First, a continuation of the Chicago school of economics history (a nice follow up to last week’s episode on Charles Walgreen and UChicago), then David Austin Walsh explains the reactionary foundations of law and economics as backlash to the field of critical legal studies.

References mentioned this episode:

• David Austin Walsh. 2024. Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right. Yale University Press.
• David Austin Walsh. Summer 2024. Liberals are to Blame for the Rise of JD Vance. Boston Review.
• Neil J. Young. 2024. Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right. University of Chicago Press.
• Edward Nik-Khah. 2011. “George Stigler, The Graduate School of Business, and the Pillars of the Chicago School.” In Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America’s Most Powerful Economics Program. Edited by Robert van Horn, Philip Mirowski, and Thomas A. Stapleford. Cambridge University Press.
• Jennifer Burns. 2023. Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative. Macmillan.
• Lawrence B. Glickman. 2019. Free Enterprise: An American History. Yale University Press.
• Elisabeth M. Landes and Richard A. Posner. 1978. “The Economics of the Baby Shortage.”

Support the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

Follow American Campus Podcast:
on Patreon: www.patreon.com/americancampuspodcast
on Instagram: @americancampuspod

Professors teaching about communism and socialism? Un-American! Here’s some cash to make sure the university is preaching the supreme American virtue: capitalism.

If you caught our joint episode with the In Bed with the Right podcast in May 2025, you heard me give the TLDR version of the story of pharmacy magnate Charles Walgreen and the University of Chicago. But the case deserves a full episode, which journalist Steven Melendez lays out for us here.

References mentioned this episode:

• Steven Melendez. August, 12 2024. Any questions for the pharmacist? Drugstore magnate Charles R. Walgreen’s anti-communist crusade. Chicago Reader.
• Follow Steven Melendez on Bluesky
• Our previous episode discussing Walgreen on the In Bed with the Right podcast

Support the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

Follow American Campus Podcast:
on Patreon: www.patreon.com/americancampuspodcast
on Instagram: @americancampuspod

Freshman hazing, a time honored tradition of (at least) 1,500 years.

References mentioned this episode:

• Hannah Skoda. 2025. Frying Pans, Limpets, Donkeys and Becs-jaunes: Thinking about Violence in Late Medieval Universities. Global Intellectual History.
• Hannah Skoda’s website
• Medieval Murder Maps
• Samantha Harvey. 2018. The Western Wind: A Novel. Penguin Random House.
• BBC’s History Extra Podcast ft. Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter for “History Behind the Headlines” series

Support the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

Get in touch. Want to request a topic or pitch an episode? Email Lauren at shephell@iu.edu

Follow American Campus Podcast:
on Patreon: www.patreon.com/americancampuspodcast
on Instagram: @americancampuspod