Conversations in World History

Seven Myths of the Spanish Inquisition with Gretchen Starr-LeBeau

Dr. Gretchen Starr-LeBeau recently wrote the book Seven Myths of the Spanish Inquisition, which is the focus of our conversation. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and now is the chair of the Religious Studies Program at Principia College. She is a professor who cares about teaching, earning the Chancellor’s Outstanding Teaching Award at the University of Kentucky in 2001 as well as the Horace Edwin Harper Jr. and Evelyn Wright Harper Award for Teaching Excellence at Principia College in 2020. Gretchen's first book, In the Shadow of the Virgin (Princeton University Press, 2003), was a finalist for the 2004 National Jewish Book Award in history.
 
Here are three books recommended by Gretchen:
Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics
Village Infernos and Witches' Advocates by Lu Ann Homza
A Drizzle of Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews
 
We also mentioned this book in the conversation:
The Friar and the Maya: Diego de Landa and the Account of the Things of the Yucatan
 

French Revolution with David Troyansky

I speak with Professor David Troyansky of Brooklyn College, a specialist in the French Revolution and the history of aging. Professor Troyansky has been teaching and writing at the university level for almost 40 years. 

Jewish Resisters in the Holocaust with Wolf Gruner

Wolf Gruner is a professor of history at USC-Dornsife, chair of Jewish Studies, and author of the recently published book Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany. We discuss his book as well as the state of Holocaust Studies. 
 
Wolf recommends two other books on the Holocaust for a general reader:
David Engel's The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews
Marion Kaplan's Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany

African Art and Benin Bronzes with Sarah Clunis

Sarah Clunis is the Curator of African Collections at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Dr. Clunis has taught art history for over twenty years at public universities and historically Black colleges and universities. Her research and classes have focused on the history of African art and the display of African objects in Western museum settings. 
 
Host: David Sherrin
Learn about him at davidsherrin.com or @david_writer.sherrin on Instagram

Mexica Society with J. Schwaller and M. Restall

John Schwaller is a scholar of early colonial Latin America, and of Nahuatl and the Nahua (the Aztec language and people) Dr. Schwaller is the author of five books and the editor of three others. Matthew Restall is a Colonial Latin American Historian with areas of specialization in Yucatan and Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, Maya history, the Spanish Conquest, and Africans in Spanish America. He has published thirty books and eighty articles/essays.

Toltecs with J. Schwaller and M. Restall

John Schwaller is a scholar of early colonial Latin America, and of Nahuatl and the Nahua (the Aztec language and people) Dr. Schwaller is the author of five books and the editor of three others. Matthew Restall is a Colonial Latin American Historian with areas of specialization in Yucatan and Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, Maya history, the Spanish Conquest, and Africans in Spanish America. He has published thirty books and eighty articles/essays.

Teotihuacan with J. Schwaller and M. Restall

John Schwaller is a scholar of early colonial Latin America, and of Nahuatl and the Nahua (the Aztec language and people) Dr. Schwaller is the author of five books and the editor of three others. Matthew Restall is a Colonial Latin American Historian with areas of specialization in Yucatan and Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, Maya history, the Spanish Conquest, and Africans in Spanish America. He has published thirty books and eighty articles/essays.

Indigenous Mesoamerica Series Intro

Teaching Jewish History with Lisa Cohen

Lisa Cohen holds a PhD in history from Yale University and recently retired from over 20 years of teaching at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in NYC. I began my career there where she was my department chair. We discuss the teaching of Jewish history and how to integrate Jewish history into a larger world (and American) history so that students learn about more than just the Holocaust.

Historical Art with David Sherrin

On this episode, I am a guest on Dr. Johanna David-Tramantano's educational podcast Literacy Landscapes. We discuss my views on the use of art as an authentic form of producing history and making arguments about the past. Here's a chance to get a better sense of what my classroom looks like.