Knights HistoryCast

In Part 1 of “Operación Pedro Pan: The Voices and Stories of Cuba’s Child Exodus—A Knights HistoryCast Mini-Series,” the Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Alexis Castellanos, an author, illustrator, graphic novelist, and a panelist at the esteemed, conspicuous, and powerful “Operación Pedro Pan: Honoring the Cultural, Historical Legacy of Cuba’s Child Exodus” Two-Day Program that Florida Humanities, UCF’s Department of English and Department of Modern Languages and Literatures sponsored (see https://cah.ucf.edu/pedro-pan/ for more details on sponsors and the program in general).

Sebastian structured this specific episode on Alexis Castellanos’ Isla to Island, a wordless graphic novel grounded by her personal family history and the history of Operación Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan). By analyzing such a historic event through the medium of fiction, Sebastian argued that this is one of the most unique Knights HistoryCast episodes of all time. Naturally, their conversation expanded to what she talked about during her panel presentation in Panel One, Day 1 of the event that featured “internationally renowned scholars that discussed the political, historical, and cultural legacy of Operación Pedro Pan (1960-1962).” (https://cah.ucf.edu/pedro-pan/)

To purchase Isla to Island (strongly recommend), check out: https://islatoisland.com/.

To find out more about Alexis and her professional work, check out her website at https://alexiscastellanos.com/

The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia attended the 2023 UCF Student Scholar Symposium Event, UCF’s most prominent showcase event of the year, where students from all disciplines can present their research. Sebastian talked with all the students of this year’s program who did historical research, regardless of the student’s major/discipline. Sebastian recorded these interviews LIVE at the event, hence the ambiance in the background of all the conversations. Below are the names of the students who talked with Sebastian, the title of their research project, and the timestamps in which the conversation takes place during the episode.

• Marena Montes-Colon, Las Floriquenas: Puertoriquenas’ Experiences in Central Florida Presented Through a Historical Framework (00:02:21-00:13:31)

Here is a link to this year’s virtual program, where you can find and see the posters that these students presented during the event: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/#/event/3315/program

The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Dr. Jennifer Palmer, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Georgia, about her keynote presentation at the 16th Annual Pauley Lecture Series on Global Affairs titled, “To Have and To Hold: Race, Gender, and Property in the French Atlantic World.” Given that the recording of this podcast took place before her lecture presentation, Sebastian took a holistic approach and asked questions about Dr. Palmer’s first book (Intimate Bonds: Family and Slavery in the French Atlantic) and research more broadly (Early Modern France, the Atlantic World, and the Caribbean) to provide a more dynamic and fresh preview at the lecture she planned on presenting at the recording of this episode.

The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Dr. Mwita Chacha, an Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Dr. Chacha was the keynote speaker at this year’s annual Dr. John T. Washington Lecture Series hosted by the UCF Department of History’s Africana Studies Program. He discussed recent trends in regional cooperation in Africa by identifying the uniqueness of these trends and placing them in a historical context. Dr. Jonathan Powell, an Associate Professor in the School of Politics, Security, and International Relations at the University of Central Florida and a longtime colleague of Dr. Chacha, joined Sebastian and Dr. Chacha in this podcast conversation as both Dr. Chacha and Dr. Powell have worked together on numerous projects. Together, they provided a dynamic podcast that broadly covered research examining the politics of regional integration and the consequences of political and economic interdependence on domestic security and conflict.

NOTE: At 56:29, Sebastian said “60 or so,” not to be confused with “6 or so,” as it appears to be.

(Originally published by Sebastian Garcia on March 3rd, 2023) The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Mr. Richard Lee Cronin, author, historian, and event coordinator of the Pine Castle Historical Society HISTORY TENT, at the Annual Pine Castle Pioneer Days Event.

This episode is dedicated to and is in honor of Professor Paul W. Wehr.

A Professor of History at UCF since the Department’s inception in 1969, Professor Wehr retired in 1995 after 25 years of teaching his passion for history—inspiring countless students and faculty. Professor Wehr devoted much of his time to documenting the history of Orange County, specifically Pine Castle. This naturally led to a close relationship with the Pine Castle Historical Society, which dedicated Day 1 of the 2-day event at Pioneer Days to Professor Wehr for the first time this year. Sebastian decided to pay tribute to one of UCF’s original history professors by going to the Pine Castle Pioneer Days HISTORY TENT event dedicated to him and produced a podcast on location with Mr. Richard Lee Cronin, who knew Professor Wehr personally.

Below are links to an Orlando Memory interview featuring Professor Wehr himself that Sebastian mentioned in the introduction of this podcast, the page to know more about his books and association with Pine Castle, and a UCF CAH article written about Professor Wehr shortly after his passing in 2021.

