American Campus Podcast
a social and political history of US higher ed
- Update frequency
- every 5 days
- Average duration
- 29 minutes
- Episodes
- 61
- Years Active
- 2024 - 2025
“Intellectual diversity” with Brad Vivian
Bradford Vivian unpacks calls for "intellectual diversity" and free speech, explaining how these seemingly fair-minded demands work to undermine actual diversity in the classroom and on campus.
- Bradfo…
Ed tech and student surveillance with Lindsay Weinberg
Alexa in the dorm room. ProctorU monitoring exams. TurnItIn helping* faculty grade. Tech services are omnipresent on and off campus, and they come with a cost. Lindsay Weinberg offers a critical anal…
The "Floating University" and American empire with Tamson Pietsch
In 1926, an NYU professor took to the high seas with 500 undergraduates on a worldwide learning voyage. The experimental "Floating University" docked for excursions at nearly 50 ports, where students…
Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU with Robert Mann
Huey Long, Louisiana's notorious Depression-era governor and rumored presidential challenger to FDR, doesn't get enough recognition for his role in the expansion of LSU's campus throughout the 1930s.…
The 2010s, safe spaces, and trigger warnings with Kendall Gerdes
Kendell Gerdes unpacks popular depictions of "sensitive" students throughout the 2010s. She tackles safe spaces, trigger warnings, #BlackOnCampus, and other student calls for accessibility over the l…
Students for Fair Admissions (2023) with Mike Collins
This is Part II of an earlier discussion with Mike Collins about Supreme Court affirmative action cases affecting higher education, including Lau (1974), Bakke (1978), Fisher (2016), and Students for…
UC Regents v Bakke (1978) with Mike Collins
This is Part I of a two-part interview with Mike Collins about Supreme Court affirmative action cases affecting higher education, including Bakke (1978), Fisher (2016), and Students for Fair Admissio…
The Carter administration's threats to deport Iranian students with Will Teague
The ICE disappearance of Columbia student protestor Mahmoud Khalil in March 2025 followed in the wake of Trump's promise to deport campus activists. But 50 years ago, the Carter administration set th…
Legally Blonde, Drumline, Van Wilder, and other college movies of the aughts with Myles Ethan Lascity
Abercrombie and Fitch is back, millennials and gen x-ers! Ethan Lascity takes us for a walk down memory lane in a discussion ofLegally Blonde, Drumline, Van Wilder, and other college movies of the au…
The time we tried free college for all? Andrew Stone Higgins on the California Master Plan
In 1960, California experimented with tuition-free college for all public campuses in the state. As Andrew Higgins explains in Higher Education for All (UNC Press, 2023), the California Master Plan a…
The cancel culture panic with Adrian Daub
Adrian Daub explains the recent history of the cancel culture moral panic.
- Adrian Daub. 2024. The Cancel Culture Panic: How an American Obsession Went Global. Stanford University Press.
- Jennifer Burns…
Why colleges have trustees with Asheesh Siddique
Asheesh Siddique discusses the colonial creation of college trustee boards and explains how trustees govern our institutions today.
- Asheesh Siddique. 2024. The Archive of Empire: Knowledge, Conquest, …
A history of Black women in the ivory tower with Jasmine L. Harris
Jasmine Harris discusses the historic experiences of Black women students and faculty at predominantly white colleges.
- Jasmine L. Harris. 2024. Black Women, Ivory Tower: Revealing the Lies of White Su…
McCarthyism and the universities with Ellen Schrecker
On the post-World War II Red Scare and its consequences for American higher education.
- Ellen Schrecker. 1986. No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities. Oxford University Press.
- Ellen Schrecker.…
Pseudoscience and the ethics of academic medicine with Matthew C. Ehrlich
The story of krebiozen, a fraudulent cancer cure, and the frenzy it wrought through the University of Illinois in the 1950s.
- Matthew C. Ehrlich. 2024. The Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug …
College women and the 19th Amendment with Kelly Marino
Kelly L. Marino discusses college women's role in the suffrage movement. Listen to hear more about her new book, Votes for College Women: Alumni, Students, and the Woman Suffrage Campaign (New York U…
A history of college radio with Kate Jewell
Katherine Rye Jewell "hits" the high notes of the history of college radio. Listen to her discuss her new book, Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio (University of North Carolina Pre…
Abolish college football? with Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva
Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek Silva discuss their book, The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game (University of North Carolina Press, 2024).
- Nathan Kalman-Lamb and Derek S…
Segregation scholarships with Crystal Sanders
Crystal Sanders discusses her book, A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs (University of North Carolina Press, 2024).
- Crystal R. Sanders…
Colonial foundations of US colleges with Sharon Stein
Sharon Stein discusses her book, Unsettling the University: Confronting the Colonial Foundations of US Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022).
- Sharon Stein's Academia page
- Sharon Stei…