Reckoning with Jason Herbert

This week Julio Capó, Jr. drops in to talk about The Birdcage. We get into Robin Williams' queer performances, what this film meant then, and what it means now. We also talk about Julio's scholarship of Miami's immigration and LGBTQ+ history, along with our mutual love of Florida. One of the best pods we've ever done. I hope you enjoy. About our guest:Professor Capó is a transnational historian whose research and teaching interests include modern U.S. history, especially the United States’s relationship to the Caribbean and Latin America. He addresses how gender and sexuality have historically intersected with constructions of ethnicity, race, class, nation, age, and ability. His first book, Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940 (UNC Press, 2017), highlights how transnational forces—including (im)migration, trade, and tourism—to and from the Caribbean shaped Miami’s queer past. The book has received six awards and honors, including the Charles S. Sydnor Award from the Southern Historical Association for the best book written on Southern history. His work has appeared in the Journal of American History, Radical History Review, Diplomatic History, Journal of Urban History, Journal of American Ethnic History, Modern American History, GLQ, H-Net, American Studies, and several volumes.Capó’s research extends to his commitment to public history and civic engagement. He curated “Queer Miami: A History of LGBTQ Communities” for History Miami Museum (open from March-September 2019) and participated in a National Park Service initiative to promote and identify historic LGBTQ sites and contributed a piece on Miami’s queer past for its theme study. Prior to entering graduate school, he worked as a broadcast news writer and producer, and his work has appeared in several outlets such as The Washington Post, Time, The Miami Herald, and El Nuveo Día (Puerto Rico).Capó is the recipient of several awards including the Audre Lorde Prize from the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History and the Carlton C. Qualey Award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society. He currently serves as the co-chair of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History and on the Editorial Board for the Journal of American History.

This week Max Felker-Kantor and I talk about what may be the world's most unlikely history movie: 21 Jump Street. We talk about the real-life attempts to embed police officers undercover in schools, the rise and fall of D.A.R.E., and the role DARE played in creating the carceral state. This is such a surprising episode with some real revelations and Max is an awesome guest. I hope you dig it.About our guest:Max Felker-Kantor is an associate professor of history at Ball State University. He teaches courses in twentieth-century American and African American history. His research explores policing, race, policing, politics, and cities since World War II. His first book, Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) explores policing and antipolice activism in Los Angeles from the Watts uprising to the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion. His second book, DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools, is a history of the DARE Program and will be published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2024. He is currently working on a new project on the history of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Scandal and the origins of twenty-first century policing. His work has been published in the Journal of Urban History, Modern American History, Journal of Civil and Human Rights, Boom California, and the Pacific Historical Review, as well as a range of other academic and popular outlets.

This week Liz Covart drops in to talk with Kelsa and I about the final episode of Franklin, along with her thoughts on the show as it was. We get into the diplomatic manuevering at Paris, Liz's Codfish moment, the brigand that was William Augustus Bowles and ask if the French lost the American Revolution.About our guest:Liz Covart is a historian of early America who practices scholarly history, public history, and digital humanities, primarily as the Founding Director of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. She is the creator and host of the incredible history podcast, Ben Franklin's World.

This week marine biologist and world reknowned shark expert Melissa Cristina Márquez dives in to talk all things Jaws. We talk about her career as a scientist, the role of sharks in the ecosystem, and the impact the book and film had on global shark populations. This is a different look for HATM and a lot of fun talking to an inspiring scholar. We're gonna need a bigger pod.About our guest:Known as the "Mother of Sharks," Melissa Cristina Márquez is a Latina marine biologist and conservationist who studies sharks and their relatives (the skates, rays, and chimaeras- collectively, this groups of animals are known as 'Chondrichthyans'). Márquezspecifically studies their habitat use (why they are where they are) and how their portrayal in the media influences attitudes towards marine predators and conservation initiatives. She founded The Fins United Initiative (TFUI; www.finsunited.co.nz) a program that introduces audiences worldwide to the diverse sharks and scientists who study them. You may have seen her on Shark Week or watched her TEDx talk on Youtube, "Sharks & Female Scientists: More Alike Than You Think." She is also a freelance wildlife writer and regularly covers marine science in regards to sharks as a Forbes contributor. You can follow Melissa's worldwide science communication efforts on her Twitter (@mcmsharksxx) or Instagram (@melissacristinamarquez) and learn more about her research and outreach there.  

