American Campus Podcast

Tuition, Gaza encampments, and tenure with Marshall Steinbaum and David Austin Walsh

References and suggested readings: Marshall Steinbaum and David Austin Walsh. 2026. How America’s Public Universities Stopped Being Public. Hedgehog Review. Robert A. Nesbit. 1996. The Degradation of the Academic Dogma. Routledge. Zachary Bleemer and Aashish Mehta. December 2024. College Major Restrictions and Student Stratification. National Bureau of Economic Research. Maya Rosen. October 11, 2026. Degrees of Separation. Jewish Currents. Anna Perez. 2023. Understanding Zionism: History and Perspectives. Fortress Press. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender is the Night. Theodore Dreiser. Jennie Gerhardt. Molly Crabapple. 2026. Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. One World. Mark Weitzman, Robert J Williams, James Wald, eds. 2025. The Routledge History of Antisemitism. Routledge. Marshall Steinbaum on Twitter @econ_Marshall and his website, marshallsteinbaum.org David Austin Walsh’s email daw6a@virginia.edu Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Big budgets behind big college sports with Karen Weaver

References and suggested readings: Karen Weaver. 2026. Understanding College Athletics: What Campus Leaders Need to Know About College Sports. Johns Hopkins University Press. Karen Weaver. 2025. Sport Finance: Where the Money Comes From and Where the Money Goes, 2nd ed. Kendall Hunt. W Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. 2026. The Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Harvard Business Review Press. Trustees and Presidents Managing Intercollegiate Athletics podcast on YouTube Karen Weaver’s website, Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

The Frenchmen with Emily Eakin

A deep-dive into the personal lives of the famed 20th century French theorists (all men) with their newest biographer. References and suggested readings: Emily Eakin. 2026. The Frenchmen: Or, My Life in Theory. Penguin Press. Sarah Bakewell books Ross Douthat. November 2, 2022. How the Right Became the Left and the Left Became the Right. New York Times. James Miller. 2010. The Passion of Michel Foucault. Harvard University Press. John Guillory and Merve Emre. 2023. Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation. University of Chicago Press. Meghan O’Gieblyn. 2026. Will and Attention: A Memoir. Doubleday. Emily Eakin’s website, essays at NYT, Instagram Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

• Transcript

A short history of the connoisseur with Peter Burke

References and suggested readings: Peter Burke. 2026. The Connoisseur: A Cultural History. Reaktion Books. Gore Vidal. 2000. Burr: A Novel. Vintage Books. Peter Burke’s website Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

How a media panic led to the modern research university with Chad Wellmon

On the origins of the German research university and what universities should be today. References and suggested readings: Chad Wellmon. 2016. Organizing Enlightenment: Information Overload and the Invention of the Modern Research University. Johns Hopkins University Press. Chad Wellmon. 2026. After the University: Higher Education and the Future of Intellectual Work. Johns Hopkins University Press. Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon. 2023. Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age. University of Chicago Press. The Other University episode with Chad Wellmon. Ann M. Blair. 2011. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age. Yale University Press. Frank Landymore. February 23, 2026. New AI Agent Logs Directly Into College Platform Canvas to Do Your Homework for You. Futurism. Daniel Mendelsohn, trans. 2026. The Odyssey. University of Chicago Press. Jonathan Lear. 2008. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Harvard University Press. Dennis Duncan. 2023. Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age. W. W. Norton. What Was the Internet? Boston Review. August 2026. Follow Chad on Twitter @cwellmon Chadwellmon.com Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Classical liberals and Know-Nothings on higher learning with James Chandler

References and suggested readings: James Chandler. 2026. The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning. Prickly Paradigm Press. Robert Mackey. April 18, 2026. Trump’s antipathy for Pope may have roots in childhood Protestant church. The Guardian. Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America. Wendy Brown. 2017. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution. Zone Books. Sam Moyn 2024. Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times. Yale University Press. Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations. Tyler G. Anbinder. 1994. Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s. Oxford University Press Laura K. Field. 2025. Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. Princeton University Press. Jennifer Pitts. Kayfabe, Trolling, Satire, and Cynicism. Prickly Paradigm Press blog. Richard Hofstadter. 1966. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Vintage. Thorstein Veblen. 1918. The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men. Open Access PDF. American Campus episodes on Thorstein Veblen and with Laura Field on Furious Minds. Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

