Thematic
Digital Methods
Episode Description
Producers Daniel, Matt, and Conor reflect on season 2 and talk history podcasting generally. Plus a preview from Daniel on what’s coming in season 3.
Daniel Story
Welcome to a special episode of History in Focus, a brief epilogue of sorts to now-concluded Season 2. I’m Daniel Story. What we have for you here is a brief conversation between me and co-producers Matt Hermane and Conor Howard. We more fully introduce ourselves—probably something we should have done by now, but as they say, better late than never. We also chat about what stuck out for us over the last season and share our thoughts on history podcasting more generally. For me, this conversation is a little bittersweet since both Matt and Conor will be moving on to other things with the conclusion of this season. So this is also a kind of thank you to the two of them for their great work and contributions. But before we dive into that conversation, I want to highlight a few changes for us next season. As Matt and Conor depart, I’m excited to welcome Syrus Jin to the team as a co-producer. Syrus and I will also be tweaking our approach to History in Focus content. For season 3, starting this Fall, we’ll release four feature episodes, one for each issue of the AHR. So that will be September, December, March and June. For the months in between, we’ll vary the content between more freeform conversations with scholars, some bite-size quicklook style episodes, and an occasional featuring of an episode or two from another history podcast we’re particularly stoked on. We’re really excited about trying these new things, and I hope that you’ll enjoy them and find them helpful. So join us if you can, starting again in September. And if you don’t mind, pass the word along to others that you think might be interested. Okay, let’s get to wrapping this season up. Here is my conversation with Matt and Connor.
Daniel Story
So I was thinking maybe we could start out by doing what arguably we should have done at the beginning of the season rather than here at the end of the season, and that is to tell the listeners who we are a little bit more than just our names. So I’ll go first. So I’m Daniel. I’m a digital scholarship librarian at University of California, Santa Cruz. I have a PhD in History, which I received from Indiana University, Bloomington. My dissertation research was on the history of the American advertising industry, and the rise of data driven advertising from about the 1840s to the 1920s. And now I am more focused on public history, public humanities, digital storytelling. And then with History in Focus, I’m the creator, host, lead producer. I also before that hosted and produced the podcast AHR Interview. And I was doing the math earlier, and I think I’m coming up on eight years of working with the AHR in podcast related things, which is kind of crazy to say out loud. So anyway, yeah, which one of you would like to go next?
Matt Hermane
I don’t mind going. So I’m Matt. I’m a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Indiana University. My main field of study is the early modern Middle East. But my background is in Persian Studies. I focus mostly on kind of the so called Persianate world of the 16th and 17th centuries. I’m really interested, and my dissertation research focuses on travel and travel writing. And I like to use travel encounters and interactions as ways to kind of explore early modern themes as kind of transregional phenomena and see how those themes manifest themselves in different places, by people representing different cultures, especially ones that might typically be left out of kind of our mainstream Western historical narratives. Something else I’m really interested in, and kind of what also attracted me to podcasting as well, is the digital humanities as a way of making early modern topics relevant to today’s undergrads and as a way to kind of help students better understand and experience early modern history. And then I guess, as far as my experience with History in Focus, and the American Historical Review is concerned, this is the end of my, I guess, two year term with AHR. And yeah, I guess that’s about it.
Conor Howard
So I’m Conor, I am also a PhD candidate at IU Bloomington. Like Matt, I’m in the end of my second year at the AHR with History in Focus, the podcast. It’s been a really great time. My own work, my dissertation project, is looking at sort of settlers in Maine and New Brunswick in the handful of decades after the American Revolution. I’m really interested in the emergence of separate, place-specific, environmentally-influenced, very historically contingent, and often quite historically contentious ideas of community identity that are emerging in the I guess you’d say English speaking world following the American Revolution.
Daniel Story
Maybe a tricky question for PhD candidates, but any comments on what is sort of on the near horizon for the two of you?
Matt Hermane
Finishing a dissertation.
Conor Howard
Right.
