The Modern Scholar Podcast

Dr. Bethany Wasik is an Acquisitions Editor with Cornell University Press. She currently acquires projects in the fields of Classics, Archaeology, Modern Western European History, and Military History. Prior to joining the acquisitions team at Cornell Bethany completed a PhD and two postdoctoral fellowships in molecular genetics and evolutionary biology. Her transition from academia to publishing was fueled not only by a passion for editing and reviewing scholarly content, but also a desire to promote that content to a larger audience, which I hope we can talk about today. In addition to her science background, Bethany also minored in archaeology and enjoyed a robust liberal arts undergraduate experience, and so looks forward to building a publication list at Cornell in all the areas she acquires. Outside of the publishing world Bethany enjoys hiking, genealogy, bourbon, and creating complex and ridiculous Twitter hashtags!

Relinda Ruth is the Director of Educational Resources and OER Specialist at the University of Arkansas-Cossatot Community College. She is responsible for the Educational Resource Center (ERC) at three campuses, which includes Kimball Library, all tutoring services, the college’s award-winning textbook rental & OER program, along with textbook procurement. She was instrumental in building the state’s first two-year-college internal textbook rental program and growing the college’s OER initiative in 2015. In 2020, UA Cossatot was awarded a Title III SIP 2.2 million-dollar grant, and Relinda serves as the Title III Director. As the college’s OER Specialist, she is responsible for the development and implementation of policies relating to open licensing, OER initiatives and practices, and provides guidance on Creative Commons licensing and OER content. She compiles open resources and provides OER usage training for faculty. Relinda leads the college’s OER Team, raises awareness of open education activities and practices, and as a leading contact for OER in Arkansas, she encourages broad participation across the state through conferences, also chairing the ARKLink OER Task Force. From 2019-21, Relinda served a two-year term on the six-member steering committee for the Open Education Network, and she is certified for specialization in open licensing and the Commons through Creative Commons. Stephanie Pierce is Director of User Services and Director of the Physics Library at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, AR. In addition to managing one of three branch libraries, she serves on the Open Educational Resources Team and Open Access Interest Group to promote and advocate participation in the various open initiatives on campus. Her research interests include utilizing text-mining to assess open textbooks for inclusivity and diversity; library space design; digital scholarship; Women in STEM; open scholarship; and OER advocacy/professional development.

Dr. Jason Herbert is an ethnographer for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, where he is the primary author of an ethnographic study of the Everglades, and he is the creator of the Historians at the Movies, the international phenomenon bringing together a community of historians and film lovers around the world to watch different movies each week and analyze the historical implications and cultural relevance. Dr. Herbert received his PhD from the University of Minnesota, where his research focused on the intersection of environmental and Indigenous history from the precolonial era to the present. His dissertation, Beast of Many Names: Cattle, Conflict, and the Transformation of Indigenous Florida, 1519-1858,examined the social, political, economic, and environmental consequences stemming from the introduction of livestock onto the Florida peninsula over three centuries. Finally, Dr. Herbert is also the co-founder of the Allen Morris Forum on the Native South, a monthly online meeting of scholars who specialize in the history and cultures of Indigenous Southerners.

*Since recording our conversation April stepped into a new role as Regional Manager for the Carroll and Madison Library System. Congrats!* April Griffith is the Library Director at the Carnegie Public Library in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. She received her MSLS from Clarion University in 2012, and has worked in academic, special and public libraries over the past decade. Her passion for the intersection of library services, community, and sustainability prompted her to serve as a project advisor for ALA’s Resilient Communities: Libraries Respond to Climate Change, write a chapter for Libraries and Sustainability: Programs and Practices for Community Impact, edited by Rene Tanner, et al., and contribute blog entries for ALA’s Programming Librarian blog. April presented on the topic of sustainable library practices at the 2020 Association of Rural and Small Libraries annual conference, the 2020 ArLA annual conference, as well as for web program feature series hosted by various state libraries. Her service to the profession includes volunteering as a reader for the Arkansas Teen Book Awards and participation on ArLA’s Nominating and Awards committees.

Neil Oatsvall hails from and resides on the East Coast but he spent over a decade landlocked in the middle of the country. He did his undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina in Asian Studies (Japanese language) and history, and received his doctorate in history from the University of Kansas. Currently, Neil teaches high school history at the Triangle Math and Science Academy in Cary, NC. He has published in various outlets, including Agricultural History, Environment and History, and Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies. His book manuscript, Atomic Environments: Nuclear Technologies, the Natural World, and Policymaking, 1945-1960, is forthcoming with the University of Alabama Press.

Michael Cannell is a journalist and author who has also served as an editor for The New York Times. His writing includes numerous stories on sports and design, as well as four books, which include The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit and A Brotherhood Betrayed: The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc. He is also the author of Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling, which is the subject of our conversation today.

