ASHP Podcast

How do we think about history? Whose history is it? And how is history constructed, both in academic terms and in a public way?These questions were made apparent in discussions of the NYC Mayor’s Commission on Monuments, where Jack Tchen, Professor of Public History and the Humanities at Rutgers University, served as a panelist. In this episode, Tchen walks us through the ways the city’s public history has been organized, the processes and findings of the Commission, and a vision to re-establish Lenape life, history, and culture into historical discourse of the region.This episode features audio from the public program "Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City," held on October 9, 2018, in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. This program was the second event in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In this episode, Michele Bogart, professor and author of the recently published Sculpture in Gotham: Art and Urban Renewal In New York City, untangles the bureaucracy of monument creation in New York City. Delving into decision-making processes behind the City's monuments and memorials, Bogart looks to the past and the present in discussing whose voice is heard and valued in constructing urban spaces of meaning and rememberance. This episode features audio from the program "Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City," held on October 9, 2018, in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. This program was the second event in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In this four-speaker panel, professors, artists, and activists delve into the ongoing re-evaluation of public monuments and memorials, particularly those in New York City (NYC). Dr. Harriet Senie, professor of art history at The Graduate Center CUNY, offers insights into the decision making process of the 2017 Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, an initiative convened to advise NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio about controversial monuments and markers on city-owned land.  Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, professor of history at Queens College CUNY, details the work of J. Marion Sims, who developed gynecological procedures by practicing on the bodies of enslaved black women.  Marina Ortiz, activist and founder of East Harlem Preservation, discusses the decades-long fight to remove an East Harlem statue of Sims.  Francheska Alcantara, artist and activist, explores the ways in which art can and should engage social protest.  This panel took place on June 13, 2018, as the first program in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lori A. Flores,  Stony Brook UniversityCUNY Graduate Center, January 18, 2017Lori Flores, History Professor at Stony Brook University, contextualizes Mexican immigration and identity and examines how shifting borders complicate Mexican American identities. Flores covers the tumultuous relationship between Mexican immigrants and the United States Government from World War 1 into the present describing how during economic booms immigrants were welcomed and then quickly turned away during economic declines. Flores analyzes how the varied names associated with Mexican American immigrants illuminate the deep-rooted history of Mexicans in this country. This talk took place on January 18, 2017, as part of Reading Area Community College’s Conexiones Project in partnership with ASHP. ​

Joshua Freeman, ASHPThe Graduate Center, CUNYFebruary 26, 2018Joshua Freeman, professor of history at CUNY Graduate Center and Queens College and Steven Greenhouse, former labor reporter for the New York Times, discuss Freeman's recent book,  Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World. From the origins of factories in the 1720s England through the current state of mega-factories like Foxconn, the conversation covers the rise and fall of factories across the world and the societal consequences that came with each transition.  This conversation took place on February 26, 2018, at the CUNY Graduate Center sponsored by the Ph.D. Program in History and the Advanced Research Collaborative.

Deirdre Cooper Owens, Queens College CUNY Graduate Center, February 14, 2018Deirdre Cooper Owens reads a section from her recent work, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, which explores the intersections of slavery, capitalism, and medicine and discusses the work with Jennifer Morgan, Professor of History New York University  and Sasha Turner Bryson, Professor of History at Quinnipiac University. Owen’s study draws from the journals of doctors like James Marion Sims and examines the labor enslaved women performed as they endured medical experimentation and assisted doctors in developing careers in gynecology. This talk took place on February 14, 2018, sponsored by Center for the Study of Women and Society and co-sponsored with the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC), the CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Program in History, and the Feminist Press.

Gregory Downs, UC DavisCUNY Graduate Center, July 19, 2016In this talk, Gregory Down provides historical context for viewing U.S. slavery in a global context and presents the complexities of reconstruction efforts to create a unified United States after the Civil War. Down focuses on the passage of new constitutional amendments, General Grant’s presidency, and the transition of political power in 1877. This talk took place on July 19, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.

Richard Samuel West, founder of New England's PeriodysseyCUNY Graduate Center, July 20, 2016In this presentation, Richard Samuel West analyzes political cartoons of the reconstruction era utilizing Thomas Nast’s Harper Weekly pieces as a timeline. West focuses on Southern Sentiment and Nast’s sharp criticism of it, presenting cartoons on Johnson’s presidency, Grant’s oppositional stance, and images of the KKK and White League. This talk took place on July 19, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.

Sarah Burns, Indiana UniversityCUNY Graduate Center, July 19, 2016In this discussion, Sarah Burns examines common Civil War narratives in fine arts in this period by examining the work of artists such as William Walker, Thomas Waterman, and Winslow Homer. Burns asks who created the pieces and for what audience and further questioning the works by examining portraits showing a different narrative of African Americans. Ultimately concluding that these works are a contention between white construction and black agency. This talk took place on July 19, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.

Megan Kate Nelson, Author of Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War CUNY Graduate Center, July 15, 2016In this talk, Megan Kate Nelson discusses the proliferation of photographs that focus on ruins and war-torn bodies in 1864/1865, at the end of the civil war. Nelson looks at photos taken by union photographers and the narratives created with these photos. By examining the historical context of the photographs, Nelson argues that photography can be as ambiguous as other forms of wartime narratives. This talk took place on July 15, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.