This episode, Camden sits down with Dr. Lynne Heasley,
Professor of Environment and Sustainability at WMU to discuss her new book "The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes" (2021). Dr. Heasley's book is available through Michigan State University Press https://msupress.org/9781611864076/the-accidental-reef-and-other-ecological-odysseys-in-the-great-lakes/ or your local independent bookseller.

Lynne Heasley, Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Western Michigan University

Camden and Dr. Benjamin Park discuss Dr. Park's book "Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier." 

From the Publisher: 
In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park draws on newly available sources to re-create the founding and destruction of the Mormon city of Nauvoo. On the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois, the early Mormons built a religious utopia, establishing their own army and writing their own constitution. For those offenses and others—including the introduction of polygamy, which was bitterly opposed by Emma Smith, the iron-willed first wife of Joseph Smith—the surrounding population violently ejected the Mormons, sending them on their flight to Utah. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows how the Mormons of Nauvoo were representative of their era, and in doing so elevates Mormon history into the American mainstream.
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631494864

Dr. Benjamin E. Park Assistant Professor of American Religion at Sam Houston State University

Camden and Phil have a wide-ranging conversation about the Midwest as a place and as an idea, focusing particuarly on Phil's lastest book Midwest Futures available from Belt Publishing (https://beltpublishing.com/products/midwest-futures). From the Publisher:
The Midwest: Is it middle? Or is it Western? As Phil Christman writes in this idiosyncratic, critically acclaimed essay collection, these and other ambiguities might well be the region's defining characteristic. Deftly combining history, criticism, and memoir, Christman breaks his exploration of midwestern identity, past and present, into a suite of thirty-six brief, interconnected essays. Ranging across material questions of religion, race, class, climate, and Midwestern myth making, the result is a sometimes sardonic, often uproarious, and consistently thought-provoking look at a misunderstood place and the people who call it home.

Phil Christman, author of Midwest Futures and Instructor of English at the University of Michigan

Dr. Fernández-Jones discusses her research which appeared in an edited collection titled, Building Sustainable Worlds: Latinx Placemaking in the Midwest. She also discusses her forthcoming book, Making the MexiRican City: Migration, Placemaking, and Activism in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Both projects were published by University of Illinois Press.

Dr. Fernandez-Jones, MexiRican Placemaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Writer Steven Moore discusses his recent collection essays, The Distance from Slaughter County: Lessons from Flyover Country, recently published at the University of North Carolina Press.

Steven Moore - The Distance from Slaughter County

Jon Lauck discussed his most recent book, The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800-1900.

The Good Country with Jon Lauck

Ashley Howard - What to the "Other" is the Midwest?

Dr. Melissa Ford joins us to discuss her new book A Brick and a Bible: Black Women's Activism in the Midwest During the Great Depression, published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Melissa Ford - A Brick and a Bible

John Nelson - Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent

Crystal Marie Moten - Continually Working

Max Fraser discussers migration, labor, and culture in the Midwest by examining the experiences of migrant white workers in the region. The full book, Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class, can be purchased at the Princeton University Press website, https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691191119/hillbilly-highway.

Max Fraser - Hillbilly Highway

Steven Conn discusses his new book, Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is - and Isn't.

Steven Conn - Lies of the Land

Dr. Josiah Rector joins the podcast to talk about his recent book, Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit.

Josiah Rector - Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit

Dr. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg discusses her new book, When a Dream Dies: Agriculture, Iowa, and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s.

When a Dream Dies - Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

Dr. Carolina Ortega leads a discussion on Dr. Sergio Gonzalez's book, Stangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin, published by the University of Illinois Press.

Dr. Sergio Gonzalez - Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin

Casey Huegel discusses his book, Cleaning Up the Bomb Factory:
Grassroots Activism and Nuclear Waste in the Midwest

Dr. Casey Huegel - Cleaning Up The Bomb Factory

Paul Renfro discusses his new book, The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America (UNC Press, 2024). 

Paul Renfro - The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America

A group of scholars discuss the history and future of Midwestern History. 

Reflections on Midwestern History

Stephanie Ternullo discusses her new book, How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics (Princeton University Press, 2024).

Stephanie Ternullo - How the Heartland Went Red

Josh Nygren - The State of Conservation: Rural America and the Conservation-Industrial Complex since 1920

Willa Hammit Brown - Gentlemen of the Woods: Manhood, Myth, and the American Lumberjack

Erik S. McDuffie - The Second Battle for Africa: Garveyism, the US Heartland, and Global Freedom

Tim Mulherin-This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations on a changing Northern Michigan

David Hakensen - Her Place in the Woods: The Life of Helen Hoover


Heartland History is the official podcast of the Midwestern History Association

Hosts: Josh Kluever, Kevin Mason


Hosts Emeritus: Camden Burd, Ramya Swayamprakash, Jon Lauck

David Hakensen - Her Place in the Woods: The Life of Helen Hoover

Thomas M. Nelson, Jerald Podair - Wrecked: The Edmund Fitzgerald and the Sinking of the American Economy

Heartland History is the official podcast of the Midwestern History Association

Hosts: Josh Kluever, Kevin Mason

Thomas M. Nelson, Jerald Podair - Wrecked: The Edmund Fitzgerald and the Sinking of the American Economy

Daniel Clark - Listening to Workers: Oral Histories of Metro Detroit Autoworkers in the 1950s

Heartland History is the official podcast of the Midwestern History Association

Hosts: Josh Kluever, Kevin Mason

Daniel Clark - Listening to Workers: Oral Histories of Metro Detroit Autoworkers in the 1950s

Katie Batza - AIDS in the Heartland How Unlikely Coalitions Created a Blueprint for LGBTQ Politics
René Esparza - From Vice to Nice: Midwestern Politics and the Gentrification of AIDS

Heartland History is the official podcast of the Midwestern History Association

Hosts: Josh Kluever, Kevin Mason

Katie Batza and René Esparza - AIDS in the Midwest Roundtable

Coreen Derifield - We Were Still Ladies: Gender and Industrial Unionism in the Midwest After World War II

Heartland History is the official podcast of the Midwestern History Association

Hosts: Josh Kluever, Kevin Mason

(BONUS) - Derifield - We Were Still Ladies - MHA Book Talk

Andrew Seal, PhD candidate , American Studies at Yale University discusses his research on the American Midwest, Midwestern identity, and essentialism.

Andrew Seal, The American Midwest, and Essentialism

Michael J. Lansing. Augsburg College,Associate Professor, History Department Chair discusses his research on the North American West, political history, environmental history, and gender history. His  current project is The Cradle of Carbohydrates: Minneapolis and the Making of the World’s Food, an environmental and urban history of the city’s central role in the creation and propagation of carbohydrate-rich processed and packaged foods.His books include Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and the co-authored The American West: A Concise History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).

Michael J. Lansing. Augsburg College,Associate Professor, History Department Chair

A scholarly association devoted to Midwestern history

The Midwestern History Association, created in the fall of 2014, is dedicated to rebuilding the field of Midwestern history, which has suffered from decades of neglect and inattention.  The MHA will advocate for greater attention to Midwestern history among professional historians, seek to rebuild the infrastructure necessary for the study of the American Midwest, promote greater academic discourse relating to Midwestern history, support the work of the new journal Middle West Review and other journals which promote the study of the Midwest, and offer prizes to scholars who excel in the study of the Midwest.

Midwestern History Association

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