Dr. Grant T. Harward is a native of southern California. He completed his BA in history at Brigham Young University in 2009, his MSc in the Second World War in Europe at the University of Edinburgh in 2010, and his PhD in history at Texas A&M University in 2018. He is a former Auschwitz Jewish Center fellow, a former Fulbright scholar to Romania, and a former Mandel Center fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was a historian for the U.S. Army Medical Department Center of History and Heritage at Fort Sam Houston (“Home of the Combat Medic”) in San Antonio from 2018 to 2021. He now works as a historian for the U.S. Army Center of Military History. Dr. Harward has written numerous articles about the history of U.S. Army medicine and the Romanian Army during World War II. Cornell University Press recently published his book, Romania’s Holy War: Soldiers, Motivation, and the Holocaust (2021). The views and information shared by Dr. Harward are his alone and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Defense, or U.S. Government.

Mario Daniels is the DAAD Fachlektor at the Duitsland Instituut at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the history of the political economy of sharing (and denying) knowledge in the field of high technology in the international relations since World War I. Specifically, Daniels works on a political history of economic espionage in the United States and Germany in the 20th century. Moreover, he is an expert for the history of the U.S. export control systems that regulates high technology trade since 1945. Daniels has recently published articles on U.S. national security controls over foreign direct investment, the interplay of export controls with visa denials for scientists in the Cold War, and the role of secrecy and export controls in U.S. basic and applied science. John Krige is the Kranzburg Professor Emeritus in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the intersection between science, technology and foreign policy. Since being at Georgia Tech he has expanded his interest beyond the study of intergovernmental organizations in Western Europe to include an analysis of American and European relations during the cold war. His first monograph to develop that interest was American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe. He is the author of several additional books, including Sharing Knowledge, Shaping Europe, and the editor of Knowledge Flows in a Global Age: A Transnational Approach. Together Dr. Daniels and Dr. Krige are the co-authors of the book Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America, which is the subject of our conversation today.

Joyce Harrison is editor in chief at the University Press of Kansas, where she acquires books in military and intelligence studies and general-interest books about Kansas and the surrounding region. She has worked at several university presses during her career in publishing, acquiring in anthropology, religious studies, folklore, Black studies, German studies, and Appalachian studies, among other fields. Joyce has a B.A. in music from Towson University and an M.A. in musicology from the Eastman School of Music. She began the music history & theory PhD program at the University of Chicago but soon decided to change directions and pursue a career in publishing! These days Joyce is a dynamic presence in the academic publishing world, an advocate for authors, and an enthusiastic representative of the University Press of Kansas wherever she goes!

Dr. Edward A. Kaplan is Dean of the School of Strategic Landpower at the U.S. Army War College. In this role, he is responsible for facilitating the education of senior officers in the Army, other services, partner nations, and senior civilians. Dr. Kaplan is a 1994 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. After being awarded his master’s degree in History at the University of Calgary in 1997, Dr. Kaplan attended Intelligence training at Goodfellow Air Force Base, in Texas, where he was a distinguished graduate. He served in various intelligence roles at Beale Air Force Base, California, and deployed to directly support U-2 aircrew at overseas locations. In 1998, he became a Watch Officer and Flight Commander at the Misawa Cryptologic Operations Center, where he directed the mission of a joint Army, Navy and Air Force team. Following his time in Japan, and a NATO deployment in support of U.S. operations in Kosovo, Dr. Kaplan reported for duty as an instructor in the History Department at the U.S. Air Force Academy. During his three-year tour, Dr. Kaplan deployed to Sarajevo for six months, was promoted to Assistant Professor, taught World History and advanced courses in American Foreign Policy and the Cold War, and directed the core Military History course. Dr. Kaplan then became the Readiness Flight Commander at the 607th Air Intelligence Squadron at Osan Air Base, Korea. Dr. Kaplan then returned to the University of Calgary where he received his Doctorate in History. In 2007, Dr. Kaplan arrived at the Directorate of Intelligence on the Joint Staff, where he served as a strategic planner, an Assistant Deputy Director for Intelligence in the National Military Command Center and as the Executive Officer for the Director for Intelligence. During that assignment, Dr. Kaplan deployed to Camp Victory, Iraq where he was a speechwriter and strategist for the Commander of Multi-National Forces-Iraq, before returning to the position of Senior Editor for the daily intelligence briefing prepared for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense. In the summer of 2010, Dr. Kaplan returned to the Air Force Academy History Department as an Assistant Professor. He acted as the Deputy for Military History, Deputy Department Head, Acting Department Head, Director of the Dean’s Commander’s Action Group, and Professor and Head of the History Department, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado. Dr. Kaplan retired from active duty in April 2020, in the rank of Colonel. He assumed the role of Professor of Strategic Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy, until he assumed his present position in July 2021. He is the author of two books – To Kill Nations: American Strategy in the Air-Atomic Age and the Rise of Mutually Assured Destruction, and The End of Victory: Prevailing in the Thermonuclear Age, both from Cornell University Press.