Listen. You don't need to have watched the Franklin series at this point. Listen to THIS POD. This one. Everything you need is here. We've got Kelsa Pellettiere. We have Michael Hattem. We have JOANNE FREEMAN. We have colonial ideologies and diatribes on where an American Revolution series should go. We have disappointment in Michael Douglas. We have fart jokes. We have codfish (you'll see). Easily one of the most fun conversations of my life. Enjoy.About our guests:Kelsa Pelletiere is the guest host for the duration of the Franklin podcast miniseries. I sought out someone who is an absolute expert on the man and his life and seemingly everyone came back with Kelsa. She is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Mississippi. Her research focuses on early diplomatic history in the United States, specifically Benjamin Franklin and the American Revolution. Her teaching interests include eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth-century American history; Revolutionary America; U.S. diplomacy; and the Atlantic world.Michael Hattem is an American historian, with interests in early America, the American Revolution, and historical memory. He received his PhD in History at Yale University and am the author of Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020) and The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press, 2024). He has taught History and American Studies courses at The New School and Knox College.Joanne Freeman specializes in the politics and political culture of the revolutionary and early national periods of American History.  She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Virginia.  Her most recent book, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (Yale University Press), won the Best Book award from the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, and her edited volume, Alexander Hamilton: Writings (Library of America) was one of the Atlantic Monthly’s “best books” of 2001.  Her current project, The Field of Blood: Congressional Violence in Antebellum America, explores physical violence in the U.S. Congress between 1830 and the Civil War, and what it suggests about the institution of Congress, the nature of American sectionalism, the challenges of a young nation’s developing democracy, and the longstanding roots of the Civil War.

This week Kelsa and I ask the tough questions about the series: Are they spending too much time on Temple? Is Lafayette the best character? How will they resolve the series? Which Founding Father would have had an OnlyFans account? Stick around for the wildest discussion on the American Revolution you've ever heard.

This week we are joined Bathsheba Demuth to talk about the Chris Hemsworth-led In The Heart of the Sea. Bathsheba is the author of one of my favorite books,  Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait and we talk about the history of whaling, her work with Indigenous communities in the Yukon, and of course, Moby Dick. This is one of the most fun conversations I've had on this podcast and I hope you enjoy.About our guest:Bathsheba Demuth is writer and environmental historian specializing in the lands and seas of the Russian and North American Arctic. Her interest in northern places and cultures began when she was 18 and moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon, where she trained huskies for several years. From the archive to the dog sled, she is interested in how the histories of people, ideas, and ecologies intersect. In addition to her prize-winning book Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait, her writing has appeared in publications from The American Historical Review to The New Yorker and The Best American Science and Nature Writing. She is currently the Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Environment and Society at Brown University. 

This week my good friend and native Coloradan Kathleen Belew drops in to talk about the movie that etched the word "wolverines" into our lives forever: Red Dawn. We talk about how Red Dawn depicts Cold War fears on the big screen, and how it has been perceived in the *checks notes* forty years since its release. As usual, Kathleen and I talk about where to get the best food in Colorado, skiing, and god knows what else. This is a pod you've been asking for. I hope you like it.About our guest:Kathleen Belew is a historian, author, and teacher. She specializes in the history of the present. She spent ten years researching and writing her first book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Harvard, 2018, paperback 2019). In it, she explores how white power activists created a social movement through a common story about betrayal by the government, war, and its weapons, uniforms, and technologies. By uniting Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, skinhead, and other groups, the movement mobilized and carried out escalating acts of violence that reached a crescendo in the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City. This movement was never adequately confronted, and remains a threat to American democracy. Her next book, Home at the End of the World, illuminates our era of apocalypse through a history focused on her native Colorado where, in the 1990s, high-profile kidnappings and murders, right-wing religious ideology, and a mass shooting exposed rents in America’s social fabric, and dramatically changed our relationship with place, violence, and politics (Random House).Belew has spoken about Bring the War Home in a wide variety of places, including The Rachel Maddow Show, The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell, AC 360 with Anderson Cooper, Frontline, Fresh Air, and All Things Considered. Her work has featured prominently in documentaries such as Homegrown Hate: The War Among Us (ABC) and Documenting Hate: New American Nazis (Frontline). Belew is an Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. She earned tenure at the University of Chicago in 2021, where she spent seven years. Her research has received the support of the Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Jacob K. Javits Foundation. Belew earned her BA in the Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington, where she was named Dean’s Medalist in the Humanities. She earned a doctorate in American Studies from Yale University.

This week the legendary Seth Cotlar joins in with Kelsa and me to talk about Episode 5 of Franklin. We get into the dynamics between John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, talk about the need for more meat some of these storylines, and address the needs of the colonies to those of Ukraine in the present day. It's another great trip to the 18th century.

This week Agnes Arnold-Forster jumps in to talk about the emotional roller coaster that is Pixar's Inside Out. We talk about how historians have conceptualized emotions, their role in the human experience, and Agnes' new book which charts the history of nostalgia. This is such a cool pod because we go places we rarely get to visit. I hope you dig it.About our guest:Agnes Arnold-Forster is a writer; researcher; and historian. She has written, researched, and presented on everything from women's health in today's Britain to the history of cancer; from the 1918 flu pandemic to the well-being of surgeons in twenty-first-century America. She is an expert in the history of Europe, the USA, and Canada, and my research spans the eighteenth century to the present day. She explores societies, cultures, medicine, science, technology, emotions, and the world of work. She is currently writing a book about the history of nostalgia, due to be published by Picador in April 2024.