The KKK comes to UCLA with Trevor Griffey

References and suggested readings: Trevor Griffey. 2007. “The Strongest Chapter in WA: Bellingham's KKK.” The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project. Allan J. Lichtman. 2008. White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement. Grove Press. Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) Lothrop Stoddard Wiki Perlstein’s mea culpa: Rick Perlstein. April 11, 2017. I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong. New York Times Magazine. On MAGA small business owners and car dealers: Alexander Sammon. May 30, 2023. Want to Stare Into the Republican Soul in 2023? Slate. Higher Ed Labor (in California and Beyond) Substack Follow Trevor on Twitter, BlueSky https://x.com/trevorgriffey/status/2080041013507510403?s=46 Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Country of Lords with Kim Phillips-Fein

An intellectual history of inequality in the US. References and suggested readings: Kim Phillips-Fein. 2026. Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America. W. W. Norton. Kim Phillips-Fein. 2018. Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics. Picador. Kim Phillips-Fein. 2010. Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal. W. W. Norton. Corey Robin. 2018. The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Endmund Burke to Donald Trump, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press. Open access PDF. Richard Herrnstein. 1971. “i.q.” The Atlantic. Pioneer Fund, the dark money trust that won't let race science die American Campus episode with John P. Jackson Jr. Victor S. Navasky. 2003. Naming Names. Hill and Wang. Thomas Mann. 1996. Magic Mountain. Vintage. Anna Veltfort. 2019. Goodbye, My Havanna: The Life and Times of a Gringa in Revolutionary Cuba. Redwood Press. Kim Phillips-Fein’s faculty page kimphillipsfein.com Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Napoleon’s scientific military school comes to the US western border with Sveinn M. Jóhannesson

How Napoleon's École polytechnique inspired A&M universities on the Western US border (ft. some of our favorite topics: American imperialism, science, and social hierarchy) References and suggested readings: Sveinn M. Jóhannesson. 2026. The Scientific-Military State: How Enlightened Engineers Reinvented Early American Government. University of Chicago Press. James McNeill Whistler. 1879. Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (known as Portrait of the Artist’s Mother) painting. Livy’s History of Rome Tacitus The Annals of Imperial Rome Sveinn M. Jóhannesson’s website Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Thorstein Veblen’s The Higher Learning in America with Christian Churchill and Gerald Levy

A century later, what did Veblen get right? References and suggested readings: Christian J. Churchill and Gerald Levy. 2011. The Enigmatic Academy: Class, Bureaucracy, and Religion in American Education. Temple University Press. Thorstein Veblen. 1918. The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men. PDF. Thorstein Veblen. 1899. The Theory of the Leisure Class. PDF. On Google’s former motto, “Don’t be evil.” Know Your Meme: “Wait. Is this f****** play about us?” Arthur J Vidich and Joseph Bensman. 2000. Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community. University of Illinois Press. Hannah Arendt. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Tragedy of the education commons episode with Guy Standing Herbert Blumer. 1986. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. University of California Press. Peter Gould. 2026. Part for the Whole. Whetstone Publishing. John Williams. Stoner. Elizabeth Cotton. 2025. Ubertherapy: The New Business of Mental Health. Bristol University Press. christianjchurchill.com Jerry Levy’s faculty page Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

History of college grading with Joshua R. Eyler

On class rank, Latin honors, the 4.0 grading scale, and other old traditions References and suggested readings: Joshua R. Eyler. 2024. Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students, and What We Can Do About It. Johns Hopkins University Press. Josh Eyler. February 26, 2024. The Origin of Grades in American Schools. Saturday Evening Post. Adam Laats. 2024. Mr. Lancaster’s System: The Failed Reform That Created America's Public Schools. Johns Hopkins University Press. Victor Hugo. Les Miserables. Follow Josh on LinkedIn and Bluesky Josh Eyler’s faculty page, email Josh at jreyler@olemiss.edu Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

