Avi's Conversational Corner
A podcast on culture, history, and politics in a broad perspective
About the show
Welcome! Here I will talk to a range of people on issues which interest me and I hope you, from religious slogans and wargaming to deeper political ideas to forgotten historical episodes. Bring up a chair, get comfortable, and enjoy!
- Avi
Episodes
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Episode 80 (Stumbling Colossus, 50): Immigration Nation: 100% Americanism
February 10th, 2025 | 47 mins 23 secs
Professor Samuel Goldman discusses how native-born Americans contended with the flood of immigration to the United States in the Gilded Age, and how it reshaped American identity itself.
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Episode 79: American Bureaucracy - Take It Or Leave It?
February 3rd, 2025 | 43 mins 24 secs
Bureaucracy expert Kevin Hawickhorst discusses the history - both good and bad - of the institution Americans all hate, but cannot do without: bureaucracy.
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Episode 78 (Stumbling Colossus, 49): When The Circus Came To Town
January 21st, 2025 | 35 mins 7 secs
Professor Les Standiford explains the attraction, rise, and fall of the American circus.
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Episode 77 (Stumbling Colossus, 48): Was the Gilded Age "too democratic"?
September 16th, 2024 | 26 mins 40 secs
Dr. Jon Grinspan discusses the good and the bad of the political culture of the Gilded Age - and how and why it was changed.
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Episode 76 (Stumbling Colossus, 47): Recovering the Lost Constitution
July 29th, 2024 | 1 hr 55 secs
Professor Randy Barnett discusses the often misunderstood fourteenth amendment, how it was neutered, and what it means today. BONUS: Professor Barnett discusses his memoir describing his life as a prosecutor, libertarian intellectual and legal scholar.
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Episode 75 (Stumbling Colossus, 46): Americans and Railroads – A Stormy Relationship
July 8th, 2024 | 23 mins 28 secs
Scott Huffard discusses American attitudes towards the railroads during and after their heyday in the Gilded Age.
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Episode 74 (Stumbling Colossus, 45): The Rise and Fall of Saloon Culture
June 24th, 2024 | 40 mins 19 secs
Christine Sismondo discusses the good and the bad of one of the Gilded Age's most important social institutions - the saloon.
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Episode 73 (Stumbling Colossus, 44): The Railroad's Color Line
June 3rd, 2024 | 40 mins 58 secs
Prof. Eric Arnesen discusses the good and the bad of the Black American railroad worker experience.
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Episode 72 (Stumbling Colossus, 43): The Golden Age of the "Hated" Railroads
April 1st, 2024 | 35 mins 35 secs
International railroad expert Christian Wolmar discusses the good and the bad of the machine that defined the Gilded Age.
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Episode 71 (Stumbling Colossus, 42): Did the “poor get poorer” while the “rich got richer”?
March 12th, 2024 | 35 mins 5 secs
In another solo episode, I unpack the complications of this common misconception of the Gilded Age.
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Episode 70 (Stumbling Colossus, 41): Making a Nation Into a Neighborhood
February 26th, 2024 | 31 mins 2 secs
Professor Richard John returns to discuss how telegraph and telephone networks connected and shaped Gilded Age America.
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Episode 69 (Stumbling Colossus, 40): Ragtime
February 19th, 2024 | 25 mins 26 secs
Musical historian Ed Berlin discusses the rise and power of ragtime, the precursor to jazz and one of America's great musical inventions.
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Episode 68 (Stumbling Colossus, 39): Poetry for a Society in Motion
February 6th, 2024 | 28 mins 55 secs
Ben Sears discusses some of the main influences and trends in American poetry in the Gilded Age.
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Episode 63 (Pop Goes the Culture, 1): Video Game Music
December 26th, 2023 | 15 mins 25 secs
Cultural commentator Oliver Jia discusses the beginnings, birth pangs, and development of video game music, and what makes it unique compared to other forms of music.
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Episode 62 (Stumbling Colossus, 38): Gilded Age America – Democracy? Republic? Something Else?
December 5th, 2023 | 48 mins 44 secs
Dr. Jay Cost discusses the challenges and questions America faced as a republic and democratic civil society during the Gilded Age.
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Episode 61 (Stumbling Colossus, 37): And the Band Went Marching On
November 13th, 2023 | 48 mins 3 secs
Professor Bryan Proksch looks at the overwhelming popularity of marching bands in the Gilded Age - who played, what they played, why they rose and why they fell.
To read Professor Proksch's full documentary history, click here to buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-American-Bands/dp/1622776275