90 Second Narratives

Sky Michael Johnston

1 Creator

90 Second Narratives is a podcast featuring engaging true stories told by trained historians. Each episode includes a short story interwoven with expert analysis of the story’s historical significance. The concise length and storytelling format of the episodes make history accessible, dynamic, and entertaining. The subjects of the stories are diverse—spanning the globe and ranging from the pre-historic to the modern age. While individual stories stand alone, the episodes in each season are linked thematically and combine to offer comparative perspectives that illuminate connections from across the human experience. Every episode also includes recommendations for further reading. 90 Second Narratives provides a novel way to hear historians share the wonders of the past in their own voices.

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Top 10 90 Second Narratives Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best 90 Second Narratives episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to 90 Second Narratives for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite 90 Second Narratives episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Making Cow Brains Your Oyster

90 Second Narratives

03/30/20 • 2 min

“About one hundred and fifty years ago, ‘looking the part’ of being middle class in German lands, involved eating organs...”
So begins today’s story from Dr. Claudia Kreklau.
For further reading:
Beyond Bratwurst: A History of Food in Germany by Ursula Heinzelmann (Reaktion Books, 2014)

“‘‘Organic’ Tools for Social Standing: Oehm’s and Allestein’s Recipes for Brain, Lung, and Udders, 1850-60s” by Claudia Kreklau (H-Net.org)

4 Listeners

1 Comment

Martin Luther Goes Undercover

90 Second Narratives

04/13/20 • 2 min

“You know Martin Luther, as the German monk who challenged the teaching of the Roman Church and sparked the Protestant Reformation. In late 1521, however, Luther was hiding for his life...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Sky Michael Johnston.

For further reading:
Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer by Scott H. Hendrix (Yale University Press, 2015)
Reformation Europe, 2nd ed. by Ulinka Rublack (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

4 Listeners

2 Comments

The Answered Prayer of Wang Mingdao

90 Second Narratives

05/25/20 • 3 min

“If you have heard of the Chinese Christian preacher Wang Mingdao...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Amy O’Keefe.

For further reading:
Amy O’Keefe, “Walking the Enlightened Path: Wang Mingdao’s Road to Independent Christianity under Japanese Occupation,” in 1943: China at the Crossroads (East Asia Program, Cornell University, 2015).

3 Listeners

Two Doctors, Two Paths in Cold War Brazil

90 Second Narratives

05/11/20 • 2 min

“How does a story about two doctors reveal the social, political, and ethical divisions that typified Brazil during the Cold War?”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Eyal Weinberg.

For further reading:
Eyal Weinberg, “‘With colleagues like that, who needs enemies?’: Doctors and Repression under Military and Post-Authoritarian Brazil,” The Americas 76 (2019): 467-505.

3 Listeners

1 Comment

Atlantis: Plato, Myth, and History

90 Second Narratives

06/22/20 • 3 min

“I’d like to talk about the lost city of Atlantis. Well, it is not lost. It is simply missing...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin.

For further reading:
Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies and Other Human Histories by Benjamin B. Olshin (Brill, 2019)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

A Puritan Tells Ghost Stories

90 Second Narratives

04/27/20 • 3 min

“Do you believe in the immortality of your soul? If not, the colonial New England Puritan minister Cotton Mather would like to tell you some ghost stories...”

So begins today’s story from Ryan Hoselton.

For further reading:
The Threefold Paradise of Cotton Mather: An Edition of “Triparadisus” edited by Reiner Smolinski (University of Georgia Press, 1995)
The Life and Times of Cotton Mather by Kenneth Silverman (Harper & Row, 1984)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

A Season of Stories 6: Books

90 Second Narratives

04/26/21 • 18 min

This special episode combines all of the stories from Season 6...

“African American Periodicals and Print History” – Dr. Brenna Wynn Greer, Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College

“Marketing Books with Peasant Models” – Dr. Sky Michael Johnston, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz

“A Late Medieval ‘How To’ Book” – Dr. Melissa Reynolds, Perkins-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University

“Paper and Books in Early Modern Europe” – Dr. Daniel Bellingradt, Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Book at Erlangen-Nuremberg University

“Creating the Images in Early Modern Printed Books” – Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen, PhD candidate in the Department of History and Art History at Utrecht University

“Books, Translations, and Audiences” – Dr. Samuel B. Keeley, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz

“Religion and the Business of Books” – Dr. Scott McLaren, Faculty Member in the Graduate Programs in Humanities and History and Associate Librarian in the Scott Library at York University
Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

2 Listeners

A Catholic in Confucian Robes

90 Second Narratives

05/04/20 • 2 min

“What in the world was a Jesuit priest doing in Beijing’s Forbidden City dressed like a Confucian?”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Sky Michael Johnston.

For further reading:
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence (Viking, 1984)
A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610 by Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Oxford University Press 2010)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

Ida Pfeiffer: Pioneer of Leisure Travel

90 Second Narratives

01/25/21 • 3 min

“Ida Pfeiffer was an icon of leisure travel, before leisure travel was even a thing...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Sky Michael Johnston.

For further reading:

A Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North by Ida Pfeiffer.

Wanderlust: The Amazing Ida Pfeiffer, the First Female Tourist by John van Wyhe (NUS Press, 2019).

Episode transcript:
https://skymichaeljohnston.com/90secnarratives/

2 Listeners

Race and Violence in Early Modern Spain

90 Second Narratives

05/18/20 • 2 min

“On Holy Thursday in the year 1604 in the city of Seville, Spain, a bloody fight broke out between two confraternities on the Plaza of San Salvador...”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Erin Kathleen Rowe.

For further reading:
Black Saints in Early Modern Global Catholicism by Erin Kathleen Rowe (Cambridge University Press, 2019)

2 Listeners

1 Comment

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