Matt Hermane
Yeah, that’s about it for me. I’m hoping to be finished and ready to defend my dissertation about this time next year. So that’s, that’s about it for me.
Daniel Story
Gotcha.
Conor Howard
Same. I mean, I’m kind of always keeping an ear to the ground in terms of possible job prospects. But yeah, I mean, I think like both of you mentioned, I’m interested in the sort of public facing, like, what can we do to make our work, you know, accessible outside of the scholarly monograph that a couple of dozen people might read part of?
Daniel Story
Yeah,
Matt Hermane
Yeah.
Daniel Story
So when you think back about the last season, that we produced, that we’re wrapping up now, what are some of the moments or interviews that stood out to you, or aspects of the production process that you found interesting and engaging.
Matt Hermane
So for me, I guess, the power of producing these podcast episodes, we can talk about specific episodes that I particularly enjoyed, if you’d like, but I guess the thing that I really enjoy, as we produce these episodes, is trying to bring these, I guess, articles, or forums often, kind of to life and help in my mind, or listen, or better experience, the research that our authors are doing, and the places, the environments that they’re focusing their work on. For me, that comes through sound and music. I really enjoy, you know, finding archival material to put behind these articles, behind the interviews, or even just sounds that kind of help take the listener to the place or put them in the mindset for the subject that’s being discussed. And for me, I think that’s where we can kind of combine a little bit of creativity with history and with scholarship and make it more appealing, maybe more entertaining, more engaging, for the listener to experience.
Conor Howard
Yeah, I think for me, probably the most exciting thing has been getting the chance to still kind of read and think very broadly. Probably the most fun, the most exciting thing about doing a PhD is that beginning coursework period, where you’re still reading this really broad swath of scholarship and different areas, different methodologies, and all of this. And as you move into the dissertation phase, of course, it gets increasingly narrow. So having History in Focus, and the AHR in general, is such a great venue to explore a really wide range of things. And I think presenting them in a really accessible way, you know, half an hour to get, you know, a little taste of a couple articles, really seems like an important service to the field and keeping everyone a bit more open to the full range of the discipline, not just their own little silos.
Matt Hermane
Right. Yeah, you know, I might add to that, also, I think that right is probably the appeal or the purpose of a publication like the AHR is to keep everyone abreast of the things going on across the field of history. Right. But what’s nice about the podcast medium, I think, is that not only do we get to know what historians across the field are focusing on, we get to hear the historians and hear, you know, how passionate they are about the work and how important they think it is, things that you don’t necessarily get to convey in an article.
Conor Howard
Absolutely, yeah.
Daniel Story
Yeah, I think those are both really good points. And I’ll agree that one of the real gifts of continuing to be involved with the AHR as long as I have with the podcast is, number one, the fact that I don’t work explicitly in the discipline of history now, but I have this really interesting connection to the discipline and this sense of the the breadth of scholarship that’s happening through the AHR. And yeah, I agree. Having the podcast, having an excuse, right, to talk to people that we may not otherwise have had the opportunity to talk to and really hear from them, get under the hood a little bit of how they’ve approached their research. And yeah, I like the idea of hearing their voice and hearing the passion in their voice, because the way that articles, monographs are written, those sorts of things most often don’t necessarily come through. So yeah, I think those are all fantastic points. Some of the things that stand out to me from the last season are some of the episodes that really highlighted the varied contexts that people are doing really interesting, important historical work in, outside of more traditional scholarship. And you know, I think about the episode on kind of public history and monuments that I think was last Fall. And, you know, we’ve done some work on the intersection of history and contemporary art in different contexts. What am I missing? There are others too.
Matt Hermane
Another one, kind of in the same vein of what you’re talking about, Daniel, I think is the history and AI piece we did. That was with Darryl Meadows and Josh Sternfeld. And you got to see how much they deeply care about that issue. And how impactful it really is to the field and how much AI is something we all need to be thinking about. But then it was also something that made me think about how I could be using AI in my own work. And I explored some, like routes for text analysis using it. So I really think even in these things that might not be, you know, right up in our own little niches, you know, provide some nods for us to think about our own work.
