Reckoning with Jason Herbert

This week Kevin Rusnak and Emily Carney drop in to talk about the movie that made us all dream of going to Space...or at least Cape Canaveral. This episode gets into an era of nostalgia around the Space Shuttle program, the changing role of women inside NASA, and how the Challenger disaster affects how we remember this movie.About our guests:Kevin M. Rusnak is the Chief Historian of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, Ohio.  He is responsible for leading the professional research, collection, preservation, analysis, writing, and dissemination of AFLCMC's history and heritage to the organization’s leadership and workforce, as well as to a public audience. Disclaimer: Kevin's thoughts and opinions do not reflect those of his employer or the federal government.Emily Carney is a spaceflight professional with over a decade of industry experience. She is a space historian and podcaster, and the original Space Hipster. In 2018, the National Space Society named her one of the Top Ten Space Influencers. She is also the co-host of the Space and Things podcast and a Celestis Ambassador at Celestis Memorial Spaceflights. 

This week Craig Bruce Smith and Robert Greene II drop in to debate whether The Terminator was the most important film made in the 1980s, plus ranking the biggest action stars from 1980 to 2000.About our guests: Craig Bruce Smith is an associate professor of history at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era and co-authored George Washington’s Lessons in Ethical Leadership.Smith earned his PhD in American history from Brandeis University. Previously, he was an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), an assistant professor of history, and the director of the history program at William Woods University, and he has taught at additional colleges, including Tufts University. He specializes in American Revolutionary and early American history, specifically focusing on George Washington, honor, ethics, war, the founders, transnational ideas, and national identity. In addition, he has broader interests in colonial America, the early republic, leadership, and early American cultural, intellectual, and political history. Robert Greene II IS  Assistant Professor of History at Claflin University. Dr. Greene received his Bachelor of Arts in Writing and Linguistics with a concentration in Creative Writing from Georgia Southern University; his Master of Arts in History from Georgia Southern University; and earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Dr. Greene recently completed his dissertation at the University of South Carolina, about the ways in which Democratic Party leaders in the South from 1964 to 1994 vied for the African American vote via appeals to Southern identity and memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Mr. Greene has published a book chapter in the collection Navigating Souths, and has published a scholarly article in Patterns of Prejudice. He has also published at several popular magazines and websites, including The Nation, Jacobin, Dissent, Scalawag, Current Affairs, and Jacobin.His research interests include African American history, American intellectual history since 1945, and Southern history since 1945. Dr. Greene is also a blogger and book review editor for the Society of U.S. Intellectual Historians, and has just begun a six-post stint for the Teaching American History blog. 

This week, resident HATM horror experts Rachel Gunter and Nicole Donawho drop in to talk about Scream, its legacy, and our favorite scream queens. 

This week we dive into the history and science behind Antarctica and question who made it out: Childs or MacReady? The Thing is a 100% PERFECT film. Grab your flamethrower and join in. About our guests:Peter Neff is a glaciologist and climate scientist working primarily to develop glacier ice core records of past climate, environmental conditions, and atmospheric chemistry. Peter’s current research focuses on better understanding recent climate of changing coastal regions in West Antarctica, areas which play a large role in uncertainty for future projections of sea level rise. Peter is also working to capture the last 200-500 years of hydroclimate variability in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, through recovering and developing the southernmost annually-resolved ice core record in North America, from Mount Waddington in the Coast Mountains. Peter is also the Director of Field Research and Data for the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center that seeks to find the oldest possible ice core records of past climate preserved in Antarctica. Peter shares widely about ice core climate science via Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.Matthew Siegfried is a glaciologist who uses satellite remote sensing techniques in combination with field-based and airborne geophysical methods to understand physical processes of Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets. He runs the Mines Glaciology Laboratory, where the team collects and synthesizes ground-, air-, and space-based datasets in an effort to span the spatial (centimeters to 100s of km) and temporal (minutes to centuries) on which these processes occur. He is particularly interested in processes at the ice-bed interface, which lies hidden beneath 10s to 1000s of meters of ice at the intersection between glaciology, hydrology, geology, microbiology, and oceanography. He strives to work with a diverse set of researchers to create a unique perspective on the role of subglacial processes within the larger global Earth system. As a polar scientist, Matt is also committed to maintaining an open discussion of the changing cryosphere, having collaborated with institutions ranging from local elementary schools to the U.S. State Department in an effort to facilitate our conversation about the local, regional, and global impacts of changes at the Earth’s poles. Matt is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Geophysics at Colorado School of Mines and is affiliated faculty with the Hydrologic Science and Engineering Program and the Humanitarian Engineering Program.Daniella McCahey's primary research attempts to connect Antarctic geographies to greater world history. Her current book project examines the United Kingdom’s 1955-1958 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, arguing that the way this project unfolded demonstrated a scientific community unable to cope with the twin pressures of decolonization and the Cold War. Dr. McCahey has broad interests and has authored/co-authored articles and scholarly book chapters on topics ranging from the media-savvy of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, to paleontology and popular culture in the 1990s, to pornography in Antarctic research stations. She is also conducting ongoing international collaborative research projects on the history of permafrost science and on the history of the British Empire’s use of science in its Southern Ocean empire. 

