History Talk from Origins

In a recent, much publicized lecture — “It Takes a Historian to Understand the Middle East…Doesn’t It?” — Jane Hathaway of Ohio State's History Department offered a challenge to pundits and policymakers who seem unable to offer sound strategies for the Mideast.

Money and politics. While some think these two should be like oil and water, the simple fact is they’re not. And in the wake of the 2012Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, Americans have worried over whether money really should equal free speech.

Violence against women has a long history in human communities. Yet, we live in a time when people across the planet are beginning to give greater attention to this problem and, at times, to stand against misogynistic violence in all its forms. Recently, the United Nations created the "He for She" campaign, which highlights that violence against women remains a global problem that exists at "alarmingly high levels."

April 24, 2015 marks the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Beginning in 1915 in the midst of the strains of World War I, Ottoman officials oversaw the deportation and massacre of anywhere between several hundred thousand and 1.5 million Armenian people. The result was the physical annihilation of the Armenian communities that had lived in the Anatolian peninsula for more than 2500 years. But labeling it as a “genocide” has proven controversial and unacceptable for the Turkish Republic.

NATO “officially” ended its combat operations in Afghanistan in late December 2014, but the country remains fractured by ethnic and geographical fissures, with local warlords controlling their own fiefdoms and the government in Kabul only nominally in control.

How we understand policing in the United States depends not only on what issues we focus on but also how far back we look. In this episode of History Talk, hosts Leticia Wiggins and Patrick Potyondy sit down with the historians Marcus Nevius, Lilia Fernández, and Clay Howard to take a longer and broader view of the matter.

This month History Talk hosts Patrick Potyondy and Leticia Wiggins explore the political climate of a nation that's remained on distant diplomatic terms with the United States though it's only 90 miles away from the U.S.'s southernmost point. But U.S. - Cuba relations could be in for a dramatic change since President Obama's mid-December announcement.

Join hosts Patrick Potyondy and Leticia Wiggins and their guests, historians David Brakke, Tina Sessa, and Daniel Watkins as they discuss Pope Francis—the “people’s pope”—and how his actions fit into the Church's traditions and its commitment to social justice.

Join hosts Leticia Wiggins and Patrick Potyondy in a conversation with historians—and award-winning teachers—Kevin Boyle, Stephanie Shaw, and Hassan Kwame Jeffries about the importance and difficulties of teaching race and civil rights in the classroom.

Twenty-five years ago this autumn, the world watched in amazement as events in Eastern Europe transformed the planet. Socialist states that had looked a permanent fixture on the map of Europe disintegrated, often with little resistance. And the Berlin Wall—that most iconic symbol of the Cold War—came tumbling down in November. The sense of possibility and astonishment were palpable: the world could change in the blink of an eye if only we tried.