Conor Howard
Yeah, yeah. I could kind of just go on in the same direction with that, like Tore Olson, who I interviewed last Fall. I think it was, now he was someone I vaguely heard of, not even through like the historical discipline, but he was making news as teaching a history class using a video games hook, Red Dead Redemption 2. And actually, like, you know, something I’d read, you know, article, and it might have even been like a gaming magazine or something. Well, online gaming, that’s like, okay, maybe that, okay. But then actually reading, Tore’s work, and then sitting down and speaking with him and seeing, on the one hand, that this is a true passion, that this is really an absolute effort to meet students, you know, probably more than half way. It’s just such a novel approach to doing history that, you know, it’s stuff like that, that we might encounter and not think much of but then actually getting the chance where we have the academic AHR in one hand, but then the middle passionate moment where we are actually speaking to the scholars is just so exciting.
Matt Hermane
Conor, I’m glad you mentioned a teaching piece as well, because one of the ones that I really enjoyed also was the teaching historiography one. It was with Aya Marczyk, Abby Reisman, and Brenda Santos. We still often think about, you know, the AHR for the research articles and the book reviews, right, but the teaching and the methods is such an important part of it, too. And I think also, the podcast might be especially effective in that regard, because there’s plenty of historians out there who are teaching more than they are doing research and publishing. And I think maybe the podcast is just maybe a better way to deliver that type of valuable information to them.
Daniel Story
This is me thinking out loud about if there’s anything else we want to include in this conversation.
Matt Hermane
What about challenges of history podcasting? Do you guys think about that? Or what do you think about it?
Daniel Story
I guess, yeah, the thing that first comes in my mind when it comes to challenges is just the amount of effort that it takes, frankly, you know, like. And having the two of you work with me, and me not working on my own, has been like an enormous gift over the last year and a half, or however long it’s been. So you know, doing this kind of work, I think is really important. And it is worth investing in. But I don’t think the historical discipline has, has done enough, or is doing enough as of yet to really invest in and reward the kind of effort that it takes to produce these kinds of things, whether that be a history podcast, or some other form of, you know, digital or public facing history that isn’t so traditional in form. I think there’s lots of positive movement in that direction, for sure. But I think there needs to be a lot more to make this kind of work sustainable, not just for a handful of people, but for the larger number of people that, one probably want to be doing it, and two, the discipline needs more people doing it.
Conor Howard
Yeah, um, my big thought on challenge comes from sort of the other end of, there are so many history podcasts out there. And in that market space, so few of them are actually done by historians, which isn’t to say that you have to have these institutional accreditations to make valid observations and to do the work of a historian. And I guess my thought is like, how do we, as academic historians carve out that market space to, you know, put some actual real history in front of ancient aliens. And I mean, this kind of springs would actually something like Tore Olson, right? Like, I mean, if you’re looking, you might never be someone who wants to seek out academic history, but you start looking at Red Dead Redemption videos online, it leads you down a rabbit hole that, you know, if there’s enough of us in this academic history world there providing good quality content, we can at least, you know, have that space to compete with the other end of the spectrum. Yeah.
Matt Hermane
Yeah, my thoughts are kind of along the same line as Conor’s, because I’m always thinking about what makes a history podcast engaging to listen to. And I think it’s, it’s narratives and stories, right? But then how do we take then what the historian is doing, analysis, how do we blend that with that narrative, and deliver that in a way that is attractive to a listener? I think that’s the challenging part for me when I’m conducting interviews, is trying to find that balance.
Daniel Story
Anything else you guys want to add?
Conor Howard
I guess just what a privilege has been to work with you, Daniel and Matt, but also how I’ve been frequently surprised how willing quite a few, especially senior scholars have been to participate. And I guess we should name it, a little bit of gratitude in that direction as well. I mean, we were able to speak with Eric Foner, during the Black Reconstruction piece, I guess it was two Falls ago. Now, I think my first thought was, he’ll never respond to his email. And he responded in less than five minutes. So maybe that’s just a glimpse of hope that deep within this sort of institutional web, there are a lot of people who given the time and whatever else will support this broader history podcasting project that you were just talking about, Daniel.