Wait, the pyramids weren’t built by aliens???This week HATM celebrates our 100th episode by talking Egyptology with Julia Troche and Stargate’s historical consultant, Stuart Tyson Smith. 

It's spooky season around here and that means it's time to visit Dawn of the Dead. Kelly Baker and Thomas Lecaque drop into to talk about the history of zombies in western culture, our favorite zombie kills, and exactly what we'd do in the zombie apocalypse.About our guests:Award-winning and Amazon bestselling author Kelly J. Baker is a freelance writer with a religious studies PhD who covers religion, racism, higher education, gender, labor, motherhood, and popular culture. She’s written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Rumpus, Chronicle Vitae, Religion & Politics, Killing the Buddha, and The Washington Post among others.Thomas Lecaque is an associate professor of History at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. He specializes in the nexus of apocalyptic religion and political violence. He has written for the Washington Post, Religion Dispatches, Foreign Policy and The Bulwark, among others. Follow him on Twitter: @tlecaque.

This week we talk about the life and legacy of Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 mission. Joining us is Jim Hansen, who wrote the book First Man and served as a consultant on the film, along with HATM space expert Kevin Rusnak. We talk about the Armstrong's inward journey into outer space, his relationships with his fellow astronauts, and the role his wife Janet played in Armstrong's journey. We also get some inside details on the making of the film, including Ryan Gosling and Damien Chazelle's work to get this movie made. This is a podcast on NASA, Neil Armstrong, and an absolutely brilliant film unlike any you've heard before.About our guests:James R. Hansen is a professor emeritus of history at Auburn University. A former historian for NASA, Hansen is the author of twelve books on the history of aerospace and a two-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in History. His 1995 book Spaceflight Revolution was nominated for the Pulitzer by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the only time NASA ever nominated a book for the prize. He serves as coproducer for the motion picture First Man, which is based on his New York Times bestselling biography of Neil Armstrong. Kevin J. Rusnak is the Chief Historian of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, Ohio.  He is responsible for leading the professional research, collection, preservation, analysis, writing, and dissemination of AFLCMC's history and heritage to the organization’s leadership and workforce, as well as to a public audience.Mr. Rusnak graduated with a degree in History from the University of Dayton, Ohio, in 1995, and subsequently entered the History of Technology graduate program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.  His thesis focused on the production of B-29 bombers in Marietta, Georgia, during World War II, while his dissertation explored the development of Air Force and NASA pressure suits and space suits from the 1930s through the 1960s.  He spent over four years as a historian at the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where he researched and interviewed dozens of pioneering engineers, managers, and astronauts from the early years of human spaceflight.Mr. Rusnak joined the Air Force History and Museums program in 2002 as the Senior Historian for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson AFB.  Over the next 18 years, he researched and wrote numerous annual histories, biographies, reports, heritage products, and special studies.  In 2017, he was the primary author for AFRL’s award-winning 100-year history compendium, Aiming Higher: A Century of Research in Science and Technology by the Air Force Research Laboratory and its Predecessors, as well as for its companion photo essay volume.  He also pioneered AFRL’s leveraging of history on modern platforms, such as social media, to provide a broader audience with access to AFRL’s significant legacy. 

Any Given Sunday turns 25 this year and it may have predicted the modern football era whether the NFL liked it or not. Sports historian Lou Moore stops in to talk about the rise of Black quarterbacks, CTE, social media in sports, malevolent owners, and his new book The Great Black Hope: Doug Williams, Vince Evans, and the Making of the Black Quarterback.About our guest:Louis Moore is a Professor of History at Grand Valley State University. He teaches African American History, Civil Rights, Sports History, and US History. His research and writing examines the interconnections between race and sports.  He is the author of two other books, I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915 and We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality, and has an audible lecture, African American Athletes Who Made History. In addition, he has two audible lectures, African American Athletes Who Made History and A Pastime of Their Own: The Story of Negro League Baseball. He has also written for various online outlets including The New York Daily News, Vox, The Global Sports Institute, First and Pen, and the African American Intellectual Historical Society, and he has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, and BBC Sports. He is als the co-host of the Black Athlete Podcast.Support the podcast:$7 gets you HATM swag, early access to podcasts, and our gratitudehttps://www.patreon.com/historiansatthemovies 

Colin Farrell is back as the boss of Gotham City. This week Blake Scott Ball, author of the forthcoming book Batman: The Making of an American Myth joins in to talk about Batman, the Penguin, and whether or not you should check out the show.

Join Jamie Goodall, a pirate history expert from the U.S. Army Center of Military History, and Rebecca Simon, a historian of early modern piracy, as they set sail into the world of swashbucklers. They dive into pirate mythology and superstitions, discuss the quirky life of Steve Bonnet, and reveal the significant roles women played in piracy. With humor and fascinating anecdotes, they explore how popular media, especially 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' shapes our perception of pirates and their cultural legacy.