Reverb Effect

In the seventeenth century, Spaniards understood Purgatory to be as much of a place—indeed one capable of being seen and even visited—as its newly established colonies in the New World. Otherworldly spaces like hell, purgatory, and limbo became part of a "colonizing imaginary," a worldview that included the cartographic project of mapping and claiming places and peoples far beyond Iberian shores.

Yet such projects have traditionally and historically been interpreted as the purview of men—missionaries, colonizers, and conquistadors who traveled across the Atlantic to participate in the entangled projects of conversion, colonization, and conquest. Hayley Bowman explores the ways in which women, too, contributed to this system of knowledge production. Female mystics envisioned and visited such places by spiritual means, wielding their own authority and contributing to how early modern Spaniards understood not just the afterlife, but their own position in the wider world and cosmos.

On August 2, 1589, the King Henri III of France was assassinated. In a series of accusations that pointed to his policies, his pastimes, and his desires, they called Henri a sodomite.

Sodomy accusations gesture towards the unchristian and unmanly comportment of the accused. And yet the content of sodomy accusations has changed much over the past millennium. By attending to the moments of congruence and divergence in these accusations, Aidyn Osgood explores how sexuality helps forge conceptions of masculinity. He also investigates how masculinity is a contingent cultural product created by people with political goals rather than a simple, natural outgrowth of human bodies. These ideas resonate powerfully today, when we find ourselves again considering the meanings of masculinity in popular culture.

This year marks the opening of Il Museo Italo Africano, "Ilaria Alpi" or the Iliaria Alpi Italo-African Museum in Rome, Italy. A revival of the former Italian Colonial museum (1923-1971), it has been renamed for its present-day reinstallation. Colonial museums and their collections are tangible representations of the historic and unequal relationships between people, communities, and nations. What does this particular museum and its collection tell us about Italy and its former African colonies?

Timnet Gedar traces the history of this museum's collection, including "human zoos," in Italy and the looting of north and east African nations. This context demonstrates the role of museums in the colonial project and the power of knowledge production, raising questions about the implications of this history for the contemporary reopening of the museum. She asks us to consider the current Mediterranean migration crisis as a reflection of the ongoing, uneven power relations between Italy and its former African colonies and how past and present are linked, even in (or especially in) museums and their collections

Since Donald Trump stepped into the political spotlight, many have likened him to Archie Bunker, star character of the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. The comparisons were based on the crude demeanor, the vulgarity, and the racist and misogynistic views. The comparison seems apt. While the two men certainly shared some unfavorable characteristics, many of those who made the comparison focused on the apparent source for those characteristics—their shared hometown—Queens, New York.

Daniela Sheinin hadn't given much thought to the comparison, but when she found a kitschy drinking glass at an antique mall displaying an Archie For President graphic, she thought maybe this was something to contemplate. Instead of the president as Archie, we have Archie as the president.

As she began to investigate the Bunker/Trump trope, one thing became clear. They may share a hometown, but they differ in their responses to the rapidly changing Queens neighborhoods that have come to define the borough. In this episode, we consider the many phases of Queens neighborhoods. They are marked by precisely that—fluidity and impermanence. In their transience, as the world moves onward, and the nation evolves, does progress leave something important behind? And to whom is this idea appealing? Where do Trump and Bunker fit now, in what is the most diverse region in the United States?

These questions were some of the many topics covered when Daniela conducted oral history interviews during her dissertation research. Some are featured in this episode.

Los Angeles's international reputation was on the line. As they prepared to host millions of visitors to the city for the 1984 Olympic Games, planners expressed their anxieties about one issue in particular—crime. To ensure a successful, safe event, planners opted for a massive display of police power. As athletes, spectators, and press from around the world arrived in the city, they would be watched. Federal, state, and local forces would collaborate to control the steady stream of people and to justify the added costs of anti-crime and anti-terrorism technologies.

In hindsight, this was only a blip in the long history of law enforcement expansion in Los Angeles, and in the United States. Police using anxieties about terrorism goes back much farther than the successful Olympics bid. This had long been an effective strategy to obstruct political activism through the twentieth century.

David Helps takes us from his discovery of confidential police records to audio footage of key actors in LA's history of intrusive law enforcement, to on-the-ground policing, to the assault on US American civil liberties and the response from various activist groups. He illuminates the ongoing possible tensions between police departments, the technologies of surveillance they employ, and civilians. What are the police allowed to know about civilians, and what are their justifications for acquiring that information?

Migrant detention at the US border is not new. While it's become common in 2020 to hear of the incarceration of men, women, and children at the border attached to the current administration, these policies have been in development for the past 40 years. Over time we've seen the shifting legal, political and cultural definitions for people who arrive from Central America and Cuba. We've seen the transformation of the asylum seeker to criminal, begging the question: is "prison" a more suitable term?

Alexander Stephens and Gerson Rosales didn't expect for their research to align quite so closely. One works on the arrival of Cubans on the Mariel boatlift, the other on Salvadoran migration. But when they both stumbled across the same detention center in a surprising place, they sat down together to talk about these intertwined histories, from one small-town detention center to the largest system of immigrant prisons in the world.

Matt Villeneuve details the simultaneous intrigue and frustration that comes from discovering an interesting source with minimal detail. He explains the winding path of constructing a story—from the mysterious nature of a single clue to the sometimes serendipitous breakthroughs of the archive. The clue was a note, tucked away in a digitized letter, referencing a 1969 illustration of an indigenous woman in protest. Equipped with questions about the US indigenous past, Villeneuve goes on the hunt for this illustration. From digital collections to libraries to social media, he makes connections over time to build a story. From an ambiguous note, the story transforms into one that considers the nature of art and protest in the history of schools as sites for the erasure of indigenous culture.

Since the 2016 election, use of the term "fake news" has skyrocketed: in media, in political rhetoric, and in the coffee shop or office kitchen. But its presence in the news is not new, nor is Russia's involvement in the story.

Dr. Johanna Folland takes us back into the lifecycle of a "fake news" story from the 1980s, before we referred to such things with that moniker. She tells the story of how a lie about one of the twentieth century's most critical health epidemics—HIV/AIDS—was used to push particular narratives for political gain during the Cold War. While the story includes major government actors, like the CIA and the KGB, we also learn the story of research scientist Lilli Segal and how disinformation spreads—and the real consequences thereof.

Historians have long searched for the "voices" of the past, crafting stories past actors might have told from the records they leave behind. They sift through endless boxes of old letters, reports, memos, maps, photos, blueprints, and testimonies. But what are the chances the historian will hear the literal voice of a historical actor they study? Dr. J. Martin Vest pieces together the history of a family that, instead of writing letters, used nineteenth-century wax cylinder recordings to correspond across the country. In this often-obscured part of the history of recording, we learn how in the same way a family might settle into the parlor and listen to a popular music record, they might also record themselves at their most intimate moments, for an audience on a much smaller scale.

In what ways can a look be unsettling? Intimidating? Might it be dangerous? How does one study the history of an act so fleeting, and so difficult to record?

PhD candidate Molly Brookfield studies the history of men's harassment of women in public places, in other words, street harassment. She's interested in behaviors like catcalling or ogling, actions often considered trivial or even complimentary, rather than overtly violent or threatening.

We'll uncover the history of the more insidious behaviors men often perform in public space. Behaviors that leave no visible mark yet have the power to disrupt a woman's daily life. But is this really a story of the past? We'll consider the alarming persistence of such behaviors, and their transition into an accepted, sometimes even normal aspect of urban life.