00:00:00.140Welcome to Bitchy History, a podcast where an underpaid American history professor decides to teach history her own way, and probably piss off the GOP while she's at it.1.00
00:00:14.420Welcome to Bitchy History. There was another suggestion for a title for this show that I rejected only because I have the vague, vague hope that it won't age well.0.72
00:00:24.420and that initial suggestion was the woke history professor ron desantis warned you about which
00:00:30.240should give you an idea of what you're getting yourself into if you subscribe to this show
00:00:34.380now on to who i am and why you should care about anything i have to say about history
00:00:39.360first i am an actual history professor no i will not tell you where i teach but it is a four-year
00:00:45.020university i teach depending upon the semester intro to american history women's history and
00:00:50.500even a few other classes with titles like community history, which won't mean much to
00:00:55.040you unless you're in the public history field. I have a bachelor's in history, a master's in
00:01:00.020global and colonial history from a top research university in Europe, and I am in the midst of
00:01:04.760the existential crisis known as applying for PhD programs. It is not fun, and I am doing this
00:01:10.680podcast solely as a way to get away from the stress of that, to be honest. I got my MA in
00:01:16.160December of 2020 after about 11 months of work. And if that seems fast, it is. But it was also
00:01:22.100the middle of the pandemic. So I literally had nothing to do but sit in my apartment and work
00:01:26.500on my thesis and get diagnosed with ADHD. But that's another story entirely. I began teaching
00:01:32.760in the spring of 2022, which for those of you paying attention was just a really great time
00:01:38.180to begin being an American history professor in the United States. I am supremely lucky that I
00:01:43.220have a really amazing head of my history department if he is listening to this you do not need to fire
00:01:48.440me for being woke please um and I also have a fairly hands-off administration that hasn't
00:01:53.060really attempted to curtail my teaching style um and the specter of anti-wokeness legislation
00:01:59.220has not really reached me yet despite my state's current hazy purplish color in politics I do
00:02:06.160figure it's only a matter of time though hence the applying for PhD programs uh in Europe because
00:02:12.080I'm moving back there, hopefully. But regardless of how this crusade against CRT is impacting my
00:02:19.080ability to educate my own students, I know that it is going to end up having lasting repercussions
00:02:23.800for a country that hasn't made historical education a real priority. And well, to be honest,
00:02:29.800I'm not sure that America has ever made quality historical education a priority. So my goal with
00:02:35.420this show is to provide the education that you should have gotten in your high school and college
00:02:39.700history courses, giving you a true look at the history of America with a global perspective
00:02:44.820from the discovery of our continent by Europeans during the age of exploration all the way to the
00:02:50.040modern day. To that end, there are going to be three types of episodes on this show. There will
00:02:55.080be standard lectures which cover historical events like the early colonies of America,
00:02:59.560the creation of labor unions, the Red Scare, and many, many things in between. Because my other
00:03:05.440educational focus is women's history. There will also be episodes more focused on women's history
00:03:09.860in relation to America as well. I teach my university courses thematically, which means
00:03:14.880that not all episodes will be chronologically in order of events because I prefer to group
00:03:19.340important content by themes. And unlike my class, I don't have a syllabus for what themes we will
00:03:25.520cover and what order they'll be covered in because I'm going to jump around a bit as my mood and as
00:03:30.860current events requires. So don't be confused if we're talking about the American Revolution one
00:03:35.080week, and then suddenly jump to discussing something like the eugenics movement the next.
00:03:39.620Blame Fox News or my TikTok comments for that because I'm kind of just going with the vibe
00:03:44.060here. The second will be in-depth episodes on particular people and events that are important
00:03:49.780to American history, especially those that have been wildly mistaught or where Hollywood has kind
00:03:55.260of provided a terrible education. Some of the first in-depth episodes that are planned for the
00:04:00.340show include things like Christopher Columbus, Pocahontas, the first Thanksgiving, just things
00:04:05.300that I think have been wildly misconstrued and taught poorly over the years. And the third type
00:04:11.160of episode will be discussions on how we got here in American society. That's where we're going to
00:04:16.160discuss modern issues like the undervaluing of education and the overturn of Roe v. Wade and put
00:04:21.200those into a historical context to try to understand why we've reached this point in America
00:04:25.440and why America is the way that it is today. This show will be primarily focused on American
00:04:32.480history, but the further we get into that history, the more globalized history is going to get.
00:04:37.340Even as early as the French Revolution, globalized events are vastly impacting American economics and
00:04:42.880political policy. So by the 20th century, I'm going to have to go much further afield in order
00:04:47.440to give you the necessary context for events in America. I look forward to a highly oversimplified
00:04:53.520history of the Russian Revolution when we reached the first Red Scare portion of American history,0.57
00:04:57.580for instance. This series is a labor of love at the moment. I am not paid for it. Much like teaching,
00:05:04.000you know I'm not being paid enough there. I don't even have health insurance at my job.
