Ok so I’ve started a history podcast. Well, me and a bunch of amazing producers at 2SER (a community radio station in Sydney). It’s called History Lab and this is the two 2 min taster:

Podcasting, in case you have been living under a rock, is definitely now a thing. 

According to Sharon Taylor, CEO of Omny Studio, downloads in Australia are now in the tens of millions per month. While you might have noticed radio stations making a big push for podcasts they are by no means only podcasting platform in town (actually only 14% of weekly podcasts are by Australian radio stations or Australian radio personalities). For lots more statistics have a look at The 2018 Infinite Dial Australia study, conducted by Edison Research and Triton Digital (they also have reports on the UK and the USA).

For academics, impact and engagement are also now definitely things. Historians, of course, engage with broad audiences in a variety of ways, from writing for public audiences, to building partnerships with teachers, institutions and community groups – and, yes, to making tv and radio documentaries too! But the rapidly growing popular demand for podcasts makes it a promising – but as yet unharnessed – platform for doing in and with broad audiences.

With History Lab we are trying to make a new kind of podcast. We’ve got some good stories to tell, but we are interested in much more than just the story. Instead of an academic or other expert doing the research and then telling you what it means, we want to draw you as a listener in to the investigative process. We want you to come along with us as we try to make sense of the traces the past leaves in the present.

Sometimes this is confusing and frustrating: records are patchy, evidence is destroyed and a lot of the time people disagree about what happened and what it means. Sometimes there are more questions than answers. But more often than not, trying to make sense of the traces of the past is also pretty exciting. Things are not always what they seem. Aren’t we always in the process of finding that out?

I’ve written a short piece about why I think podcasting matters to historians and what is special about History Lab (it involves an iceberg analogy), but this is the redux version:

First, in a world of fake-news and post-fact, showing what lies behind historians’ claims to knowledge about the past is imperative if those claims are to be believed.

Second, and related, personal experience is transformative. Abstractions and stories must be taken on trust, but lived experience is direct. Hearing steps echoing in empty corridors and the host wondering about the things historians say, invites the listener into the process of discovery. It opens up the experience of history-making to all who listen.

In these two ways, the History Lab podcast seeks to be a contribution to public discourse – it is premised on the notion that doing the work of thinking and making meaning together is central to the good society.

So come and join the History Lab.  Listen online, download in a podcast app and subscribe to receive notifications whenever we release an episode. Tell your internet friends by posting it on facebook, follow @historylabpod on the twitter or send out a carrier pigeon.

Best of all, sit give your friends a good cup of tea and tickle their ears with some history.

Series 1 is as follows (and yes Episode 1 releases imminently!)

  • Episode 1: (30 May) Lindy Chamberlain and the Afterlife of Evidence – What has happened to all the evidence on which Lindy’s trials turned?
  • Episode 2: (13 June) Damages for a broken heart – What is the history of love and heartbreak in colonial Australia?
  • Episode 3: (27 June) When the Titanic sank in the outback – Why is there a memorial to the Titanic in the middle of outback Australia?
  • Episode 4: (11 July) Fishing for answers – We encounter the practices of the Eora fisherwomen and discover if you listen closely the past of Sydney Harbour still sings.
  • Bonus Episode 5: (18 July) The making of History Lab – Explore the thrills and spills of Season 1, and how you can get involved in the next season.

But, wait there’s more!

Don’t just listen to History Lab – help to make it! History Lab is open as national engagement platform for historians of all stripes. Find out more about how to pitch us an episode and a whole lot more at our website https://historylab.net

 

 

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