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“A Tale Of Today” returns after an brief hiatus with an episode inspired by The Teaching Archive. Its authors discuss the pedagogical innovations of HBCUs and strategies for teaching literary history, followed by the legacy of New Historicism in the classroom [14:00], the model of the Monks of Lindisfarne [24:00], the historical rivalry between professors and journalists [36:30], the archives of HBCU student newspapers [43:00], and a reporter who spent decades on the education beat [64:00].
Cast (in order of appearance):
Laura Heffernan is Professor of English at University of North Florida and co-author of The Teaching Archive (U. Chicago, 2021)
Rachel Sagner Buurma is Associate Professor of English at University of North Florida and co-author of The Teaching Archive (U. Chicago, 2021)
Jeffrey Insko is Professor of English & American Studies at Oakland University and the author of History, Abolition, & The Ever-Present Now in Antebellum American Writing (Oxford UP, 2019)
Anna Kornbluh is Professor of English at University of Illinois, Chicago and the author of Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024)
Eleanor Courtemanche is Associate Professor of English at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the author of “Beyond Urgency” (2019)
Tressie McMillan Cottom is an Associate Professor of Information & Library Science at University of North Carolina, as well as Senior Faculty Researcher at the Center For Information, Technology, & Public Life. She is the author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in The New Economy (New Press, 2017) and a New York Times opinion columnist.
Jelani Favors is Henry E. Frye Distinguished Professor of History at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and Director of the Center of Excellence for Social Justice. He is the author of Shelter In A Time of Storm (UNC Press, 2020). He is also on the advisory commitee for the HBCU Digital Library Trust.
Samuel G. Freedman is Professor at the Columbia Journalism School and the author of Into The Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey & The Fight For Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023).
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast.
All music for this season of The American Vandal Podcast comes from the Tennessee-based roots ensemble DownRiver Collective. Most of the tracks come from their most recent EP, Off The Shelf. You can purchase it direct from the band here. It’s also available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Tracks featured in this episode include “Daylight Breaks,” “Kettleridge,” “As It Was,” “Walls,” & “Dead To Me.”
Excerpts from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s The Gilded Age come from the audiobook edition produced by SNR Audio and narrated by Nathan Osgood. Available at Audible, as well as other audiobook retailers. SNR has an extensive catalog of professionally-narrated adaptations of 19th-century Anglophone fiction, including The Complete Mark Twain Collection.
Nathan Osgood is an actor and voice artist who has being appearing in films, scripted television, video games, podcasts, and audiobooks since the mid-’90s. In 2018, he played Mark Twain in the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly vehicle, Holmes and Watson.
Excerpts in this episode come from chapter 43.
Episode Bibliography:
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Francke Verlag, 1946)
Davarian Baldwin, In The Shadow of The Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type, 2021)
Dominique Baker et al, “(Pay)Walled Gardens: Status & Racialized Discourse Among Authors of Student Loan News Articles” AnnenbergEdExchange EdWorkingPapers (September 2023)
Dominique Baker et al, “Race Below The Fold: Race-Evasiveness in The New Media’s Coverage of Student Loans” AnnenbergeEdExchange EdWorkingPapers (May 2023)
Dominique Baker et al, “Expanding The Student Persistence Puzzle to Minority Serving Institutions: The Residential Historically Black College & University Context” Journal of College Student Retention (February 2021)
Dominique Baker, “A Case Study of Undergraduate Debt, Repayment Plans, & Postbaccalaureate Decision-Making Among Black Students at HBCUs” Journal of Student Financial Aid (June 2019)
Jerome Hamilton Buckley, The Victorian Temper: A Study In Literary Culture (Harvard UP, 1951)
Rachel Sagner Buurma & Laura Heffernan, The Teaching Archive: A New History For Literary Study (U. Chicago, 2021)
Andrew Conte, Death of The Daily News: How Citizen Gatekeepers Can Save Local Journalism (U. Pittsburgh, 2022)
Tressie McMillan Cottom, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges In The New Economy (New Press, 2017)
Eleanor Courtemanche, “Beyond Urgency: Shadow Presentisms, Hinge Points, & Victorian Historicisms” Criticism (Fall 2019)
W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Field & Function of the American Negro College” (1933)
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906-1960 (1973) [2001 Monthly Review Edition]
Jelani Favors, Shelter In A Time Of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership & Activism (UNC Press, 2020)
Jelani Favors, “The Second Curriculum” The Point (August 15, 2021)
Samuel G. Freedman, Into The Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey & The Fight For Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023)
Samuel G. Freedman, Breaking The Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed The Sport & Changed The Course of Civil Rights (Simon & Schuster, 2014)
Samuel G. Freedman, “High School Project On Genocide Was A Portent of Real-Life Events” New York Times (April 23, 2008)
Samuel G. Freedman, Small Victories: The Real World of A Teacher, Her Students, & Their High School (HarperPerennial, 1991)
Samuel G. Freeman, “Republicans Are Banning Books About Historical Truths Their Own Leaders Have Apologized For” Los Angeles Times (June 27, 2022)
Bryant Morey French, Mark Twain & The Gilded Age: The Book That Named An Era (Southern Methodist UP, 1965)
John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (U. Chicago, 1993) [Enlarged Edition, 2023]
Jeffrey Insko, History, Abolition, & The Ever-Present Now in Antebellum American Writing (Oxford UP, 2019)
Jeffrey Insko, “Prospects For The Present” American Literary History (Winter 2014)
Jeffrey Insko, “Historicism” in Time & Literature (Cambridge UP, 2018)
Jeffrey Insko, “The Prehistory of Posthistoricism” in The Limits of Literary Historicism (U Tennessee P, 2012)
Amanda Jones, That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America (Bloombury, 2024)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024)
Anna Kornbluh, “Present Tense Futures of The Past” Victorian Studies (Autumn 2016)
Sam Quinones, Dream Land: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic (Bloomsbury, 2015)
Nick Reding, Methland: The Death & Life of An American Small Town (Bloombury, 2009)
Walter Scott, “Harold The Dauntless” (1817)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Education Gospel, Enshittify.edu, & The Expansion of Lower Ed” The American Vandal Podcast (November 25, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Philanthrocapitalism U” The American Vandal Podcast (November 12, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Black University Concept & The Second Curriculum” The American Vandal Podcast (October 31, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Ponzi Austerity in The Age of Cultural Abundance” The American Vandal Podcast (August 21, 2023)
Matt Seybold et al, “Ed Tech, AI, & The Unbundling of Research & Teaching” The American Vandal Podcast (November 2, 2023)
Ted Underwood, Why Literary Periods Mattered: Historical Contrast & The Prestige of English Studies (Stanford UP, 2013)
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) [2006 Modern Library Edition]
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