The Surfing Historian
Jason Old
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Top 10 The Surfing Historian Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Surfing Historian episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Surfing Historian 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 The Surfing Historian episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Confederate Symbols and Southern Memory with Aaron Lewis
The Surfing Historian
02/04/21 • 45 min
Dr. Aaron Lewis, a historian of the U.S. South, talks about his dissertation on the historical memories of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America and the importance of studying the Confederacy and its role in perpetuating white supremacy throughout U.S. history. He also discusses how/why Confederate symbols are still present in the United States today and the way their meanings have changed throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Dr. Aaron Lewis has a Ph.D. in History from the University of South Florida. To read Dr. Lewis' dissertation, click here: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/8463/
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
1 Listener
Surf Localism in Occupied Surfscapes with Tara Ruttenberg and Pete Brosius
The Surfing Historian
08/05/21 • 44 min
In this episode, Dr. Tara Ruttenberg and Dr. Pete Brosius discuss different types of surf localism in the context of surfscape colonialism in the Global North and Global South, based on our recent work related to critical localisms of resistance in occupied surfscapes. We explore localisms of entitlement and resistance, as well as girl localisms in a range of well-known surfscapes to highlight the ways surfers are using localism as a means of both perpetuating and contesting the colonial, patriarchal and racialized neoliberal state of modern surfing and its surf tourism industrial complex.
Resources:
We’ve been helped in this work by recent revisions of the historiography of surfing – Scott Laderman’s Empire in Waves, Isaiah Walker’s Waves of Resistance, Krista Comer’s Surfer Girls in the New World Order, Kevin Dawson’s Undercurrents of Power, Dexter Zavalza Hough-Snee and Alexander Sotelo Eastman’s The Critical Surf Studies Reader (including Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s chapter on Appropriating Surfing and the Politics of Indigenous Authenticity), and Allison Rose Jefferson’s Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era.
Additional Resources:
Black Girls Surf: https://blackgirlssurf.org
Brown Girl Surf: https://www.browngirlsurf.com
The Wahine Project: https://www.thewahineproject.org
Native Like Water: https://www.nativelikewater.org
LatinX Surf Club: https://www.facebook.com/latinxsurfclub
Color the Water: https://www.colorthewater.org
Surfrider Los Angeles: https://la.surfrider.org
Bios:
Tara Ruttenberg is Ph.D. Candidate in Development Studies at the Wageningen School of Social Sciences, specializing in critical surf studies and alternatives to development in sustainable surf tourism. She is a member of the Institute for Women Surfers, hosts women’s surf retreats in Costa Rica, and writes stories and articles for alternative surf magazines and her personal website, Tarantula Surf. Tara’s current research includes decolonizing sustainable surf tourism, surfeminism as emancipatory politics in surfing culture, and a diverse economies approach to development alternatives in occupied Global South surfscapes.
Pete Brosius is Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia and Founding Director of UGA’s Center for Integrative Conservation Research. He is widely recognized for his work with Penan hunter-gatherers in Sarawak, Malaysia, and for his contributions to the development of Political Ecology. Throughout his career he has been engaged with issues of environmental degradation, indigenous rights and conservation. Brosius has been a surfer since 1969, and for the past ten years he has been the director of UGA’s Surfing & Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica study abroad program. His current research includes projects on the Tolak Reklamasi movement in Bali, Indonesia, and the political ecology of real estate in occupied surfscapes in the Global South.
Together, Pete and Tara run the study abroad program, Surfing and Sustainability: Political Ecology in Costa Rica, the first of its kind, now in its 10th year running. Their recent work critiquing sustainable surf tourism and proposing diverse economic alternatives to tourism development has been published in books including The Critical Surf Studies Reader (Duke University Press 2017) , and The Ecolaboratory: Environmental Governance and Economic Development in Costa Rica (University of Arizona Press 2020). Their forthcoming research on localisms of resistance in occupied surfscapes is currently under review with Geoforum and a new critical surf studies collection edited by Lydia Heberling, David Kamper and Jess Ponting.
