The punk rock ethos of the late 1970s and early 1980s focused on a rejection of established institutions and norms in favor of a Do-It-Yourself approach to artistic production. The explosion of podcasts in the last five years resonates with the punk challenge to the establishment. With low production costs and easy access to a nearly global distribution system, podcasting has a very low bar to entry. Indeed, with a little technology, a lot of enthusiasm, and some good ideas, a podcaster can easily reach a large international audience. As many historians want to reach a larger audience than typical readers of research monographs and academic journals, history podcasts offer the possibility of widely accessible public facing scholarship. Podcasts also open up opportunities for historians outside of the academy.

This roundtable will bring together a diverse range of history podcasting experiences and perspectives, including a graduate student, professors at various positions in the tenure track, and two professional podcasters from outside the academy. This international panel draws from three countries. The panelists host podcasts devoted to the history of disease, polygamy in Mormon culture, Southeast Asian Studies, films about the Second Indochina War (the American War in Vietnam), and recently released history monographs, as well as a graduate student run world history podcast and a commercially successful political humor podcast.

Each member of the roundtable will briefly present their podcasting experience and then the Chair/Moderator will lead a discussion about the various possibilities that history podcasts can offer. Topics will include how to conceptualize and create a history podcast, professional benefits of podcasting, how to ensure scholarly integrity and standards on a podcast, problems history podcasters have experienced, the ethics of podcasting about historical topics that can impact living people, and how to build an audience for a history podcast. We will also consider the larger issue of how to make conversations about history sufficiently fun and engaging so that people will be willing to listen to a sixty-to-ninety-minute discussion of a historical topic. Finally, the panel will engage the difficult issue of how Do-It-Yourself podcasting, which lies outside of established professional norms, can be assessed by hiring and retention/promotion, and tenure committees.