See You at the Pole, the Columbine massacre, and Christianity on campus with Amy Laura Hall

Muscular Christianity and its various forms on the campus References and suggested readings: Amy Laura Hall. 2026. Erecting the Pulpit: Muscular Christianity from Teddy Roosevelt to Donald Trump. Bloomsbury. Theodore Roosevelt. 1899. The Strenuous Life speech. From the vault: [Lawrence] Wright talks to Alec Baldwin about Scientology and Tom Cruise. October 10, 2022. Darren Dochuk. 2019. Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America. Basic Books. Bethany Moreton. 2010. To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise. Harvard University Press. Daneil Silliman. 2021. An Evangelical Is Anyone Who Likes Billy Graham: Defining Evangelicalism with Carl Henry and Networks of Trust. Church History, 90(3): 621-643. Darren E. Grem. 2014. Christianity Today: J. Howard Pew, and the Business of Conservative Evangelicalism. Enterprise and Society, 15(2): 337-379. Ahmanson family’s Institute on Religion and Democracy Wiki Adam Laats’s research on K12 schools Geoffrey Canada’s Wiki Waiting for Superman trailer on IMDB Dana Goldstein. September 23, 2010. Grading Waiting for Superman. The Nation. Julie A. Webber. 2002. Failure to Hold: The Politics of School Violence. Rowman & Littlefield. Frank Deford. September 8, 2010. Football Fans Ignore Increasing Violence. NPR. Audre Lorde. 1982. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press. Ayoush Lazikani. 2025. Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing. Yale University Press. Amy Laura Hall’s faculty page, Twitter, Bluesky Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

The Flexner Report and contemporary critiques of medical professionalization with Ira Halpern

References and suggested readings: Ira Halpern. 2026. Imagining Health: Medicine, Social Protest, and Modern American Literature. University of Massachusetts Press. Abraham Flexner. 1910. Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Regina Kunzel. 2024. In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life. University of Chicago Press. Ivan Illich. 2000. Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis - The Expropriation of Health. Marion Boyars Publishers. Ira Halpern’s faculty page Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

LLMs could have been developed differently with Xiaochang Li

On the origins of natural language processing and how corporations like IBM leaned into predictive algorithms. References and suggested readings: Xiaochang Li. 2026. Divination Engines: Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, and the Making of Algorithmic Culture. University of Chicago Press. Anil Seth. July 15, 2026. “Once again we are told AI may be conscious – I study consciousness, and I have my doubts.” The Guardian. Paul Kockelman. 2024. Last Words: Large Language Model and the AI Apocalypse. Prickly Paradigm Press. Lief Weatherby. 2025. Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism. University of Minnesota Press. Carlo Ginzburg. 2026. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller, 50th anniversary edition. Johns Hopkins University Press. Kate Crawford. 2022. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. Yale University Press. Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones. 2024. How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms. W. W. Norton. Christopher Manning and Hinrich Schütze. 2026. Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing. MIT Press. Danial Jurafsky and James Martin. 2026. Speech and Language Processing. Xiaochang Li’s faculty page and @xiaochang@bsky.social Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Tragedy of the education commons with Guy Standing

References and suggested readings: Guy Standing. 2026. Human Capital: The Tragedy of the Education Commons. Penguin Press. “Linda McMahon slaps her daughter Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley: RAW IS WAR, Apr. 17, 2000” Nafeez Ahmed, Peter Jukes, and Hardeep Matharu. July 9, 2026. Palantir Co-Founder Peter Thiel and Reform UK’s Cambridge University Recruitment Pipeline Project Revealed. Byline Times. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. 2011. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change. Bloomsbury. Ralph Wilson and Isaac Kamola. 2021. Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War. Pluto Press. Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff. 2026. Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Harper. Hannah Arendt. The Human Condition. Guy Standing. 2021. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class Special Covid-19 Edition. IB Taurus & Co. Guy Standing. 2023. The Blue Commons: Rescuing the Economy of the Sea. Pelican. Guy Standing’s website Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Revilo Oliver and the academic freedom of white supremacists with Matthew C. Ehrlich

