Making History Not Suck: Teaching and Publishing for a 21st-Century Public

Often news media and popular culture are the primary source for learning history. How can historians compete in the vast and dizzying media arena? The growing popularity of podcasts, particularly among younger adults is one medium with great reach, but also a problem: the most popular history podcasts were not written and produced by academically trained historians. This presentation will focus on how I have navigated creating a widely downloaded history that is both (I do hope) reliable and relatable. To date, HISTORY THAT DOESN’T SUCK with Professor Gregory Jackson has become the number one history podcast on Spotify and a top-ten on Apple Podcasts. I will also relate how the podcast launched a national tour bringing theatrical “history-telling” to an even wider audience through performing arts venues and variety halls. I would like to spark the creativity of my colleagues so that they might be able to put their historical training and expertise "out there" and to put the challenges that so often dissuade us from venturing forth out of the ivory tower into context.