Matt Hermane
Yeah, I mean, I’ll echo what Conor said about what a privilege it’s been able to do this. I mean, we can all, you know, open up the AHR and read the articles, but not many of us get to talk to the people, you know, writing the articles all the time. So that’s been a real privilege. It’s been a privilege to be part of a team like this doing it too. And yeah, I mean, it can, I think, you bring up a really good point about just like the willingness of people, historians, especially getting
out from behind their computers and actually talking to us. It’s been really nice. And, you know, you mentioned the Eric Foner, going back to the Black Reconstruction episode we did a couple years ago. Now, I was looking through the New York Times the other day, and Chad Williams, his book was mentioned as like a new paperback to that to buy. So it’s really interesting seeing, you know, the people that we talked to here, you know, out there, being successful, doing things, and being willing to talk to us at the same time.
Daniel Story
Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right to shout out these people. In that same episode, which, by the way, is still one of my favorite episodes that we’ve ever done, on Black Reconstruction. Elizabeth Hinton was the scholar who wrote that kind of retro review of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction. And Elizabeth was excited to talk with me and essentially be the like, the narrator voice of that episode, right? None of our voices, apart from me briefly at the very beginning, just introducing it all, were even in that episode. It’s these historians and scholars and activists that were telling the story. And yeah, for one thing, I’m really over the moon about that episode. I think about it a lot. But also, just in general, I don’t know that we’ve ever been turned down by anybody when we’ve asked if they’d be interested in being interviewed. Sometimes there’s a bit of wrangling over schedules. And that’s to be expected. But yeah, I think the openness and eagerness to engage in this way to talk about their work, it’s been one of the most kind of energizing aspects of doing this work, I think.
Matt Hermane
Yeah, for sure.
Daniel Story
And working with the two of you guys. It’s been tremendous over the last year and a half. Thanks for all the effort that you put in. You’ve gotten to a place of great proficiency and high quality of work. So well done there. You’ll be missed here, but I hope that you may pop up in the future on the podcast to do an interview here or there. You’d be very welcome to return and do that.
Conor Howard
Be a privilege.
Matt Hermane
Yeah, for sure.
Daniel Story
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, guys. And I wish you the best. Yeah,
Matt Hermane
Thanks.
Daniel Story
Anything else we want to say? No? Closing remarks?
Conor Howard
I can’t imagine it anything any better than that.
Daniel Story
Yeah, okay. Let me hit s…
Daniel Story
That was my conversation with Matt Hermane and Conor Howard, wrapping up Season 2 of History in Focus. A big thanks to both of them for their terrific work on the podcast, and I hope you’ll join me in wishing them the very best on their future endeavors. I also want to take this moment to thank Phoebe Rhettberg, who is a student at UC Santa Cruz, who worked with me over the past year here in the University Library Center for Digital Scholarship. Phoebe’s help with later stage edits, as well as looking after all our episode transcripts, has been a vital contribution to the podcast over the last season. And last but certainly not least, a serious shout out to AHA communications director Alex Levy, who looks after our web presence and all the promotion for History in Focus. We could not do this without you, Alex. And so for the final time in season 2, History in Focus is a production of the American Historical Review, in partnership with the American Historical Association, and the University Library at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This episode was produced by me, Daniel Story. You can find more about this and other episodes at americanhistoricalreview.org. So that’s it for season 2. Have a good Summer, and we’ll see you in the Fall.
Show Notes
In this Episode
Conor Howard (Producer, PhD Candidate in History at Indiana University, Bloomington)
Matt Hermane (Producer, PhD Candidate in History at Indiana University, Bloomington)
Daniel Story (Host and Producer, Digital Scholarship Librarian at UC Santa Cruz)
Music
By Blue Dot Sessions
Production
Produced by Daniel Story