Episodes

  • How universities created NPR and PBS with Josh Shepperd
    Oct 12 2025

    How public universities gave rise to public media

    References and suggested readings:

    • Josh Shepperd. 2023. Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting. University of Illinois Press.
    • Laura Garbes. 2025. Listeners Like Who: Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry. Princeton University Press.
    • Katherine Jewell. 2023. Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio. University of North Carolina.
    • Josh Shepperd’s BlueSky and faculty page

    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    29 mins
  • The campus bookstore racket with Katya Schwenk
    Oct 8 2025

    Does your campus use B&N Education or Follett?

    References and suggested readings:

    • Katya Schwenk. September 10, 2025. “How Wall Street Broke the College Bookstore.” LeverNews.com.
    • Vincent Bevins. 2020. The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. PublicAffairs.
    • levernews.com

    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    18 mins
  • The 1980s anti-apartheid movement with David Busch
    Oct 5 2025

    On blood money and “the moral costs of an elite education.”

    References and suggested readings:

    • David S. Busch. 2025. Disciplining Democracy: How the Modern American University Transformed Student Activism. Cornell University Press.
    • Ethan Schrum. 2019. The Instrumental University: Education in Service of the National Agenda after World War II. Cornell University Press.
    • Julie A. Reuben. 1996. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality. University of Chicago Press.
    • Eleanor Roosevelt. 1940. The Moral Basis of Democracy.
    • Harris Wofford. 2023. Embers of the World: Conversations with Scott Buchanan. Legare Street Press.
    • David Busch’s website: davidsbusch.com

    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    45 mins
  • Refusing the University with Sandy Grande
    Oct 1 2025

    Can US colleges be decolonized?

    References and suggested readings:

    • Sandy Grande. 2018. “Refusing the University.” Free PDF.
    • Sandy Grande. 2016. Red Pedagogy. Free PDF.
    • ACP episodes on Indigeneity and the university with Sharon Stein and Eve L. Ewing
    • Robin D. G. Kelley. March 1, 2016. “Black Study, Black Struggle.” The Boston Review.
    • “Board of Trustees agreement shows hope for UConn-Indigenous relations,” The Daily Campus, February 3, 2025.

    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    28 mins
  • Creating the AAUP with Henry Reichman
    Sep 28 2025

    Brought to us, in part, by the race scientists

    References mentioned this episode:

    • Henry Reichman. 2025. Understanding Academic Freedom, 2nd edition. Johns Hopkins University Press.
    • J. McKeen Cattell. 1913. University Control.
    • Joy Ann Williamson-Lott. 2018. Jim Crow Campus: Higher Education and the Struggle for a New Southern Social Order. Teachers College Press.
    • Lauren Lassabe Shepherd. 2025. Whose Side are Administrators On? HNN.
    • Russell Banks. 2007. Continental Drift. Ecco.
    • AAUP’s Academe blog
    • Hank Reichman on Bluesky @hankreichman.bsky.social
    • AAUP’s At-Large chapter for anyone!
    • AAUP resources


    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    41 mins
  • The future of university presses with Clara Totten
    Sep 24 2025

    And how to approach an acquisitions editor

    References:

    • Association of University Presses and #AskUp
    • Steven L. Herman. 2024. Behind the White House Curtain. Kent State University Press.
    • Madeleine L'Engle. 1980. A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
    • J. R. R. Tolkien. The Hobit.
    • Robert M. Veatch and Lainie F. Ross. 2016. Defining Death: The Case for Choice. Georgetown University Press.
    • Kent State UP on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky

    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    29 mins
  • Tuskegee and the Afterlives of the Plantation with Jarvis McInnis
    Sep 21 2025

    Tuskegee, Alabama, the center of modernity in the Black Global South

    References and suggested readings:

    • Jarvis McInnis. 2025. Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global Black South. Columbia. Columbia University Press.
    • Zora Neale Hurston. Mules and Men.
    • Zora Neale Herston. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.
    • Jesmyn Ward. 2024. Let Us Descend.
    • Brea Baker. 2024. Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership.
    • Addie E. Citchens. 2025. Dominion. FSG.
    • Jason Allen-Paisant. 2025. The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican Memoir of Plants and Dreams.
    • Follow Jarvis McInnis on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn
    • Jarvis McInnis’s website
    • Email: jarvis.mcinnis@duke.com

    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    50 mins
  • Frank Meyer: the man who invented conservatism with Daniel Flynn
    Sep 17 2025

    From college radical to rightwing organizer, the 3-D life and education of The Man Who Invented Conservatism.

    References and suggested readings:

    • Daniel J. Flynn. 2025. The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. Encounter Books.
    • P. G. Wodehouse books
    • American Spectator, spectator.org

    Support the show

    Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast

    Get updates about the show at patreon.com/americancampuspodcast

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

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    38 mins