Holding History Podcast

In this episode, we speak with acclaimed essayist Meghan O’Gieblyn about the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and the human imagination. Meghan is the author of God Human Animal Machine and the essay collection Interior States, which won the 2018 Believer Book Award. She writes essays and criticism for Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, WIRED, The New York Review of Books, n+1, The Point, The Baffler, and Bookforum. 

Relying on Meghan’s research and background in Western history and philosophy, religion, and technology, the conversation grapples with what it means to be human in this specific historical moment. As the conversation progresses, our own definition of the human emerges emphasizing the messy, vulnerable, and suboptimal characteristics that make us who we are.

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

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In this episode, we reunited with Holding History alum and commonplace book enthusiast Ethan Kay to talk about how to leverage AI for personal knowledge management (PKM) systems. Ethan is currently a Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI where he focuses on AI-native search and answer experiences in ChatGPT. 

The conversation winds between how different technologies augment and create our personal archives. As Ethan shares his own practices and advice for how to utilize LLMs to enhance learning or store knowledge, a question is prompted: what will happen to physical, material media like books? The answer turns out to be more hopeful than you might expect.

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

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In this first episode of our third season, we talk to software engineers and old-book-enthusiasts Ben Brumfield and Sara Carlstead Brumfield, the power-couple duo who founded From the Page, a crowdsourcing platform for archives and libraries where volunteers transcribe, index, and describe historic documents.

We spoke with them about the idiosyncrasies of working with archival documents, the technological challenges of making metadata accessible while staving off poorly behaved bots that crash library sites in their quest for more training data, how technology changes the ways we interact with and engage archival work, and how AI can increase accessibility to these documents.

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

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Wherever you find the Holding History Podcast, please like, subscribe, and provide feedback. Use the comment section below, or contact us at [email protected] with questions or suggestions. Thanks for listening!

This episode features a conversation with New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini. We spent time with Jennifer discussing her newly released novel, Canary Girls, her research process, and how historical fiction can fill in historical gaps. 

A transcript of this episode can be accessed here. 

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Wherever you find the Holding History Podcast, please like, subscribe, and provide feedback. Use the comment section below, or contact us at [email protected] with questions or suggestions. Thanks for listening!

This episode features a conversation with Bruce Holsinger, Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Virginia Department of English. In addition to his academic writing, Bruce is an award-winning fiction writer. We talk with him about his latest novel, The Displacements.

We talk with Bruce about how his fiction writing asks questions that overlap with his academic writing (see his latest, On Parchment). At stake in both is the archive, its power, its past, and its future.

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

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This episode features a conversation with Dr. Gregory Mackie from the University of British Columbia. 

We arranged to speak with Greg in light of UBC’s recent acquisition of a First Folio, a purchase that Greg engineered. We learned all about the process of how one gets such a book, where the money comes from, and what happens when it actually arrives. But with Greg, we also learned that a Shakespeare archive is really a fantasy, a gateway into a much broader discussion. 

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

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This episode features a conversation with Fenella France, Chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division at the Library of Congress. Fenella works at the forefront of the field of archival preservation. 

Our discussion begins with specifics about her recent projects and the lab where Fenella operates but moves toward global questions of project approach, archival organization, destructive and/or predictive testing, digital preservation, and, of course, the future.

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

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This episode features a conversation with Curt Meine, conservation biologist, environmental historian, writer, and Senior Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin. 

From Curt’s Driftless Area farmhouse, the HH Pod crew learns about the Aldo Leopold Archive but quickly moves to a broader discussion about biography, environment, and the possibility of land-as-archive.

This episode’s Bookish Word, bibliophile, was created by Sarah Bulvan.

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

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This episode features a conversation with Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Dasha Kelly Hamilton. Dasha is a poet, performance artist, and creative change agent. 

Dasha welcomes Sarah and Josh to the world of spoken word poetry, talking in-depth about the logistics, ethics, and challenges of performing spoken word, teaching poetry, and organizing shared community experiences.

This episode’s Bookish Word, panglossian, was created by UW-Madison graduate students Bridget Anderson and Theophilus Okunlola.

To learn more about the texts, ideas, and people mentioned in this interview, and to access a transcript, visit the episode guide on HoldingHistory.org.

Thanks for listening!