References and suggested readings: Matthew C. Ehrlich. 2021. Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK. University of Illinois Press. Matthew C. Ehrlich. 2024. The Krebiozen Hoax: How a Mysterious Cancer Drug Shook Organized Medicine. University of Illinois Press. Pseudoscience and the ethics of academic medicine episode with Matthew C. Ehrlich Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth. 2022. It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom. Johns Hopkins University Press. Mary Anne Franks. 2024. Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment. Bold Type Books. Beware of FIRE (and institutional neutrality) episode with Mary Anne Franks Jacob Holmes. June 9, 2026. “Auburn board takes control of curricula, dissolves faculty senate.” Alabama Political Reporter. Thomas Milan Konda. 2019. Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America. University of Chicago Press. John Durham Peters. 2020. Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition. University of Chicago Press. Jim Windolf. 2026. Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other—and the World. Scribner. Matthew C. Ehrlich’s faculty page Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Disrupting White Noise: Challenging Beliefs about Race on Campus with Zak Foste and Lauren N. Irwin

References and suggested readings: Zak Foste and Lauren N. Irwin. 2026. Disrupting White Noise: Challenging Beliefs about Race on Campus. Harvard Education Press. CODE FOR 20% OFF: HCPR26 Elijah Anderson. 2023. Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life. University of Chicago Press. Beverly Daniel Tatum. 2025. Peril and Promise: College Leadership in Turbulent Times. Basic Books. Sarah J. Mass. 2023. Throne of Glass. Bloomsbury. Colin Diver. 2022. Breaking Ranks: How the Rankings Industry Rules Higher Education and What to Do about It. Johns Hopkins University Press. Follow Lauren N. Irwin and Zak Foste on LinkedIn Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Creating the Black high school with Alexander D. Hyres

References and suggested readings: Alexander D. Hyres. 2026. Protest and Pedagogy: Charlottesville’s Black Freedom Struggle and the Making of the American High School. University of Georgia Press. Alex Hyres’s faculty page Heather Andrea Williams. 2007. Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom. University of North Carolina Press. James D. Anderson. 1988. Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. University of North Carolina Press. Jarvis R. Givens. 2023. Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching. Harvard University Press. Vanessa Siddle Walker. 1996. Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South. University of North Carolina Press. School Yearbook: A Cringey Tradition and Its Digital Afterlife episode with Kate Eichhorn Scott Anderson. 2025. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation. Doubleday. Instagram @hyres376 Bluesky @hyres376.bsky.social, linktree Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

The Other University with Chad Wellmon

On the student life apparatus. References and suggested readings: Chad Wellmon. 2026. After the University: Higher Education and the Future of Intellectual Work. Johns Hopkins University Press. Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon. 2023. Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age. University of Chicago Press. Chad Wellmon. 2016. Organizing Enlightenment: Information Overload and the Invention of the Modern Research University. Johns Hopkins University Press. Bavarian L. Baldwin. 2021. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books. David S. Busch. 2025. Disciplining Democracy: How the Modern American University Transformed Student Activism. Cornell University Press. Matteo Pasquinelli. 2023. The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence. Verso. Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Phenomenology of Perception. Sean Keilen. 2026. Shakespeare's Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts. Princeton University Press. Chadwellmon.com Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Academic gerontocracy with Samuel Moyn

On age, class, and jobs. References and suggested readings: Samuel Moyn. 2026. Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth—and What to Do About It. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Samuel Moyn. April 23, 2026. Professors Are Too Old: The Academy’s Gerontocracy Problem is Worse than Anyone Admits. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Dino Buzzati, translated by Lawrence Venuti. 2023. The Stronghold. NYRB Classics. Nazmul Sultan. 2024. Waiting for the People: The Idea of Democracy in Indian Anticolonial Thought. Harvard University Press. Samuel Moyn’s faculty page Follow Sam on X, The Everything App, @samuelmoyn Text the show here! Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf