Prof. Aleida Assmann is one of the leading lights of international memory studies. Prof. Astrid Erll interviewed her in a video that can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/153089856. In this podcast I try to summarize Prof. Assmann’s points in my own words, which may be helpful to those students familiar with a different vernacular or just beginning to familiarize themselves with memory studies. My interpretation of her views on memory studies are just that, mine, and are presented in the hope that they are expressed clearly and correctly.

Podcast: Embed

Immigration in the late nineteenth century deserves attention on its own. It was a litmus test of how Americans viewed themselves, their society and the strength of that society or the direction that they wanted it to go in, curiously, the same as today.

Podcast: Embed

In our last podcast, we looked at many specific problems besetting Americans in the Age of Excess. In this addendum to that podcast we look at the Age of Excess with a much broader view, seeing why it is such an exciting period and discussing the wonderful irony of it all that this is perhaps the period in American history least studied by scholars!

Podcast: Embed

Hist 2112 students will find this five-minute podcast to be a useful guide to highlighting the most important slides in the PowerPoint on “The Age of Excess,” and providing an overview of the Gilded Age at the end of the nineteenth century. Please post your thoughts here or on Twitter at @MemoryThruMedia.

Podcast: Embed

This podcast provides a brief overview of one way of simplifying and approaching the complex subject of Reconstruction, This is meant to supplement my history course, HIST 2112. Photo by Carol Highsmith, in the public domain through the Library of Congress

Podcast: Embed

In this podcast I review Philippe Sands’s award-winning book in search of his family and the origins of crimes against humanity and genocide. An international lawyer, Sands writes of his discovery that the lawyers responsible for these two innovations in international law shared a common origin with his grandfather and grandmother in the region of Lvov in pre-World War II Poland. Searching for the roots of his career and the answers to mysteries about the survival of his own family, Sands brilliantly relates a tale of memory, discovery and history. Podcast site photograph by Carol Highsmith of fresco, “Society Freed Through Justice,” in Justice Department Building, Washington, D.C. Photo in public domain in the Library of Congress.

Podcast: Embed

In this episode I introduce this podcast series by reflecting on the Inaugural Conference on Memory Studies taking place in Amsterdam, December 3-5, 2016, the same weekend as the recording of this podcast. We look at how far Memory Studies has come and where it seems to be going, as well as directions and tangents many people would like to see it take. Disclaimer: I am merely commenting on the conference from afar and have no involvement in the conference or its organization. Feel free to add your thoughts on good books and articles in the field of Memory Studies at Twitter feed, @MemoryThruMedia.

After listening to the podcast post your comments on this page, if you please!

Podcast: Embed