A Journey of Curiosity (A Tale of Today, Episode #12)
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The second act of “A Tale of Today,” focused on HBCUs and the political economy of education in Gilded Ages old and new, concludes with a journey of curiosity through the unschooling movement, a historicist close reading of Ruth Bolton’s time at Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania [24:40], analysis of the transition from secondary schools to higher education [35:00], a summary of this part of the series [82:00], and hope from the forgotten migration [87:30].
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Cast (in order of appearance):
Astra Taylor is a writer, filmmaker, and activist, co-founder of the Debt Collective, and author, most recently, of The Age of Insecurity (AK Press, 2023), a collection of her 2023 Massey Lectures.
Laura Heffernan is Professor of English at University of North Florida and co-author of The Teaching Archive (U. Chicago, 2021)
Rachel Sagnar Buurma is Associate Professor of English at Swarthmore College and co-author of The Teaching Archive (U. Chicago, 2021)
Alexander Manshel is Associate Professor of English at McGill University and the author of Writing Backwards (Columbia UP, 2023).
Annie Abrams is an English Teacher at The Bronx High School of Science and author of Shortchanged: How Advanced Placement Cheats Students (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
Crystal Sanders is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of A Forgotten Migration (UNC Press, 2024)
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast.
Soundtrack:
All music for this season of The American Vandal Podcast comes from the Tennessee-based roots ensemble DownRiver Collective. Most of the tracks come from their most recent EP, Off The Shelf. You can purchase it direct from the band here. It’s also available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Tracks featured in this episode include “Kettleridge,” “Dead To Me,” “As It Was,” & “Daylight Breaks.”
Narration:
Excerpts from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s The Gilded Age come from the audiobook edition produced by SNR Audio and narrated by Nathan Osgood. Available at Audible, as well as other audiobook retailers. SNR has an extensive catalog of professionally-narrated adaptations of 19th-century Anglophone fiction, including The Complete Mark Twain Collection.
Nathan Osgood is an actor and voice artist who has being appearing in films, scripted television, video games, podcasts, and audiobooks since the mid-’90s. In 2018, he played Mark Twain in the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly vehicle, Holmes and Watson.
Excerpts in this episode come from chapter 15 and 44.
Episode Bibliography:
Annie Abrams, Shortchanged: How Advanced Placement Cheats Students (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
Annie Abrams, “Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man Belongs in Our Classrooms” Washington Post (October 23, 2024)
Rachel Sagner Buurma & Laura Heffernan, The Teaching Archive: A New History For Literary Study (U. Chicago, 2021)
Tressie McMillan Cottom, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges In The New Economy (New Press, 2017)
Andrew Douglas, “Modern Money & The Black University Concept” Money On The Left (April 19, 2024)
Andrew Douglas & Jared Loggins, Prophet of Discontent: Martin Luther King Jr. & The Critique of Racial Capitalism (U Georgia P, 2021)
Andrew Douglas & Jared Loggins, “The Lost Promise of Black Study” Boston Review (September 28, 2021)
Andrew Douglas, Scott Ferguson, & Billy Saas, “The Black University Concept” Money On The Left Podcast (June 2, 2024)
W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Field & Function of the American Negro College” (1933)
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906-1960 (1973) [2001 Monthly Review Edition]
Jelani Favors, Shelter In A Time Of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership & Activism (UNC Press, 2020)
Jelani Favors, “The Second Curriculum” The Point (August 15, 2021)
Samuel G. Freedman, Into The Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey & The Fight For Civil Rights (Oxford UP, 2023)
Bryant Morey French, Mark Twain & The Gilded Age: The Book That Named An Era (Southern Methodist UP, 1965)
Vanessa Northington Gamble, “Sisters of a Darker Race’: African American Graduates of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1867-1925” Bulletin of the History of Medicine (Summer 2021)
Kelly Grotke, “Why The Student Push To Get Schools to Disclose, Divest Faces Uphill Battle.” TRT World (May 20, 2024)
Kelly Grotke, “Are Endowments Damaging Colleges & Universities?” The American Prospect (February 12, 2021)
Kelly Grotke & Stephen Hastings-King, “Broadening The Divestment Debate Beyond DOI” Inside Higher Ed (October 11, 2024)
Kelly Grotke & Stephen Hastings-King, “The Yale Model (Reading David Swensen), Part I & Part II” Pattern Recognition (February, 2023)
Kelly Grotke, et al. “College Finances Lack Adequate Transparency” The Oberlin Review (December 3, 2021)
Vincent Harding, “Toward The Black University” Ebony (August, 1970)
Franz Kafka, “The Burrow” (1931)
Nathan Kalman-Lamb & Derek Silva, The End of College Football (UNC Press, 2024)
Leigh Claire La Berge, Fake Work: How I Began To Suspect Capitalism Is A Joke (Haymarket, 2025)
Alexander Manshel, Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction & The Reshaping of The American Canon (Columbia UP, 2023)
Crystal R. Sanders, A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, & The Debt Owed to Public HBCUs (UNC Press, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The First Curriculum is Work Without Wages” The American Vandal (December 31, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Fake Work, Fucking Models, & The Archive of Empire” The American Vandal Podcast (December 23, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Half Castle ‘Gainst The Scott Walkers” The American Vandal Podcast (December 17, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Education Gospel, Enshittify.edu, & The Expansion of Lower Ed” The American Vandal Podcast (November 25, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Philanthrocapitalism U” The American Vandal Podcast (November 12, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Black University Concept & The Second Curriculum” The American Vandal Podcast (October 31, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Historical Novel” The American Vandal Podcast (October 15, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Ponzi Austerity in The Age of Cultural Abundance” The American Vandal Podcast (August 21, 2023)
Asheesh Kapur Siddique, The Archive of Empire: Knowledge, Conquest, & The Making of The Early Modern British World (Yale UP, 2024)
Astra Taylor, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart (AK Press, 2023)
Astra Taylor, “The Age of Insecurity: 2023 CBC Massey Lectures” (CBC, 2023)
Astra Taylor, “Unschooling” n+1 (Winter 2012)
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) [2006 Modern Library Edition]
Raymond Williams, Marxism & Literature (Oxford UP, 1977)
Brandon Zimmerman, “When Legs & Arms Won: The Culture of Dissection & The Role of The Camera at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania” Nursing Clio (August 16, 2018)