Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Richard Bautch, Associate Professor of Humanities, St Edward’s University, Austin The authorship of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament–known as the Torah or … Continue reading →

Art Historian Stephennie Mulder has spent the past decade working in Syria and shares a new look at history of Sunni and Shi'a in Syria during the medieval period; and how both histories are threatened by ISIS and the Syrian Civil War.

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Stephennie Mulder, Assistant Professor of Art History and Middle Eastern Studies, UT-Austin After the decline of the Fatimids, the medieval Middle East entered a period called the Sunni Revival, … Continue reading →

Shainool Jiwa illuminates an often overlooked chapter in the history of Islamic sectarianism, one in which religious differences were used to unify diverse populations under the rule of a minority government, rather than to divide and alienate them.

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Shainool Jiwa, Head of Constituency Studies, Institute for Ismaili Studies, London Around the first millennium of the Christian era, a small group of Ismaili Shi’i Muslims established a dynasty that … Continue reading →

Ben Wright of UT’s Briscoe Center for American History has been working with the Bexar archives to document how Spain’s–and Texas’s–efforts to divert sources of food and funding to American colonial troops.

Host: Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest: Ben Wright, Public Information Officer, Briscoe Center for American History, UT-Austin What role did Texas play in the American revolution?  (What–Texas?  It wasn’t even a state yet!)  And … Continue reading →

Guest Henry Wiencek explores the deep contradictions and equally varied representations of John D. Rockefeller, the self-made millionaire whose name became synonymous with industry and free enterprise.

Host: Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest: Henry Wiencek, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History Perhaps no individual in American history has achieved such meteoric heights as John D. Rockefeller, who embodies the image of the … Continue reading →

In picking up where Episode 57 left off, guest Shahrzad Ahmadi describes the tragic turn of events that sent shockwaves through the nascent Islamic community, and that continue to reverberate today.