90 Second Narratives

“In Togo, people often tell a popular story about the country’s independence. The story goes something like this…”

So begins today’s story from Marius Kothor. 

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“By the late 1870s, after years of resistance, most western Native Americans had been forced onto reservations, those ever-shrinking pieces of land created by the United States government to contain and separate Natives…”

So begins today’s story by Dr. Justin Gage.

For further reading:
We Do Not Want the Gates Closed between Us: Native Networks and the Spread of the Ghost Dance by Justin Gage (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020)

American Native Networks 

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith explores the intertwined histories of a West African Arabic chronicle, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and its role in advancing a political project, the legitimation of the nineteenth-century Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi, located in what is now the Republic of Mali…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Mauro Nobili.

For further reading:
Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith: Aḥmad Lobbo, the Tārīkh al-fattāsh and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa by Mauro Nobili (Cambridge University Press, 2020). 

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“Sports are an important ingredient in building community. Whether you’re a participant or a spectator, sports allow you to take part in a visible, public activity, fostering social connection and a sense of shared identity…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Bruce Berglund.

For further reading:
The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports by Bruce Berglund (University of California Press, 2020).

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“Muhammad Qasim Firishta was a physician, a diplomat and an intellectual. Born around 1570 CE and died sometimes after 1620 CE in the Deccan, contemporary India, he was known for his way around libraries and around circles of power…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Manan Ahmed Asif.

For further reading:
The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India by Manan Ahmed Asif (Harvard University Press, 2020) 

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

This special episode combines all of the stories from Season 6…

“African American Periodicals and Print History” – Dr. Brenna Wynn Greer, Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College

“Marketing Books with Peasant Models” – Dr. Sky Michael Johnston, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz

“A Late Medieval ‘How To’ Book” – Dr. Melissa Reynolds, Perkins-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University

“Paper and Books in Early Modern Europe” – Dr. Daniel Bellingradt, Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Book at Erlangen-Nuremberg University

“Creating the Images in Early Modern Printed Books” – Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen, PhD candidate in the Department of History and Art History at Utrecht University

“Books, Translations, and Audiences” – Dr. Samuel B. Keeley, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz

“Religion and the Business of Books” – Dr. Scott McLaren, Faculty Member in the Graduate Programs in Humanities and History and Associate Librarian in the Scott Library at York University

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“If a sixteenth-century European author, printer, or publisher wanted to include pictures in a book, they had several options…”

So begins today’s story from Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen.

For further reading and viewing:
Chen, Jessie Wei-Hsuan. “A Woodblock’s Career: Transferring Visual Botanical Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries.” Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science 35 (2020): 20–63.

The Plantin-Moretus Museum collection of woodcuts 

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“In 1942, John H. Johnson launched Negro Digest, which quickly became a bestselling periodical among African Americans and building off its success, Johnson launched the black photo-magazine EBONY in 1945…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Brenna Wynn Greer.

For further reading:
Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined African American Citizenship by Brenna Wynn Greer (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“When is a book not just a book? Well, as almost any cultural historian can tell you, a book is almost never just a book…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Scott McLaren.

For further reading:
Pulpit, Press, and Politics: Methodists and the Market for Books in Upper Canada by Scott McLaren (University of Toronto Press, 2019)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

“In the nineteenth century, an ever-increasing volume of political and religious debates played out in the public sphere of printed books and journals. At the same time, more and more books were being translated and adapted for ever-expanding audiences in other countries…

So begins today’s story from Dr. Samuel B. Keeley.

For further reading:
Behind Inverted Commas: Translation and Anglo-German Cultural Relations in the Nineteenth Century by Susanne Stark (Multilingual Matters, 1999)

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/