American Campus Podcast

American Campus Podcast

By Lauren Lassabe ShepherdEducationArtsBooksHistory
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American Campus Podcast episodes

  • High School Students Unite! with Aaron Fountain

    High school organizers have much to teach us about young peoples' political priorities.

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    References and suggested readings:

    • Aaron G. Fountain Jr. 2025. High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America. University of North Carolina Press. 
    • Heather Ann Thompson. 2017. Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. Vintage.
    • Elizabeth Hinton. 2022. America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s. Liveright.
    • R. F. Kuang. 2023. Yellowface: A Novel. William Morrow.
    • Deborah Taffa. 2024. Whiskey Tender: A Memoir. Harper Perennial.
    • Follow Aaron Fountain on Bluesky, Instagram, and his website


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    30 min
  • Liberal anticommunists and the prelude to McCarthyism with Andrew Feffer

    ft. John Dewey.

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    References and suggested readings:

    • Andrew Feffer. 2019. Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism. Fordham University Press. 
    • Daniel Immerwahr. 2018. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
    • Édouard Louis. 2024. Monique s'évade. Seuil.
    • Édouard Louis. 2023. Who Killed My Father? Translated by Lorin Stein. New Directions. 
    • Andrew Feffer on academia.edu
    • Check out upcoming AAUP events
    • Higher Education Labor United (HELU) 

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    49 min
  • School Yearbook: A Cringey Tradition and Its Digital Afterlife with Kate Eichhorn

    Remember your old school yearbook photos? Where are they now?

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    References and suggested readings:

    • Kate Eichhorn. 2025. School Yearbook: The Untold Story of a Cringey Tradition and Its Digital Afterlife. University of Chicago Press. 
    • Michael A. Messner. 2025. The High School: Sports, Spirit, and Citizens, 1903-2024. Rutgers University Press. 
    • Kate Eichhorn’s faculty page


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    28 min
  • Conservatives and classical education with Catherine Tebaldi

    Trad wives make great teachers.

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    References and suggested readings:

    • Catherine Tebaldi. 2025. Alt-Education: Gender, Knowledge and Far-right Metapolitics. Routledge. 
    • Janet MacIntosh. 2024. Kill Talk: Language and Military Necropolitics. Oxford University Press.
    • Chelsea Ebin. 2024. Radical Mind: The Origins of Right-Wing Catholic and Protestant Coalition Building. University Press of Kansas.
    • Carl Neville. 2020. Eminent Domain. Repeater.
    • Alexandra Kollontai. 2011. Red Love. Createspace Independent Publishing.
    • Follow Cat Tebaldi on Bluesky @cat-tebaldi 

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    27 min
  • Inventing political science with Emily Hauptmann

    On (corporate) foundation investments in knowledge production.

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    References and suggested readings:

    • Emily Hauptmann. 2022. Foundations and American Political Science: The Transformation of a Discipline, 1945-1970. University Press of Kansas. 
    • ACP episode on eugenics and the origins of statistics
    • ACP episodes on funding and knowledge production: the academic-military-industrial complex and Gunnar Myrdal’s American Dilemma
    • Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn. 2023. The Autocratic Academy: Reenvisioning Rule Within America's Universities. Duke University Press.
    • Samantha Rose Hill, ed. 2024. What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt. Liveright.
    • Emily Hauptmann’s faculty page and ResearchGate page

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    23 min
  • STRAIGHT at Penn State and anti-gay backlash in the 1990s with Richard S. Price

    The straight college strikes back!

    References and suggested readings:

    • Richard S. Price. October 6, 2025. The straight college strikes back: 1990s backlash against inclusive campuses. Politics, Groups, and Identities.
    • Megan Brenan. May 29, 2025. “Record Party Divide 10 Years After Same-Sex Marriage Ruling.” Gallup.
    • David A. Reichard. 2024. Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California. University of Georgia Press.
    • Lawrence Glickman. May 21, 2020. “How White Backlash Controls American Progress.” The Atlantic.
    • Hannah Kaner’s Fallen Gods Trilogy: Faithbreaker (2025); Sunbringer (2024); Godkiller (2023)
    • Ellen Schrecker. 2025. The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s. University of Chicago Press.
    • adventuresincensorship.com 

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    41 min
  • Palm readings, magic, and modern medicine with Alison Bashford

    References and suggested readings:

    • Alison Bashford. 2025. Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic. University of Chicago Press. 
    • Naomi Oreskes. 2003. Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History Of The Modern Theory Of The Earth. CRC Books.
    • Alison Bashford faculty page

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    31 min
  • Higher ed’s rush to adopt AI with Justin Raden

    grift, edtech, enshittification

    References and suggested readings:

    • Justin Raden. October 23, 2025. Higher Ed’s Rush to Adopt AI is About So Much More Than AI. Defector. 
    • American Vandal podcast and Substack
    • Moira Weigel. “Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School.” b2o
    • Molly White [citation needed]
    • Gil Durán. 2026. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. Simon & Schuster.
    • Edward Zitron Where’s Your Ed At? 
    • Melinda Cooper. 2024. Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance. Zone Books.
    • Quinn Slobodian. 2025. Hayek's Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right. Zone Books.
    • Justin Raden on Bluesky @jraden.bsky.social
    • Sarah Osment tweets (follow for Mike Davis reading group in January 2026)
    • faculty email [email protected] 

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    38 min
  • Campus sexual harassment from Nixon to #MeToo with Celene Reynolds

    References and suggested readings:

    • Celene Reynolds. 2025. Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX. Princeton University Press. 
    • “What colleges (don’t) do about sexual violence with Nicole Bedera.” American Campus Podcast. May 28, 2025.
    • Susan Faludi. 2006. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Crown.
    • Juliet Hooker. 2025. Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss. Princeton University Press.
    • Celene Reynolds’ faculty page

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    55 min
  • Creating the AAUP with Henry Reichman

    Brought to us, in part, by the race scientists

    References mentioned this episode:

    • Henry Reichman. 2025. Understanding Academic Freedom, 2nd edition. Johns Hopkins University Press. 
    • J. McKeen Cattell. 1913. University Control.
    • Joy Ann Williamson-Lott. 2018. Jim Crow Campus: Higher Education and the Struggle for a New Southern Social Order. Teachers College Press.
    • Lauren Lassabe Shepherd. 2025. Whose Side are Administrators On? HNN.
    • Russell Banks. 2007. Continental Drift. Ecco.
    • AAUP’s Academe blog
    • Hank Reichman on Bluesky @hankreichman.bsky.social 
    • AAUP’s At-Large chapter for anyone! 
    • AAUP resources 


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    41 min

About American Campus Podcast

From the publisher's feed

a social and political history of higher education

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