Where big ideas in history meet open conversation. Each episode invites listeners into the Seminar experience, where, every Monday afternoon during term, visiting scholars and graduate students exchange ideas about new lines of historical inquiry shaping the future of the field. We talk about presenters' current research and paper, their broader academic interests and the significance of their research in the current moment. If you have any feedback, suggestions or questions, please contact our producer via email at ds2125@cantab.ac.uk. Thanks for listening!
Cambridge American History Seminar Podcast
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5.0(7 reviews)
80 episodes
Updated Weekly
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38
Podcast Authority
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Podcast Overview
Where big ideas in history meet open conversation. Each episode invites listeners into the Seminar experience, where, every Monday afternoon during term, visiting scholars and graduate students exchange ideas about new lines of historical inquiry shaping the future of the field. We talk about presenters' current research and paper, their broader academic interests and the significance of their research in the current moment. If you have any feedback, suggestions or questions, please contact our producer via email at ds2125@cantab.ac.uk. Thanks for listening!
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
10/8/2018
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Recent Episodes
June 24, 2026
Dr. Elsa Devienne, '"Paper or Plastic?": The Forgotten Movement to Ban Polystyrene in the US and the (Lost) Battle of Perception (1980s to today)'
<p><strong>“What happened? At one point, we were really close to banning polystyrene. What happened?”</strong></p><p>In this episode, we’re joined by Dr Elsa Devienne (Assistant Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Northumbria University), a scholar of the twentieth-century United States with expertise in environmental history, urban history, the history of the body and, more recently, discard studies and the history of waste. </p><p>Dr Devienne spoke to us about her current book project on the War on Plastics. She presented part of this research in the seminar paper: '"Paper or Plastic?" The Forgotten Movement to Ban Polystyrene in the US and the (Lost) Battle of Perception (1980s to today).’</p><p>She argues that modern society has largely forgotten a significant period of activism when citizens successfully pushed for bans on polystyrene due to its links to the solid waste crisis, toxicity, and ozone depletion. </p><p><strong>Devienne identifies ‘plastic denialism’ as a primary reason these early victories failed to last.</strong></p><p>“People would not have given up on this fight if it weren't for the fact that there were loads of competing stories, loads of confusion around polystyrene and whether it was recyclable and in what capacity, and what it was: whether or not it was a better or worse material for certain uses.”</p><p>Her research reminds us that the current fight against plastic pollution is not a new phenomenon but rather a protracted struggle against industry tactics that have been refined over decades to maintain the dominance of fossil-fuel-based products. </p><p> "Those tactics that the plastic industry is deploying now, they've been refining them since the 80s and 90s.”</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Referenced in Discussion: </strong></p><p><strong>[05:00] On Devienne's previous work</strong></p><p>Elsa Devienne, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sand-rush-9780197539750?cc=us&lang=en&" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. </a>(originally published in French, Sorbonne Editions, 2020; Oxford University Press, 2024) </p><p><strong>[23:55] Recommended reading on the intersection of Business and the Environment</strong></p><p>See works by Adam Rome, Professor of Environment and Sustainability (University of Buffalo), including:</p><p>“Beyond Compliance: The Origins of Corporate Interest in Sustainability,” Enterprise & Society (2021; 22(2): 409-437.)</p><p>Berghoff, H. and Adam R., eds. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2t4bkc" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Green Capitalism?: Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) </a></p><p><strong>[31:55] Talking to author John Javna</strong></p><p>John Javna, ‘50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth,’ (EarthWorks Press: Berkeley, California, 1989) </p><p><strong>[34:26] “That article is an example of what I call ‘plastic denialism” (says Devienne). See: </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/13/microplastics-human-body-doubt" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Damian Carrington, “‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body”</a> (Wed 14 Jan 2026)</p><p><br><strong>Co-hosts: </strong></p><p><strong>Shea Hendry</strong> — History PhD Candidate, Hughes Hall </p><p>Shea’s research examines the children of Loyalist refugees who embodied both American citizenship and British subjecthood—concurrently and consecutively—throughout the Early National period. </p><p><strong>Megan Renoir</strong> — History PhD Candidate, Homerton College </p><p>Megan’s research examines the history of U.S. land institutions, nineteenth- and twentieth-century federal Indian policy, and violence against the NCRNT. Her work expands our understanding of the relationships between federalism, Western property institutions, and intractable land conflicts. </p><p><br></p><p><strong>Production by Daisy Semmler </strong>— History PhD Candidate, Jesus College, 2026; US History MPhil, Fitzwilliam College, 2025</p>
May 20, 2026
Dr. Caroline Johnston, 'Rocky Mountain Extractivism in Washington'
<p><strong>This episode explores ‘carbon cowboys,’ the creation of </strong><strong>A Blueprint for Conservative Government</strong><strong> (1980), and an emerging historical concept:</strong><strong> </strong><strong>‘extractive-statism.’</strong></p><p><br /></p><p>Dr Caroline Johnston is a political, environmental, and economic historian of the modern United States, and, since September 2025, the Paul Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in American History at Cambridge University. </p><p>At the seminar, she presented chapter five of her prospective manuscript, which examines the intersection of fossil fuel extraction in the Rocky Mountain West during the 1970s and 1980s and the rise of the modern American Right.</p><p>She explains how fossil fuel executives in this milieu developed a paradoxical ideology: demanding extensive federal subsidies and intervention while simultaneously invoking the imagery of the rugged individualist ‘frontier cowboy’ to denounce government regulation.</p><p><strong>“And their rhetoric is explicitly anti-statist—they never acknowledge that they have historically and contemporarily benefited from enormous subsidies and structural aid from the government.” </strong></p><p>Central to her research is the influence of figures such as Joseph Coors, descendant of the founder of the Coors Brewing Company, who leveraged wealth generated from the regional oil boom and established the influential conservative institution: The Heritage Foundation.</p><p>In 1980, the Heritage Foundation published Mandate for Leadership: A Blueprint for Conservative Government, whose policy recommendations were later adopted in significant part by the Reagan administration.</p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Keep an eye out for Dr Caroline Johnston’s (first) book, tentatively titled </strong><strong>Carbon Cowboys</strong><strong>. We’re excited! </strong></p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Referenced in this discussion:</strong></p><p><strong>[24:21] </strong>Richard White,<strong> </strong><strong>Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America</strong> (W.W. Norton & Company, 2011) </p><p> </p><p><strong>[31:10] </strong>Heather Cox Richardson, <strong>How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America</strong> (Oxford University Press, 2020)</p><p><br /></p><p>Caroline Johnston presented at the seminar and spoke with us in Michaelmas term, on 17 November 2025. </p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Co-hosts</strong> </p><p><strong>Shea Hendry</strong> — History PhD Candidate, Hughes Hall </p><p>Shea’s research examines the children of Loyalist refugees who embodied both American citizenship and British subjecthood—concurrently and consecutively—throughout the Early National period. </p><p><strong>Megan Renoir</strong> — History PhD Candidate, Homerton College </p><p>Megan’s research examines the history of U.S. land institutions, nineteenth- and twentieth-century federal Indian policy, and violence against the NCRNT. Her work expands our understanding of the relationships between federalism, Western property institutions, and intractable land conflicts. </p><p> </p><p>Production by Daisy Semmler, US History MPhil, Fitzwilliam College (2025). </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>
May 13, 2026
Dr. Patrick Griffin, 'The American Revolution and Global Empire'
<p><strong>“Whether we like it or not, the American Revolution is kind of central to the idea of American civic life, and very central to American notions of sense of self. So, that's critical—and it has been that way consistently, really, since the time of the American Revolution itself, until this very day.” </strong></p><p>This episode features a conversation with historian Patrick Griffin, a scholar whose research traverses histories of revolution, empire, migration, adaptation, and colonial violence across early America (17th & 18th centuries) and the wider Atlantic world. </p><p><strong>Presenting in Michaelmas term</strong> (<strong>10 November 2025), </strong>Griffin's seminar paper examined the American Revolution as part of a connected age of political transformation, tracing these tensions through the life and career of Charles Cornwallis. </p><p><strong>"The past is a complex space, and we are drawn to draw things in white and black. But I think my work consistently (maybe frustratingly so) draws us to the grey, to kind of the in-between-space, when imperfect people in the past are trying to do what they can to manage unstable contexts". </strong></p><p>At the University of Notre Dame, Patrick Griffin is the Madden-Hennebry Professor of History and Director of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies. He is also a Bye-Fellow at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. </p><p>See recently published book by Patrick Griffin: '<strong>The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World' </strong><strong>(Yale University Press, 2023). </strong></p><p><br /></p><p>Thank you to our guest, and thank you for listening!</p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Co-hosts </strong></p><p><strong>Shea Hendry — History PhD Candidate, Hughes Hall </strong></p><p>Shea’s research examines the children of Loyalist refugees who embodied both American citizenship and British subjecthood—concurrently and consecutively—throughout the Early National period. </p><p><strong>Megan Renoir — History PhD Candidate, Homerton College </strong></p><p>Megan’s research examines the history of U.S. land institutions, nineteenth- and twentieth-century federal Indian policy, and violence against the NCRNT. Her work expands our understanding of the relationships between federalism, Western property institutions, and intractable land conflicts. </p><p><strong>Production by Daisy Semmler, US History MPhil, Fitzwilliam College (2025). </strong></p>
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