00:05:07.780Eventually, this show may roll out a Patreon to support the show, maybe even merch. We'll see how
00:05:13.920funny I am and whether or not there'll be some slogans that could go well on a t-shirt,
00:05:18.620but we'll see how that goes on down the road. For now, it is just going to be a labor of love
00:05:23.180where i teach you guys history because that's what i love doing this show is going to continue
00:05:28.700to grow and evolve over time uh maybe eventually we will even branch out into something like
00:05:33.560european history or other areas of history as well outside of america but that is going to be
00:05:38.360a ways down the road because trust me i have enough content from my american history courses
00:05:43.720right now to probably keep this show going for two years at minimum without ever uh getting into
00:05:50.160things like medieval history or anything like that, which aren't my specialties anyway. So
00:05:54.620we'll see how that goes. And I would also love to hear from my listeners and get ideas on what
00:06:00.220areas of history you'd like to learn more about or answer your questions. To that end, I have also
00:06:05.520created a discord server for this show. It's called Vichy History, the podcast, and it's where
00:06:11.540episodes can be discussed, questions can be asked, suggestions can be made for the topics of future
00:06:16.440episodes, anything like that. And you can also find me on TikTok, where I tend to talk about
00:06:21.200history, Star Trek, and my love of all things Taylor Swift. And you can find links to Discord,
00:06:26.640links to the TikTok, Instagram, my tip jar, hint, hint, and many other areas of interest in my link
00:06:32.720tree, which should be posted in the description for this podcast. And lastly, why have I decided
00:06:38.740to make this show? Well, this may seem really self-serving for me to say, but I feel the history
00:06:44.540is one of the most important subjects that we can be educated in. Without a firm understanding
00:06:49.120of the reality of where we came from, we can't understand the present or plan for the future.
00:06:53.960As I tell my students every semester, if you don't know the past, history becomes a weapon
00:06:57.900for those in power. From the halls of Washington, D.C. to Silicon Valley, they can use history
00:07:03.060and manipulate and distort it vastly. And lastly, why have I decided to make this show? Because,
00:07:12.280You know, I'm not being paid for it. This may seem really self-serving for me to say,
00:07:17.040but I feel the history is one of the most important subjects that we can be educated in.
00:07:21.520Without a firm understanding of the reality of where we came from, we can't understand the
00:07:26.060present or plan for the future. And as I tell my students every semester, if you don't know the
00:07:30.400past, history becomes a weapon for those in power. Anyone from the halls of Washington, D.C.
00:07:35.700to Silicon Valley can use history to manipulate and distort issues in the present, which can have
00:07:41.040long-term effects on the world we live in and the freedoms that we have. In 1905, philosopher George
00:07:46.020Santayana said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and that is very1.00
00:07:50.240true. When we don't know history or the history that we do know is so aggressively whitewashed1.00
00:07:54.640and candy-coated to make it palatable for those who don't wish to feel uncomfortable, it makes the
00:07:59.960history completely useless. As it turns out, a spoonful of sugar does make the medicine go down,
00:08:05.040but it also makes the medicine absolutely useless. When all you know about American history is we
00:08:10.740hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal without any mention of sally
00:08:15.700hemmings and her children born into slavery by jefferson and four score and seven years ago our
00:08:21.240fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
00:08:26.200proposition that all men are created equal without the acknowledgement that lincoln also said i am
00:08:31.580not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of
00:08:36.220the white and black races, we cannot have an honest discussion about the deeply embedded
00:08:40.520racial inequalities that still exist in this country and how we can create change for those
00:08:44.960inequalities and all the other inequalities that are rooted in our history. History should make
00:08:50.220you uncomfortable, and this show probably will. It will make you angry, too. It should make you
00:08:55.140uncomfortable, especially as you were forced to unpack the fact that what you thought you knew
00:08:59.140was wrong and maybe America was never as great as some would like you to believe.
00:09:02.940the show will start on may 15th officially with episodes coming out on monday and thursday every
00:09:09.120week uh usually posted by 8 a.m eastern standard time barring any sort of you know acts of god
00:09:15.960uh you should be able to find episodes on spotify itunes and many other platforms i don't know the
00:09:21.580exact list right now we'll expand as we go if necessary episodes will be around 20 to 30 minutes
00:09:28.240long. My lectures are usually around 1.5 hours, but I hardly think that I can keep your attention
00:09:33.360on history for that long when I don't hold power over your grade. And I do promise that there will
00:09:38.180be no homework in this class except any homework you assign yourself. Thank you for subscribing
00:09:42.860and listening to me bitch about history.0.97