Reckoning with Jason Herbert
Historian and outdoorsman Dr. Jason Herbert has questions about the world. And it's time to reckon with them.
Episodes
We're enjoying the holiday this week so we thought we'd bring one back from the vault. This week Dr. Craig Bruce Smith and Dr. Robert Greene II and I talk about Mel Gibson's The Patriot, the role of constructed memory in national identity, and the ethics of making historical dramas.
This week military historian Dr. Jonathan Carroll drops in to talk about Black Hawk Down and his new book Beyond Black Hawk Down: Intervention, Nation-Building, and Insurgency in Somalia, 1992-1995.
About our guest:
Jonathan Carroll is a former officer in the Irish Defence Forces who earned a PhD from Texas A&M University. He is an associate professor of military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.
Talking about my weekend trip with Comanche youths, along with some of my experiences with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, the Kiowa Tribe, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
This week John Wyatt Greenlee returns as guest host and he’s looking for a six fingered man.
This week, our friend Dr Lou Moore drops in to talk about Diggstown and his work tracing black boxing from the end of the Civil War into the 20th century.
This week Dr. Paul Thomas Chamberlin drops in to talk about the history behind Operation Overlord and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.
About our guest:
Paul Chamberlin specializes in twentieth century international history with a focus on U.S. foreign relations and the Middle East. His first book, The Global Offensive: The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Order (Oxf...
Today neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr. Kieran Fox joins in to talk about the spiritual journey of Albert Einstein.
About our guest:
Dr. Kieran Fox is a neuroscientist (PhD 2016) and doctor (MD 2023), currently training to be a psychiatrist in the Research Resident Training Program at the University of California San Francisco. His research over the next few years will focus on the neural mechanisms and clinical potential of psyche...
This week Justin Rawlins and Craig Bruce Smith drop in to talk about Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning and their thoughts on the MI franchise.
Writer and filmmaker Kevin Smokler returns to the pod to talk about his discussions with 25 different women filmmakers.
About our guest:
Kevin Smokler is a writer, documentary filmmaker and event host focused on our relationship as human beings with pop culture. His most recent book BREAK THE FRAME: CONVERSATIONS WITH WOMEN FILMMAKERS contains 24 career-retrospective conversations with directors behind box office phenomenon like Cap...
Today Rachel McCarthy James drops in to talk about the development of the axe and the myriad of ways it has been used to dispatch people and empires over the years.
About our guest:
Rachel McCarthy James was born and raised in Kansas, the daughter of baseball’s Bill James and artist Susan McCarthy. She graduated from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA, where she studied writing and politics. Her first nonfiction book, The Man from the...
It's a new day here at the podcast. Historians At The Movies Podcast is now Reckoning with Jason Herbert. We're opening up our focus and the things we talk about here.
Andor is the greatest Star Wars we've ever seen on any screen and it's not close. My close friend Alan Malfavon joins in to talk about the brilliance of this show, what it means to us, and what we hope to see next.
About our guest:
Alan Malfavon resituates Mexico’s socio-political, cultural, and economic networks with the Atlantic World and the Greater Caribbean, and it dissects and problematizes those networks by centering...
This week Dr. Amy S. Kaufman drops in to talk about our favorite representations of Robin Hood, how he has changed through history, and her new novel, The Traitor of Sherwood Forest.
About our guest:
Amy S. Kaufman is the author of The Traitor of Sherwood Forest, a Robin Hood retelling based on the medieval ballads (Penguin Books, 2025). Amy holds a PhD in medieval literature and has written about the Middle Ages for both academic jo...
This week Dr. Waitman Beorn drops in to talk about Defiance (2008) and his work researching the Holocaust in Europe during World War II.
About our guest:
Dr. Waitman Wade Beorn is an associate professor in History at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Dr. Beorn was previously the Director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, VA and the inaugural Blumkin Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the...
This week Bible scholar and TikTok superstar Dr. Dan McClellan drops in to talk about Ken Smith's 1999 thought piece on Catholicism and Dan's new book, The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture's Most Controversial Issues.
Today Dr. Scott Spillman joins in to talk about how historians have conceptualized slavery and its role in the development of the United States. Get ready for a history of the history of slavery.
About our guest:
Scott Spillman is an American historian and the author of the book Making Sense of Slavery: America’s Long Reckoning, from the Founding Era to Today (2025). His essays and reviews have appeared in The Point, Liberties, The N...
Today Dr. Zandria Robinson drops in to talk about Sinners and why it might be the best movie of the 21st century. We have a spoiler free introduction, a pause, and then a spoiler filled conversation about the Jim Crow South, the Great Migration, WWI, Chicago, Mississippi, the Ku Klux Klan, sex, music, and of course THAT SCENE. This conversation is almost as amazing as this film. Share it widely.
About our guest:
Dr. Zandria F. Robins...
News broke yesterday of Pope Francis' death at the age of 88. Matt Gabriele joins in to talk about the man, the history of the papacy, and what comes next.
About our guest:
Matthew Gabriele is a professor of medieval studies in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech. His research and teaching generally explore religion, violence, nostalgia, and apocalypse, whether manifested in the Middle Ages or the modern wor...
Today astrophysicist Dr. Mario Livio and Nobel-winning chemist Dr. Jack Szostak drop in to talk about the search for extraterrestrial life.
About our guests:
Dr. Mario Livio is an internationally known astrophysicist, best-selling author, and popular speaker. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Livio has published more than 500 scientific articles. He has made significant theoretical contri...
We're a couple days removed from yet another on campus shooting. Sasha, Cari, and I ask what the hell is wrong with America and how did we get here.
About our guests:
Sasha Abramsky is The Nation's Western correspondent. He is the author of several books, including The American Way of Poverty, The House of Twenty Thousand Books, Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World's First Female Sports Superstar...
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