We delve into some Irish history with Prof Liam Kennedy. Liam has published a myriad of books on Irish history. We look closely at his 2020 book "Who was responsible for the Troubles". These are some of the questions we try to answer: What is a brief definition of the Troubles? What period are we looking at? Is Ireland part of the UK? What is at the heart of the violence of the Troubles? Which events led up to the Troubles? How did the division/partition of the island of Ireland come about? Why are the Troubles often described as a religious conflict? How does Irish English differ from Briti ..read more

Link to Untextbooked. Have you ever heard about the East Bank Location Massacre on 9 November 1952? Neither have we. Dr Mignonne Breier joins us to talk about her book Bloody Sunday in which she uncovered the gruesome details of this massacre that upends the conventional apartheid narrative. Here are some of the questions we consider: Why do so few people know about the East Bank Location / Duncan Village Massacre? How was it possible to hide the murders of 200 people? Where is East Bank Location? Was it just geographical isolation or a purposeful cover-up? What is the story behind the East ..read more

In this episode, we get our hands dirty with some military history. Prof Timothy Stapleton of the University of Calgary joins us to discuss South Africa's turbulent past. We look at wars from the earliest colonial times to the end of apartheid. These are the questions we try to answer: What is Prof Timothy Stapleton's connection to South Africa? Why do humans go to war? Is warfare irrational? How does the approach of the military historian differ from that of the ordinary historian? Do military historians glorify warfare? How are South African wars best categorised? Is there a unifying facto ..read more

How should we combat misinformation in the history classroom? What does it take to stop misinformation at the outset? Dr Jon Roozenbeek is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and joins us to discuss his team's latest research on "prebunking" misinformation. Some of the questions we try to answer: Did Covid-19 contribute to an increase in fact-checking? Did the extent of misinformation grow in the last couple of months? What is the history of misinformation? How does prebunking misinformation differ from fact-checking? What does the Theory of ..read more

Many streets and clinics bear Lilian Ngoyi's name, but who was she and what was the nature of her accomplishments as an anti-apartheid activist? Dr Martha Evans is working on a substantive biography of Ma'Ngoyi and joins us to share some interesting insights about Lilian's remarkable life.  Here are some of the questions we try to answer: Why is Lilian called "the mother of black resistance against apartheid"? What was apartheid South Africa like? What is narrative literary journalism? Why are there so few historical sources on Lilian's life? What are the details of Lilian Ngoyi's life ..read more

Prof Bob Bain joins us, probably one of the biggest names in history teaching. This conversation brought a whole new dimension to what effective history teaching should look like. Questions we set out to answer: Does Bob Bain play the guitar? Why are all historians, in essence, teachers? The power of that ONE inspirational history teacher/lecturer Why in the world would anyone want to study history? What is the purpose of situating the present in the context of the past? How do we deal with different accounts of the past? What is the OERProject all about? How is the OERProject different from ..read more

In this first episode of our fifth season, we explore the field of learning. Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel is a cognitive psychologist who specialises in how we learn best. She is part of an inspiring initiative called the Learning Scientists. She shares some of her valuable insights with us. Questions we explore: Is there a trick or a secret to communicating "science"? What motivated Carolina to take up a specialisation in learning? How do we find a balance between what and how we teach and how people learn? Briefly, what are the six learning strategies? The strategies include retrieval practi ..read more

The following twitter post accompanies this episode of The Cradock Four. https://mobile.twitter.com/valavoosh/status/1276826105740169218 The historian, Zikhona Valela, joins us to talk about the Cradock Four and, more specifically, misinformation around the supposed famous photo of the Cradock Four. Zikhona tells the story of the four men who were murdered on June 27th, 1985. How did it happen that two of the four men, and the trauma of their families, were actually erased from the historical record? Why do we continue sharing convenient narratives that are, on closer inspection, inaccurate a ..read more

Michael joins us again to challenge some widely held beliefs about the causes of WWI. The long-term causes of World War One are often conveniently taught using the acronym MAIN, which stands for militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism. It is often argued that the presence of these ingredients in Europe made the First World War inevitable, or to use a term Michael taught us, overdetermined.  But by looking at each one of these factors, we learn that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism might have only really come to ..read more

In this episode we explore Civic Online Reasoning in more depth. We are joined by Dr Joel Breakstone of the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). This is in an effort to effectively fight misinformation.  Why is it called Civic Online Reasoning? What does Civic Online Reasoning have to do with history? How does source analysis and source evaluation relate to Civic Online Reasoning? What does expertise look like in terms of evaluating online sources? Is misinformation a new thing? How does misinformation differ from disinformation? How do we ensure that our students access online sourc ..read more