Host: Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History Guest: Heather Andrea Williams, Presidential Professor and Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania One of the most callous and tragic aspects of slavery in the United States was the slave owners’ practice … Continue reading →

Brian McNeil specializes in history of United States foreign relations, and is currently revising his book manuscript titled, Frontiers of Need: the Nigerian Civil War and the Origins of American Humanitarian Intervention, the subject of this episode.

Host: Samantha Rose Rubino, UT School of Law Guest: Brian McNeil, Fellow, Institute for Historical Studies, UT-Austin Humanitarian intervention has become such an accepted part of international relations, and our news headlines are full of stories about humanitarian efforts from … Continue reading →

A few years ago, scholars suggested that the Agricultural Revolution in mankind's deep past might have been nothing short of a disaster. Not so fast, says Rachel Laudan, this week's guest, while raising some new questions of her own.

Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest: Rachel Laudan, independent scholar Thousands of years before recorded human history, anthropologists have traced the evolution of human society from a nomadic hunter-gatherer phase to the rise of agricultural practices, which allowed people … Continue reading →

Philippa Levine from UT's Department of History and Program in British Studies walks us through the contemporary British politics and rocky history of Britain and the EU that contributed to this historic decision.

Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest: Philippa Levine, Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities; Co-Director, Program in British Studies On June 23, 2016, British voters stunned many political observers (if not themselves) by voting to leave the European … Continue reading →

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman climbed the iconic Main Building tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus with a small arsenal of weapons and opened fire.

Fifty years ago, on August 1, 1966, twenty-five year old student Charles Whitman killed 16 people and wounded at least 32 more at UT Austin.  A former Marine sharpshooter, he went to the 28th-floor observation deck of the UT Tower and began shooting people … Continue reading →

Simone de Beauvoir's seminal work, The Second Sex, is a dense two volume work that can be intimidating at first glance, combining philosophy and psychology, and her own observations.