On the rightwing origins of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

References and suggested readings:

• Mary Anne Franks. 2024. Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment. Bold Type Books. 
• Mary Anne Franks. 2019. The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech. Stanford University Press.
• University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report
• Lauren Lassabe Shepherd. March 19, 2025. Who's Side are College Administrators On? HNN.
• AAUP’s 2025 Statement on Institutional Neutrality
• Allen Levi. 2025. Theo of Golden: A Novel. Atria Books.
• Bluesky @maryannefranks.bsky.social

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

ft. Geronimo, both Roosevelt presidents, Franz Boas, and the phrenologists

References and suggested readings:

• Rachel Morgan. 2024. Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology. University of Chicago Press. 
• John Fowler. 2021. A Forest in the Clouds. Pegasus Books.
• Follow Rachel Morgan on Instagram at @adventures_in_archaeology

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Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

On hedge funds, private equity, and the financialization of public colleges.

References and suggested readings:

• The Coalition Against Campus Debt. 2024. Lend and Rule: Fighting the Financialization of Public Universities. Common Notions Press. 
• Sofya Aptekar’s faculty page
• sofyaaptekar.com 
• Robin D. G. Kelley. 2022. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (20th anniversary edition). Beacon Press.
• Robin D. G. Kelley. Fall 2022. Twenty Years of Freedom Dreams. Boston Review.

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Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

How public universities gave rise to public media

References and suggested readings:

• Josh Shepperd. 2023. Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting. University of Illinois Press.
• Laura Garbes. 2025. Listeners Like Who: Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry. Princeton University Press.
• Katherine Jewell. 2023. Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio. University of North Carolina.
• Josh Shepperd’s BlueSky and faculty page

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Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

Does your campus use B&N Education or Follett?

References and suggested readings:

• Katya Schwenk. September 10, 2025. “How Wall Street Broke the College Bookstore.” LeverNews.com.
• Vincent Bevins. 2020. The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. PublicAffairs.
• levernews.com 

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Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

On blood money and “the moral costs of an elite education.”

References and suggested readings:

• David S. Busch. 2025. Disciplining Democracy: How the Modern American University Transformed Student Activism. Cornell University Press. 
• Ethan Schrum. 2019. The Instrumental University: Education in Service of the National Agenda after World War II. Cornell University Press.
• Julie A. Reuben. 1996. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality. University of Chicago Press.
• Eleanor Roosevelt. 1940. The Moral Basis of Democracy. 
• Harris Wofford. 2023. Embers of the World: Conversations with Scott Buchanan. Legare Street Press.
• David Busch’s website: davidsbusch.com 

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

Can US colleges be decolonized?

References and suggested readings:

• Sandy Grande. 2018. “Refusing the University.” Free PDF.
• Sandy Grande. 2016. Red Pedagogy. Free PDF.
• ACP episodes on Indigeneity and the university with Sharon Stein and Eve L. Ewing
• Robin D. G. Kelley. March 1, 2016. “Black Study, Black Struggle.” The Boston Review. 
• “Board of Trustees agreement shows hope for UConn-Indigenous relations,” The Daily Campus, February 3, 2025.

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

And how to approach an acquisitions editor

References:

• Association of University Presses and #AskUp
• Steven L. Herman. 2024. Behind the White House Curtain. Kent State University Press.
• Madeleine L'Engle. 1980. A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
• J. R. R. Tolkien. The Hobit.
• Robert M. Veatch and Lainie F. Ross. 2016. Defining Death: The Case for Choice. Georgetown University Press.
• Kent State UP on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

Tuskegee, Alabama, the center of modernity in the Black Global South

References and suggested readings:

• Jarvis McInnis. 2025. Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global Black South. Columbia University Press. 
• Zora Neale Hurston. Mules and Men.
• Zora Neale Herston. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.
• Jesmyn Ward. 2024. Let Us Descend.
• Brea Baker. 2024. Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership.
• Addie E. Citchens. 2025. Dominion. FSG.
• Jason Allen-Paisant. 2025. The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican Memoir of Plants and Dreams.
• Follow Jarvis McInnis on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Jarvis McInnis’s website
• Email: [email protected] 

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

From college radical to rightwing organizer, the 3-D life and education of The Man Who Invented Conservatism.

References and suggested readings:

• Daniel J. Flynn. 2025. The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. Encounter Books. 
• P. G. Wodehouse books
• American Spectator, spectator.org 

Support the show

Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.