You Hear Dead People

01/10/23 • 38 min

You Are A Weirdo (with Historian Doug Sofer, Ph.D.)

Shuffle enough random songs and you're certain to hear singers who are no longer among the living. Before 1877, hearing voices of the dead would have been a supremely blood curdling experience. Yet we weirdos of today routinely listen to the sounds of the departed; we usually don’t even think about it. The invention of the phonograph fundamentally changed that aspect of the human condition, and altered how human-made sounds could travel through both space and time. Understanding how people reacted to this technology when it first arrived can reveal something important about who we’ve become.

Learn more about this rogue, underdog, Hail Mary pass of a project at findyourselfinhistory.com !

Support the show

Thanks for listening! To learn more about this history project, check out findyourselfinhistory.com.

Learn more about this rogue, underdog, Hail Mary pass of a project at findyourselfinhistory.com !

Support the show

Thanks for listening! To learn more about this history project, check out findyourselfinhistory.com.

Previous Episode

You Don't Get The Joke (Probably)

You might think you have a totally normal sense of humor, but then you hear a joke from the past and it sounds like it came from some other dimension. That's when you realize once again that your normal can be another person's weird.
Join your new favorite podcaster-historian host on this journey through space and time, and open your mind to myriad manners of mirth-making. Along the way, you'll meet some fancy-pants anthropologists, a hungry international traveler, a possibly crazy dude from Kansas, some talking animals, a U.S. Senator, and a gassy Sumerian, among many others.
You'll also find out far more about lusty sea creatures than you'd ever thought possible from a history podcast.

Learn more about this rogue, underdog, Hail Mary pass of a project at findyourselfinhistory.com !

Support the show

Thanks for listening! To learn more about this history project, check out findyourselfinhistory.com.

Next Episode

Your Tea Comes with Baggage

How did tea become British when tea plants usually grow in far-away places like India or China? This history of this leafy beverage travels thousands of miles over thousands of years. It’s a story of human brutality and suffering on a global scale, but also of innovation and increasing connection among the peoples of earth. We even explore the origins of Southern sweet tea. At the end, you'll discover why that seemingly innocent teabag comes with strings attached.

Learn more about this rogue, underdog, Hail Mary pass of a project at findyourselfinhistory.com !

Support the show

Thanks for listening! To learn more about this history project, check out findyourselfinhistory.com.