American Prestige

The news roundup returns next week, so in the meantime we thought we’d share our conversation with Christina Heatherton, Elting Associate Professor of American Studies and Human Rights at Trinity College, Connecticut. Her book Arise! Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution covers the Mexican Revolution as an international story, something that galvanized radical organizers of the era to fight global capitalism in new ways. The discussion broaches Dubois framing the color line as a tool of imperial expansion, touches on figures like Ricardo Flores Magón and Alexandra Kollontai, examines prisons used as organizing spaces, and how this era of radicalism can inform organizing today.

The book will be out in paperback from UC Press in February while the Spanish translation will be out from La Cigarra Press this Spring.

Recorded in June 2023

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny and Derek give subscribers an update on the recent events in the Middle East, including today’s blasts in Iran at a memorial for slain general Qasem Soleimani, Tuesday’s strike on a Hamas leader in southern Beirut, Israel’s recent strike in Damascus, and South Africa’s petition at the ICJ to declare the situation in Gaza a genocide.

Recorded Wednes…

Jeffrey Lewis, professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies on the Nonproliferation and Terrorism Faculty, joins Danny and Derek to discuss his new podcast The Reason We’re All Still Here, which covers scientists, analysts, and idealists who have gone above and beyond in the name of peace and diplomacy when state actors fail to do so. This discussion focuses on the podcast itself as well as questions about Marx’s theory of alienation, the hope of changing the massive structures all but guaranteeing our demise, and why being an “imperfect part of the solution” might be worthwhile.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Denise N. Rall, adjunct research fellow at Southern Cross University in Australia, joins Danny and Derek to discuss the relationship between fashion, women and power. Topics include the origins of the fashion industry, sartorial diplomacy, figures like Elizabeth II and Michelle Obama, and the power suit.

Be sure to check out Denise’s book Fashion, Women,…

Danny and Derek sit down with Sudha Rajagopalan, Senior Lecturer in East European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, to discuss her book Journeys of Soviet Things, an oral history of socialist globalization focusing on the journeys of Cold War era Soviet objects in Cuba and India. The conversation explores why Sudha focused on banal objects, what Soviet-made household technologies meant to people in Cuba and India, people’s views of American-produced goods of the time, whether a transnational identity was forged through these objects, and more.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny and Derek chat with Brian Cuddy, lecturer in security studies at Macquarie University, and Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, about the eponymous collection of essays they co-edited, which examines the lasting impact of the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia and the wider Pacific. They discuss how the regional dynamics shaped the course of the war, what taking a regional perspective illuminates, the current state of the politics of Vietnam historiography, and more.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Danny and Derek welcome back to the podcast Eleanor Janega, medieval historian, author, and broadcaster, to get down to brass tacks: What is Christmas? They discuss its practice in early and medieval Christian societies, mummers’ plays and gambling, Saint Nicholas providing dowries and resurrecting boys killed for their meat, the post-Reformation treatm…

Danny and Derek amble across the finish line of 2023. This week: a Gaza update including the latest UN resolution, ceasefire talks, and a potential Geneva conference (1:15); the West/North Atlantic formally responds to Houthi actions in the Red Sea (8:50); General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi wins re-election (13:22); continued fighting in Myanmar (14:29); another ICBM test from the DPRK/North Korea (15:47); the RSF captures another city in Sudan (19:39); a possible resurgence of piracy in Somalia (21:43); the latest constituional referendum in Chile (24:09); a Venezuela-U.S. prisoner swap (25:56); and a Ukraine war update (29:02).

Recorded Wednesday December 20, 2023

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.americanprestigepod.com

Derek welcomes back Dalia Hatuqa, a journalist specializing in Palestinian-Israeli affairs, to discuss developments in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel proper over the past couple of weeks. Then Danny and Derek give a news update for subscribers.

Recorded Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Merry (early) Christmas! Danny and Derek speak with historian Terri Blom Crocker to discuss the reality of the mythologized Christmas Truce of 1914, when soldiers in World War I made various agreements to cease fighting.

Check out Terri's book The Christmas Truce: Myth, Memory, and the First World War! 

Originally published on Christmas 2021

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.americanprestigepod.com/subscribe