• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • About Current
    • Masthead
  • Podcasts
  • Support

intellectual history

The Author’s Corner with Jesse Olsavsky

Rachel Petroziello   |  August 29, 2022

Jesse Olsavsky is Assistant Professor of History at Duke Kunshan University. This interview is based on his new book, The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861 (LSU Press, 2022). JF: What led you to...

The Author’s Corner with Claire Arcenas

Rachel Petroziello   |  August 1, 2022

Claire Arcenas is Associate Professor of History at the University of Montana. This interview is based on her new book, America’s Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life (University of Chicago Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write America’s...

The Author’s Corner with Kyle Mays

Rachel Petroziello   |  June 13, 2022

Kyle Mays is Assistant Professor of African American Studies, American Indian Studies, and History at the University of California, Los Angeles. This interview is based on his new book, City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and the Creation of...

The African American Intellectual History Society announces the finalists for its 2022 Pauli Murray Book Prize

John Fea   |  March 9, 2022

The finalists are: Tamika Nunley, At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. (University of North Carolina Press) Jarvis Givens, Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching (Harvard University Press)  Karen Cook Bell, Running From Bondage:...

Syndicate Symposium: “Sins and Virtues in American Public Life”

John Fea   |  September 15, 2020

Over at “Syndicate,” Dartmouth religion professor Jeremy Sabella has put together a symposium on the Seven Deadly Sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride), the Four Cardinal Virtues (prudence, courage, temperance, and justice), and the theological virtues of...

The state of Black intellectual history

John Fea   |  September 3, 2020

The Chronicle of Higher Education talks with Vanderbilt University historian Brandon Byrd about his recent article “The Rise of African American Intellectual History.” Here is a taste of the interview: An old-guard intellectual historian like Perry Miller depended almost exclusively […]

Sean Wilentz on Richard Hoftstadter

John Fea   |  July 28, 2020

In the Sean Wilentz interview I posted about yesterday, the Princeton historian told Bill Kristol that mid-20th-century historian Richard Hofstadter may have been one of the few Americans who understood the populism, paranoia, and anti-intellectualism that we see today on...

The Author’s Corner with Ryan McIlhenny

Annie Thorn   |  April 2, 2020

Ryan C. McIlhenny is an independent scholar living and working in Shanghai, China. This interview is based on his new book, To Preach Deliverance to the Captives: Freedom and Slavery in the Protestant Mind of George Bourne, 1780–1845 (LSU Press, 2020)....

The Author’s Corner with Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Annie Thorn   |  February 25, 2019

Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen is the Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This interview is based on her new book, The Ideas That Made America: A Brief History (Oxford University Press, 2019). JF: What led you to write The Ideas...

Intellectualism and Anti-Intellectualism in the Age of Trump

John Fea   |  January 29, 2019

Here is a taste of Adam Water‘s and E.J. Dionne‘s recent piece at Dissent: “Is Anti-Intellectualism Ever Good for Democracy?” Intellectuals are not entitled to special privileges, and “intellectualism” should not be seen as a superior way of life. But the...

The Author’s Corner with Adriaan Neele

Annie Thorn   |  January 24, 2019

Adriaan Neele is the Director of the Doctoral Program and Professor of Historical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. This interview is based on his new book, Before Jonathan Edwards: Sources of New England Theology (Oxford University Press, 2019). JF: What inspired...

The Author’s Corner with Daniel Rodgers

John Fea   |  December 13, 2018

Daniel Rodgers is Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. This interview is based on his new book As a City on a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon (Princeton University Press, 2018). JF: What led you to...

The Civil Rights Movement as an Intellectual Movement

John Fea   |  December 12, 2018

We usually think of the civil rights movement in political, moral, and even religious terms, but we seldom think about it in terms of what historian Joshua Clark Davis calls a “movement for intellectual change.”  Here is a taste of...

Was America Born Capitalist?

John Fea   |  November 27, 2018

We are working hard to get Princeton University historian Daniel Rodgers on the podcast.  He is the author of  As a City Upon a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon.  (He will be featured on the Author’s...

When and Why Did Catholics Embrace Religious Freedom?

John Fea   |  October 16, 2018

Here is a taste of Dartmouth historian Udi Greenberg‘s piece at the blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas: It can therefore be surprising to remember how recent religious liberty’s popularity is. Few institutions reflect this better than the...

American Lonesome

John Fea   |  October 16, 2018

I just learned about Gavin Cologne-Brookes new study of Bruce Springsteen’s music, American Lonesome: The Work of Bruce Springsteen.  LSU Press will publish it in November. Here is a description from the LSU Press website: American Lonesome: The Work of Bruce...

Are Catholics the “Brains” of the Christian Right?

John Fea   |  October 10, 2018

Check out Gene Zubovich’s piece at Aeon titled “Evangelicals bring the votes, Catholics bring the brains.”  I think he is largely correct. When evangelicals mobilised politically in the 1970s and declared a ‘culture war’ against the menace of secularism, they...

The Author’s Corner with Cameron Strang

John Fea   |  August 13, 2018

Cameron B. Strang is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada-Reno.  This interview is based on his recently released book Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500-1850 (Omohundro Institute/University of North Carolina Press,...

The Author’s Corner with Jonathan Clark

John Fea   |  May 31, 2018

Jonathan Clark is Hall Distinguished Professor of British History at the University of Kansas. This interview is based on his new book, Thomas Paine: Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2018). JF: What led...

Kevin Hayes’s *George Washington: A Life in Books* Wins the 2018 George Washington Book Prize

John Fea   |  April 30, 2018

Congrats to Kevin Hayes.   Click here for our Author’s Corner interview with Hayes. Here is the Mount Vernon press release: MOUNT VERNON, VA – Author and historian Kevin J. Hayes has won the coveted George Washington Prize, including an award of...

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Patron Access

Way of Improvement blog banner

Episode 51: “The Politics of Tinky Winky”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

He was Florida’s professor of the year in 2006. Today his courses would be illegal.

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

Zakaria: The nation’s policy on classified documents and “secrecy” is “out-of-control”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

Teaching John Henry Newman’s “What is a University”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

What is popular this week at Current?

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

More Blog Posts

Subscribe via Email



Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Footer

Contact Forms

General Inquiries
Pitch Us

Search

Subscribe via Email



Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Subscribe via Email


Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide