Podcasts
Interviews and conversations with authors and fellow scholars, placing water at the center of their narratives.
You can listen to our stories below or on Spotify.
Petra van Dam on Coping with Drought
In this episode, Amelie Homp (research assistant at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies) speaks with Petra van Dam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) about her research project (2020–2025), Coping with Drought: An Environmental History of Drinking Water and Climate Adaptation in the Netherlands. They discuss floods, drought, and drinking-water management from a historical perspective, including unequal coping mechanisms and what past struggles can teach present-day adaptation. Van Dam also considers lessons from neighboring countries and offers both a critique of current policy and practical steps individuals can take.
Marcus Rediker on History From Below
In this episode, Andrew Fehribach (Roosevelt Institute for American Studies), together with Gaetano Di Tommaso and Dario Fazzi, speaks with Marcus Rediker (Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh) about his seminal work in the blue humanities, including The Slave Ship, Outlaws of the Atlantic, and Freedom Ship. Looking ahead, Rediker reflects on the creative work of source-finding in blue humanities research and the need for continual invention in tracing lives and experiences that the archive often obscures. He emphasizes, above all, that this field is only just getting started.
Margaret Cook on Flooding
In this episode, Andrew Fehribach (researcher with the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies) speaks with Margaret Cook (an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Queensland and La Trobe University in Australia) about her research on the history of fluvial flooding in Brisbane, Australia. Here, Cook describes the need for the blue humanities to further include indigenous studies, explore gendered relationships to flooding and water, trace the impact of multiculturalism in perceptions of the environment, and give space to the non-human.
Fredrik Blanc on the Blue Weird
In this episode, Andrew Fehribach (researcher with the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies) speaks with Fredrik Blanc (PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University) about his research on hybridity and monstrosity in Gothic literature. The focus of the interview is on the gap in knowledge related to elemental connections, in this case water, with the gothic in the hopes of creating a “blue weird” to continue research in this field.
Anna Barcz on the Historiography of Rivers
In this episode, Michał Kępski (PhD candidate at Adam Mickiewicz University) speaks with Anna Barcz (Associate Professor at T. Manteuffel’s Institute of History) about her research into the historiography of rivers. They discuss a key gap in the literature on the interdisciplinary study of rivers, both as physical entities and as cultural symbols, and examine the meaning of rivers.
Elizabeth Mendenhall on Marine Governance
In this episode, RIAS intern Sofia Manetti (UCR) chats about marine governance with Elizabeth Mendenhall (University of Rhode Island) and Dario Fazzi (Roosevelt Institute for American Studies / Leiden University). They discuss the main narratives surrounding the Law of the Sea. The episode also explores the social implications of the legal and geopolitical dimensions of the seas and oceans.
Rani-Henrik Andersson on the Lakhota
In this episode, Professor Rani-Henrik Andersson and students from Leiden University explore the multifaceted relationship between the Lakhota people and water. They discuss how indigenous perspectives on water and nature could contribute to Western academic views on environmentalism by tracing their origins to colonial times and to the use of water in North America.
Mark Squillace on Water Rights for Indigenous Peoples
In this episode, Professor Mark Squillace from the University of Colorado joins students from Leiden University for a conversation about water rights in the United States. Their discussion focuses on the rights of indigenous peoples to their native water resources, tracing how these rights have developed over time and how contemporary climate change is creating new challenges for water management.
Sarah Moore on the Panama Canal
In this episode, students from Leiden University speak with Professor Sarah Moore from the University of Arizona. They discuss the complex role of water, focusing on the Panama Canal. The episode touches on both the imperialist aspects of the Panama Canal’s construction and the environmental impacts it has had on the local community.
An Interview with Helen Rozwadowski
In this episode Roosevelt Institute intern Alex Nagel chats with Helen Rozwadowski (University of Connecticut), and Dario Fazzi (Roosevelt Institute for American Studies and University of Leiden), about her thirty-year career working on ocean history. The discussion covers a wide variety of subjects, from oceanography in the Nineteenth century to how we, in the present, bring ocean history to public attention. The interview includes discussion of the books Fathoming the Ocean and Vast Expanses, as well as assorted pieces of ocean history from her extensive publishing career.
Paul Rosier on the Kinzua Dam
In this podcast, students from the course “The US in the Anthropocene” (Leiden University, 2022) have a chat with Paul Rosier (Villanova University) on the relevance of the Kinzua Dam. Located in Pennsylvania, the dam is one of the largest in the US and takes its water from the Allegheny River. While crucial for flood control and power generation, the dam has jeopardized the lives of thousands of people, especially the Seneca Nation.
Kyle Kajihiro on Kahoolawe Island
In this podcast, students of the course “The US and the Anthropocene” (Leiden University, 2022) interview Kyle Kajihiro (University of Hawai’i) and talk about the toxic legacies of the US Navy’s operations in Kahoolawe, an island in Hawai’i. The US Navy has used Kahoolawe for decades as a testing ground, making it uninhabitable. But the contamination goes beyond the mere military operation and reshuffles identities, relations, geographies and maritime environments alike.
Mark Durno and Greg Masher on the Environmental Train Disaster in Ohio
In this episode, students from Leiden University discuss the environmental disasters that struck East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3rd, 2023. A train loaded with toxic chemicals derailed, wrecked and ignited a fire. This resulted in the release and burning of these chemicals, killing thousands of fish in nearby streams and igniting concerns within the community about their health, air pollution and water pollution.
Arizona State University (ASU) also offers a similar series called Blue Humanities, hosted by Jonathan Bate.
