The History-Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work

Episodes

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  Updates for Season 7! 16.09.2026 1m

  We are excited to announce a new season format for The History-Politics Podcast! Going forward, we'll have shorter seasons that focus on a specific issue or topic. This will allow us to dive deeper into the historical context of policy discussions that are happening today. We'll be back in mid-October with new episodes for Season 7, which will focus on public history, museums, and policy.
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  Why History Matters: Immigration 02.09.2026 1h 24m

  In this special episode, we share a recording of a UCLA event titled Why History Matters: Immigration, sponsored by the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Department of History as well as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Moderated by Dean of the UCLA Division of Social Sciences, Abel Valenzuela, this event features a discussion between UCLA professors Kelly Lytle- Hernández, Ahilan Arulanantham, and Rubén Hernández-León. Our experts consider the fraught and often racist history of ...
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  Sorcery and the Legacies of Colonialism in the Dominican Republic 19.08.2026 52m

  Assistant Director of the LCHP Rose Campbell welcomes UCLA historian Robin Lauren Derby to discuss her new book Bêtes Noires: Sorcery as History in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands. Robin explores how beliefs surrounding the bacá, spirits that appear as animals, preserve cultural memories of colonialism, slavery, authoritarianism, and capitalist exploitation in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Drawing on archival research, ethnographic studies, and oral interviews, Robin explains how storie...
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  Trump, Populism, and the End of the Neoliberal Order 05.08.2026 48m

  Guest host and former LCHP Postdoctoral Associate Ben Zdencanovic welcomes Cambridge historian Gary Gerstle to discuss whether Trump and MAGAism represent the end of the neoliberal order. Gary traces American political systems starting with the transition from the New Deal order, which emphasized government regulation of capitalism in the public interest, to the neoliberal order that prioritized deregulation, free markets, and globalization under Ronald Reagan and later gained bipartisan supp...
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  Equality, Law, and the Trans Community 22.07.2026 45m

  In this episode, host Rose Campbell is joined by Cary Franklin to discuss nationwide efforts to erode the rights of transgender people. While the recent Supreme Court decisions allowing states to ban transgender girls from participating in sports at publicly funded schools have garnered attention, this is only the latest attack by the Trump administration. Beyond barring transgender people from receiving medical care or serving in the military, the Trump administration has sought to giv...
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  The 2026 Primaries and California’s Future 08.07.2026 53m

  The Los Angeles primary elections, held June 2, 2026, were the source of great debate and not a few surprises. In this episode, David Myers, in his farewell episode as founding host of The History-Policy Podcast, interviews longtime LA public official and frequent LCHP collaborator Zev Yaroslavsky to discuss what the primary elections tell us about California’s political climate and what the future might hold. The discussion begins with Zev’s observation that inflation, cost of living, ...
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  The Future of History: Have We Reached the End of History Again? 24.06.2026 1h 31m

  This special episode of LCHP’s History-Politics Podcast features a recording of an event titled “The Future of History: Have We Reached the End of History Again?” This event was the first in a multi-part series by the Luskin Public History Program in conjunction with the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy at the Wende Museum. LCHP Director David Myers moderates a conversation between Miloš Jovanović (UCLA Assistant Professor of History), Natasha Piano (UCLA Assistant Professor of Polit...
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  Orbán, Trump, and the Autocrat's Playbook 10.06.2026 53m

  In April 2026, the world was shocked by when Péter Magyar handily defeated long-time Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán. In this episode, LCHP Assistant Director Rose Campbell speaks with legal scholar Kim Lane Scheppele about this unexpected upset after sixteen years of Orbán's autocratic regime, and what it reveals about the rise and fall of modern authoritarian regimes. Drawing on decades of research in Hungary and Eastern Europe, Scheppele explains how leaders such as Orbán, Vladimir Putin, an...
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  Religion, Suffrage, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 27.05.2026 53m

  Host David Myers welcomes historian Ellen DuBois to discuss her recently published book about the life, legacy, and contradictions of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Ellen emphasizes Stanton’s central role in launching the women’s suffrage movement alongside Susan B. Anthony and her enduring relevance to modern debates over women’s rights, religion, and democracy. Ellen explores Stanton’s partnerships with Anthony and Frederick Douglass, her disappointment during Reconstruction when women were exclud...
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  Antisemitism and the Law in Trump 2.0: A Perspective from UPenn 13.05.2026 52m

  In this week’s episode, host David Myers leads a discussion with Amanda Shanor, Sigal Ben-Porath, and Serena Mayeri about the legal and historical implications of the Trump administration’s request for lists of Jewish students, faculty, and organizations at the University of Pennsylvania. The conversation situates the subpoena within broader federal investigations into alleged campus anti-Semitism following October 7, 2023, while arguing that the demand for names, personal contact information...
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  Borders in Times of Instability 29.04.2026 1h 14m

