Episode 102: Gautham Rao Completes Each Vacation with an Archive Trip cover art

Episode 102: Gautham Rao Completes Each Vacation with an Archive Trip

Episode 102: Gautham Rao Completes Each Vacation with an Archive Trip

Listen for free

View show details
In this episode, Kate Carpenter is joined by a scholar who can never pass up a good archive, Dr. Gautham Rao. Gautham is a historian of American law and politics and is an associate professor of history at American University in Washington. He's the author of two books: National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State, and his new book, White Power: Policing American Slavery. White Power is a history of the laws that enslavers used to police enslaved people from 1619 until the Civil War, and how the violent legacies of those laws and practices have reverberated throughout American history and life. In addition to his books and journal articles, Gautham has also written op-eds, contributions to Supreme Court cases, and a Substack newsletter called "The State of the State." I was especially interested to hear how Gautham grappled with organizing and using the evidence he collected from many locations over more than two decades. You'll also learn how he writes and rewrites to make himself clear, and how an offhanded remark from a well-known colleague set him on a new publishing path. If you love the show and want to support it, but maybe don't have any spare cash to become a Patreon supporter, leave a review in your favorite podcast app. Sign up for the Drafting the Past newsletter for updates on the show and more. Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links. If you purchase books through these links, the show gets a small percentage of the price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you for supporting the podcast and our guest authors! Mentioned in this episode: White Power: Policing American SlaveryNational Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American StateGautham's SubstackreMarkable tabletIbram X. KendiKate Masur, Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to ReconstructionJessica Pishko, The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens DemocracyOmohundro Institute book series in early American historySamantha Seeley, Race, Removal and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United StatesSarah Gronningsater, The Rising Generation: Gradual Abolition, Black Legal Culture, and the Making of National FreedomEmily Conroy-Krutz, Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign RelationsRebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany (check out my interview with Rebecca in Episode 60: Rebecca Brenner Graham Gives Us the Publicity Behind-the-Scenes)Dani Segelbaum, Gautham's agentMargot Canaday, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America and Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern AmericaMae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America and The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes, Chinese Migration, and Global PoliticsGiorgio Agamben, State of ExceptionWalter Benjamin, Illuminations, which includes his essay "Theses on the Philosophy of HistorySally Hadden, Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the CarolinasMichael Willrich, American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet