rome

Feb 4th, 2014 44m 39s

This is the first of the medieval history lectures. In the run-through of politics, I cover major political and power questions from the end of Rome to the end of the fifteenth century. This lecture covers a little bit about late Roman politi

Teaching Medieval History

Feb 3rd, 2014 18m 47s

So we missed January, but we’re going to make it up for it by having an extra large dose this February. What I am presenting here is a series of thoughts about teaching and some specifics about how I organize my Introduction to Medieval Studie

Early Modern English Brewing with Elliot Samuel-Lamm

Dec 11th, 2013 51m 27s

For December, I have a discussion with one of my recent graduates. At Marlboro, every students does fairly extensive research and prepares a collection of materials in a senior portfolio referred to as a “Plan.” Elliot Samuel-Lamb did his wor