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
1 Listener
Canada: A Very Short Introduction with Donald Wright
The Surfing Historian
09/16/21 • 40 min
In this last episode of the season, I chat with Dr. Donald Wright. Don is a Canadian historian at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, a small city in Atlantic Canada. His research interests include Canadian political, intellectual, and cultural history. For this episode, Don and I will be talking about his book Canada: A Very Short Introduction , which is a book he published as part of Oxford University Press's Very Short Introduction series.
His research interests include Canadian political, intellectual, and cultural history. His first book, The Professionalization of History in English Canada, looks at the transition from amateur historians working outside the university in the nineteenth century to professional historians, with advanced degrees, working inside the university. His second book was a biography of Donald Creighton, English Canada’s leading historian. Working with two colleagues, he next published an edited volume called Symbols of Canada which includes essays on, among other symbols, the beaver, hockey, and maple syrup and how these symbols have been used and how they have changed over time. He is now working on a book about the Canadian historian Ramsay Cook, 1931-2016, although like everyone else, he has been slowed by the pandemic.
An award-winning teacher, Don teaches courses in Canadian and American history and in the politics of climate change.
When he isn’t at his desk or in the classroom, Don likes to trail run with his black lab named Bruce and listen to podcasts on history, politics, and climate change.
Bio:
https://www.unb.ca/faculty-staff/directory/arts-fr-political-science/wright-donald.html
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
The Influence of the Military on Hollywood with Michael Losasso
The Surfing Historian
02/18/21 • 33 min
Cold War cultural historian, Michael Losasso, and I talk about the impact the Department of Defense and the military had on Hollywood, specifically as it relates to war-time advances made in media and film technology during WWII and later in the Cold War. We focus primarily on two movies in particular, The Endless Summer and Dr. Strangelove, two monumental films from the 1960s that were significant in their own right. Professor Losasso also talks about his doctoral dissertation that he’s titling, “The Big War on the Small Screen: Television, World War II, and the Cold War.” His research looks at how media production in the United States served to further fuel East/West Cold War anxieties between the US and Soviet Union. Michael Losasso is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of South Florida.
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
There's Still a Wall in Berlin with Arwen Puteri
The Surfing Historian
02/04/21 • 44 min
Dr. Arwen Puteri, a historian of contemporary Europe, examines how West Germans constantly and consistently disrespected and delegitimized East-German culture and accomplishments in politics, the arts, and everyday life. She argues that the work of East Germans and their accomplishments were not evaluated based on their merit but rather on their East-German origin or East-German party affiliation. By recognizing the magnitude of this wide-ranging disrespect that is constantly and consistently manifested, Dr. Puteri provides a counter-narrative of the “Jammerossi” (the whining East German), as East Germans are often berated when complaining about the status quo.
Dr. Arwen Puteri has a Ph.D. in History from the University of South Florida.
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Guerrilla Movements and Counterinsurgencies with Rob Koch
The Surfing Historian
07/22/21 • 45 min
Rob Koch, PhD, is a historian of Latin America and combat veteran whose research focuses on the geopolitics of Argentine Peronism and the notion of forming a 'Third Position' or 'Third Way' to bring about a post-imperial world order. His work also looks at the global proliferation of counterinsurgency during the Cold War, including the international spread of dirty war methods. In this episode, Cold War and Latin American historian, Dr. Rob Koch, talks about guerrilla movements and counterinsurgencies in Latin America, starting with the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
More articles by Dr. Rob Koch
https://usf.academia.edu/RobertDKoch
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
The American Surfer and Capitalism with Kristin Lawler
The Surfing Historian
07/30/23 • 55 min
For this episode, I interview sociologist Dr. Kristin Lawler about her book, The American Surfer: Radical Culture and Capitalism; we also chat about her essay on the Nietzschean connections between early twentieth century surfers and the hobos of the Industrial Workers of the World–an essay that will be published in the forthcoming book, Roll and Flow: The Political Ontology of Surfing and Skateboarding; and finally, I get her thoughts on the current state of critical surf studies as a field of academic inquiry.
