What’s the difference? The episode opens with defenses of presentism by two literary critics and a reception history of “The Gilded Age” [6:30] before turning to a critique of resistance history from within the discipline [12:30], a response from a prominent historian [44:30], a consideration of the standpoint of resistance history [67:30], and why aren’t there more literary critics on MSNBC? [75:30]
Cast (in order of appearance):
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)
Asheesh Kapur Siddique is Assistant Professor of History at University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the author of The Archive of Empire (Yale UP, 2024)
Walter Johnson is Winthrop Professor of History and Professor of African & African American Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of, among other things, The Broken Heart of America (Basic, 2020), River of Dark Dreams (Harvard UP, 2013) and “On Agency” (2003).
Astra Taylor is a writer, filmmaker, and activist, co-founder of the Debt Collective, and author, most recently, of The Age of Insecurity (AK Press, 2023), a collection of her 2023 Massey Lectures.
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.
Soundtrack:
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,” “Dead To Me,” and “Steam Whistle.”
Bibliography:
Davarian Baldwin, In The Shadow of The Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type, 2021)
Elisabeth Egan, “Heather Cox Richardson Wants You To Study History” New York Times (October 12, 2023)
Herbert Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery & Freedom, 1750-1925 (1977)
William Hogeland, “Is The Age of The Resistance Historian Coming To An End?” Slate (July 11, 2024)
Lynn Hunt, “Against Presentism” Perspectives on History (May 2002)
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)
Walter Johnson, “On Agency” Journal of Social History (Autumn 2023)
Walter Johnson, “Agency: A Ghost Story” in Slavery’s Ghost (Johns Hopkins UP, 2011)
Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery & Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Harvard UP, 2013)
Walter Johnson, The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis & The Violent History of the United States (Basic Books, 2020)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024)
Anna Kornbluh, “Present Tense Futures of The Past” Victorian Studies (Autumn 2016)
Anna Kornbluh, Realizing Capital: Financial & Psychic Economies in Victorian Form (Fordham UP, 2014)
Alexander Manshel, Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction & The Reshaping of The American Canon (Columbia UP, 2023)
George Herbert Mead, “The Nature of The Past” (1929)
Paul Renfro & Matthew Stanley, “The Habit America’s Historians Can’t Give Up” Slate (January 9, 2023)
Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American [Substack]
Heather Cox Richardson, Democracy Awakening: Notes On The State of America (Penguin, 2023)
Heather Cox Richardson, How The South Won The Civil War (Oxford UP, 2020)
Heather Cox Richardson & Christine Amanpour, “We Have Never Been Here As A Country” Amanpour (CNN, July 3 2024)
Heather Cox Richardson & Joanne Freeman, Now & Then [Podcast]
Asheesh Kapur Siddique, The Archive of Empire: Knowledge, Conquest, & The Making of The Early Modern British World (Yale UP, 2024)
Asheesh Kapur Siddique, Annie McClanahan, & Matt Seybold, “A Hedge Fund With A Drone Fleet: EdWork in 2022” The American Vandal Podcast (January 31, 2022)
Asheesh Kapur Siddique, “Does Humanities Research Still Matter?” Inside Higher Ed (August 15, 2023)
Timothy Snyder, Thinking About… [Substack]
James H. Sweet, “Is History History?: Identity Politics & Teleologies of the Present” Perspectives on History (September 2022)
Astra Taylor, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart (AK Press, 2023)
Astra Taylor, “The Age of Insecurity: 2023 CBC Massey Lectures” (CBC, 2023)
Astra Taylor, What Is Democracy? (Zeitgeist Films, 2018)
Astra Taylor, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone (Verso, 2019)
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) [2006 Modern Library Edition]
Mark Twain, The American Claimant (Webster & Co., 1892)
Nathan Wolff, Not Quite Hope & Other Political Emotions In The Gilded Age (Oxford UP, 2019)
Strategic Presentism & Resistance History