• https://orlandomemory.info/topics/oral-history-interview-with-dr-paul-w-wehr/

(Originally published by Sebastian Garcia on February 16th, 2023) The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Dr. Julian Chambliss, a Professor of English with an appointment in History and the Val Berryman Curator of History at the MSU Museum at Michigan State University. He is also the Conference Curator of the 2020-2024 ZORA! Festival Academic Conference Cycle. This podcast focuses explicitly on the 2023 ZORA! Festival Academic Conference, which took place at the end of January. From his role in curating the conference, its direct connections and ties to Afrofuturism and Zora Neale Hurston, to podcasting and comic book studies, this episode of Knights Historycast covers all the incredible, dynamic, and transformative work Dr. Chambliss has done during his career.

Down below are the links to his website and the podcast shows that he produced and is currently producing that were talked about during the episode:

• His website: https://www.julianchambliss.com/

Here is a link to Dr. Robert Cassanello’s podcast that Dr. Chambliss was referring to: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/ahistoryofcentralfloridapodcast/

(Originally published by Sebastian Garcia on January 30, 2023) The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández, a Pegasus Professor (highest faculty title/award that can be received at this institution) of History at the University of Central Florida, about his upcoming book, When the World Turned Upside Down: Politics, Culture, and the Unimaginable Events of 2019-2022. An award-winning historian and nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate, Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández beautifully uses the strengths of both disciplines to provide in real-time, astounding and shrewd historical analysis, insight, and commentary, of the unimaginable events of the past four years with the 66 opinion columns presented in the book. As Sebastian mentioned in the intro of the episode, this podcast serves as a preview of what readers can expect when reading the book, as Sebastian walks through all the topical sections of the book with Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández.

You can pre-order the book now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retail bookstores. The book officially releases on February 15th, 2023. Use the links down below to either pre-order the book now or purchase the book when it comes out—it will be one of the best purchases you’ll make this year.

• https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-the-world-turned-upside-down-luis-mart-nez-fern-ndez/1142555060

Want more after listening to this podcast and reading the book? Check out Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández’s website at https://culturaltrans.com/opinion-columns to continue to follow and read his weekly opinion columns.

(Originally published by Sebastian Garcia on December 29th, 2022) The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia spoke with the members of the Florida-France Soldier Stories Project research team to discuss the imperative and impressive work that they have done since 2015 to honor and commemorate Floridians that gave their lives to liberate France and defeat Germany in the Second World War.

Down below are the timestamps in which each of the different group segments begins:

• Group 0: (03:27) Intro with Dr. Amelia Lyons (Principal Investigator)

•  Dr. Lyons (PI)

• Dr. Lyons (PI)

• Dr. Lyons (PI)

To find out more information about this project and to read the biographies of the soldiers, check out their website (which was mentioned several times in the pod):

https://projects.cah.ucf.edu/fl-francesoldierstories/

Need LSAT tutoring? As mentioned in 01:43:46, Evan is an LSAT tutor for the Princeton Review. To contact him about this, please email him at [email protected]

A special shoutout to Professor Nikolas Gardiakos, who has helped Sebastian throughout this entire process of ensuring that these podcasts are of the utmost quality. As mentioned in the outro of this podcast, please check out Professor Gardiakos’s (and Professor Meeghan Faulconer’s) podcast—Discussions on Writing and Rhetoric—at https://ucfdwr.podbean.com/

Check out Sebastian’s debut Florida Historical Quarterly Podcast, in which he spoke with Dr. Martin T. Olliff about his article in the Winter/Spring 2021 issue of the Florida Historical Quarterly. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq-podcast/44/

(Originally published by Sebastian Garcia on December 5th, 2022) The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Jim Stoddard, a U.S. Marine Corps Veteran that served from 2003 to 2013. After his military service, Jim decided to continue his education at UCF. In 2016, he earned his bachelor’s degree in history and continued to push forward in his pursuit of education by earning his master’s degree in history in 2020. Jim is currently working towards his Ph.D. in UCF’s Text and Technology program, with his doctoral research focusing on memory and identity in the U.S. Marine Corps. In this podcast, UCF History Department’s 1st ever Veterans Alumni Roundtable Event was the basis of the conversation, with a specific focus on Jim’s personal journey going back to education post-military service.

To read (highly recommend) Jim’s Master’s Thesis that was talked about during the podcast, the link is down below:

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd2020/138/

(Originally published by Sebastian Garcia on November 9th, 2022) The Department of History’s Sebastian Garcia talked with Dr. Frank Uekötter, a Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, working on environmental issues, both past and present, in a global context. Their conversation primarily focused on Dr. Uekötter’s faculty talk event at UCF this past Monday (11/7), which was about the Florida citrus industry and issues of monoculture in this region, but also more broadly (starts at 16:06). This naturally led some portions of the conversation in the podcast to talk about themes and topics from his upcoming book The Vortex: An Environmental History of the Modern World—however the final segment of the podcast is dedicated solely to talking about his book, which will be coming out in February 2023 (starts at 1:01:02). Below you can find some links to Dr. Uekötter’s YouTube videos posted by the University of Birmingham to learn more about his research and his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j72s4nCoMEw (A Global History of Monoculture)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSp6VyHuLlI (Making Food History)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UmtKexCO0A (Dr. Uekötter research interests)