  In this special episode of The History-Politics Podcast, we share a recording of LCHP’s recent event, “Borders in Times of Instability: A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation with Luwei Ying and Hiroshi Motomura.” This conversation is a continuation of our previous episode where political scientist Luwei Ying drew upon her work as an LCHP grantee to discuss her co-authored paper "Historical Border Insecurity and the Rise of Populism." In this event, David Myers welcomes legal scholar Hiroshi Motom...
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  Historical Border Instability and Democratic Backlash 15.04.2026 29m

  In this episode of the History-Politics Podcast, host David Myers speaks with UCLA political scientist Luwei Ying about her research linking historical border instability to the contemporary rise of populist politics. Drawing on her work as a Luskin Center for History and Policy grantee and the report she co-authored with David B. Carter and Sadaf Vafa, Luwei explains that regions which experienced repeated shifts in sovereignty, such as areas between France and Germany or territories histori...
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  Immigration Enforcement and Latine/x Families 01.04.2026 28m

  In this episode, host Rose Campbell speaks with UCLA social welfare scholar Dr. Tatiana Londoño about the psychological and social toll of immigration enforcement on Latine/x immigrant communities in the United States. Drawing on both her personal experience as a Colombian immigrant and her years of research, Londoño explains how immigration policies, from the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform Act to post-9/11 security measures and more recent ICE expansions, have created a climate of chronic f...
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  Native Agency, NAGPRA, and Museums 18.03.2026 39m

  In this episode, Rose Campbell, Assistant Director of the Luskin Center for History and Policy, welcomes guests Stephen Aron and Joe Horse Capture of the Autry Museum of the American West to discuss the historical power imbalance between Native American tribes and museums. Historically, museums collected Native objects, and even human remains, through coercive or unethical means, reflecting a colonial mindset that prioritized research and display over Indigenous rights. Recent updates to Nati...
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  The Law and Politics of the Federal Assault on Higher Education: The Pasts and Futures of Higher Education 04.03.2026 43m

  Host David Myers welcomes legal scholar Joseph Fishkin to discuss the present and future of higher education amid growing federal pressure on universities. Fishkin’s work spans constitutional law, inequality, and equal opportunity. Fishkin explains that law and politics are inseparable: while law operates as a specialized language with its own norms, it is always shaped by political context. Recent trends at the Supreme Court of the United States suggest courts may uphold controversial outcom...
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  Higher Education in Peril: The Pasts and Futures of Higher Education 18.02.2026 1h 9m

  As part of our series devoted to the pasts and futures of higher education in the United States, this conversation, hosted by LCHP Director David Myers, features Princeton sociologist Kim Lane Scheppele alongside legal scholars Ariela Gross from UCLA and Nomi Stolzenberg from USC to discuss an escalating war on universities by the Trump administration. Scheppele frames the assault as a distinctly modern autocratic strategy: not bullets, but budgets that target elite institutions to seek ideol...
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  Why Does US-Iran Hostility Persist? 04.02.2026 51m

  In this episode of The History-Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work, host David Myers speaks with Dalia Dassa Kaye on why U.S.–Iran relations constitute the longest-running hostility in American foreign policy. Dalia argues that while Iranian actions and the regime’s post-1979 anti-American ideology are central to the conflict, U.S. policy narratives have also played a decisive role. Repeatedly framing Iran as a permanent rogue state has narrowed the American policy imagination, raised ...
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  The Living Legacy of the Grateful Dead 21.01.2026 44m

  In this episode, host David Myers interviews Jim Newton, renowned political journalist and UCLA lecturer, on his recent book on musician Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, the iconic American band. Newton reflects on his personal and professional pathway to writing about the Dead. He traces his first serious recognition of “Deadhead culture” to the 1982 US Festival, where the band’s community stood out sharply against the broader music landscape. The conversation emphasizes the Dead’s ...
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  The Future of History Part 2: Special Episode 26.11.2025 1h 11m

  In the second part of then & now’s special presentation of the panels from the “Future of History” conference, David Myers, host of then & now, moderates a conversation on the precarious state of history, democracy, and cultural institutions in the United States. The panelists include Lonnie G. Bunch III, the 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Athena N. Jackson, UCLA’s Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian; and Robin D.G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and holder ...
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  The Future of History Part 1: Special Episode 19.11.2025 1h 13m

  This episode of then & now features a panel from the “Future of History” conference moderated by UCLA Professor Brenda Stevenson, an award-winning historian of race, gender, slavery, and community. She introduces three UCLA historians whose work spans the U.S. and the globe: Professor Kelly Lytle Hernández, a MacArthur Fellow and leading scholar of race, immigration, and mass incarceration; Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Distinguished Professor and global historian of the early modern wor...