Dr. Lawler is a professor of sociology at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City. Her first book, The American Surfer, was published by Routledge in 2011, and her new book, co-edited with Michael Roberts and David Cline, entitled Roll and Flow, is being published by San Diego State University Press and should be available this fall. The American Surfer, however, is featured on surfinghistorian.com.
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @nacerfilez
Production by TwistedLogix and Morrisound Studios
Juan Perón and the Global Cold War with Rob Koch
The Surfing Historian
07/08/21 • 45 min
Rob Koch, Ph.D., is a historian of Latin America and combat veteran whose research focuses on the geopolitics of Argentine Peronism and the notion of forming a 'Third Position' or 'Third Way' to bring about a post-imperial world order. His work also looks at the global proliferation of counterinsurgency during the Cold War, including the international spread of dirty war methods. In this episode, Dr. Rob Koch talks about his research on Juan Perón, Fascism, and the Global Cold War.
More articles by Dr. Rob Koch:
https://usf.academia.edu/RobertDKoch
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
The Dirty Secret of Early Modern Capitalism with Kees Boterbloem
The Surfing Historian
06/10/21 • 50 min
For this episode, I talk with Dr. Kees Boterbloem, a history Professor at the University of South Florida, about his book, The Dirty Secret of Early Modern Capitalism. In it, Kees shows how the Dutch accumulation of great wealth was closely linked to their involvement in warfare. By charting Dutch activity across the globe, the book explores Dutch participation in the international arms trade, and in wars both at home and abroad. In doing so, Kees ponders the issue of how capitalism has often historically thrived best when its practitioners are ruthless and ignore the human cost of their search for riches.
Kees Boterbloem, Ph.D. is a history Professor at the University of South Florida where he teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, Dutch History, and Cultural, Social-Economic, and Military-Political History of European Empires.
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
Malibu Surf History, Gidget, and Pelicans with Michael Blum
The Surfing Historian
04/15/21 • 51 min
In this episode, I interview conservationist Michael Blum about his love for studying pelicans along with his recent article he co-authored with Duke University professor, Mike Orbach, titled, "First Steps and First Point: Protecting California Surf Breaks, Maritime Heritage, and the Malibu Historic District." The paper surveys opportunities to protect surf breaks in California ("Could we do it?" "How would we do it?"), as well as describes subsequent work listing Los Angeles' famed Malibu surfing area on the National Register of Historic Places, the Nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation.
As a sport, surfing is an indelible part of California's character. Yet not the what of surfing, but the where surfing occurs—surf breaks and surfing areas—are authentic sites of culture, history, recreation, leisure, and activity. They are specific places worthy of community recognition, illumination, and protection.
We also talk about, of all things, pelicans dive bombing into the water for food. So come for a short surfing history of Malibu and why it matters, but stay for the pelicans.
Michael Blum is the Director of Sea of Clouds, an organization dedicated to protecting America's important coastal places.
Artwork by Nacer Ahmadi: IG @x.filezzz
Audio by TwistedLogix
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FAQ
How many episodes does The Surfing Historian have?
The Surfing Historian currently has 42 episodes available.
What topics does The Surfing Historian cover?
The podcast is about Culture, Society & Culture, Surfing, American History, Society, History, Cold War, Us History, Podcasts, Philosophy and Sustainability.
What is the most popular episode on The Surfing Historian?
The episode title 'Surf Localism in Occupied Surfscapes with Tara Ruttenberg and Pete Brosius' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on The Surfing Historian?
The average episode length on The Surfing Historian is 51 minutes.
How often are episodes of The Surfing Historian released?
Episodes of The Surfing Historian are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of The Surfing Historian?
The first episode of The Surfing Historian was released on Feb 4, 2021.
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