This week on Flashback, we’re covering a story about the power of music and the stories it tells — Ryan Coogler’s 2025 historical vampire-drama blockbuster Sinners. Fresh out of theaters, University Distinguished Professor of Music at Miami University Dr Tammy Kernodle joins to unpack the history behind one of this year’s buzziest releases and all the ways in which it speaks to the layered histories of the development of American music. We unpack the film’s centerpiece sequence, music’s relationship to stories, ancestry, and religion, the legacies of Black music in the United States, and much much more!

You can find Tammy's Smithsonian Folkways playlist, "My Song is My Weapon: The Long Sonic History of Black Resistance" here, and more about her work on her website.

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Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute

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It was the shot heard around the world….or at least in cinemas in the summer of 2000. This week on the podcast we’re covering The Patriot, the historical epic starring Mel Gibson brought to us by the master of disaster himself, Roland Emmerich. Dr Krysten Blackstone joins to dive deep into examining this movie’s relationship to the conflict it depicts, the American Revolutionary War. We get into it all: soldiers’ morale, the beef between the Continental Army and state militias, Jason Issac’s villainy, and of course the eternal question — where are all the movies about the Revolution?

Follow us on bluesky at @flashbackhistory.bsky.social

Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute

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Hold onto your hats cause this episode is about to be a...blast! Join us as we talk Blast from the Past, a zany 1999 sci-fi/rom-com about a man raised in a nuclear bunker emerging in (the post-apocalyptic world of) 1990s Los Angeles. Senior Lecturer in American History at the University of Lincoln Tom Bishop joins to talk all things fallout shelters (and bunkers, vaults, etcetera). We talk about domesticity in the Cold War, the late century's nostalgia for the 50s and 60s, and, of course, Brendan Fraser. All this and more on today's episode!

You can find Tom's work wherever fine academic monographs are sold near you.

Follow us on bluesky at @flashbackhistory.bsky.social

Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute

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Flashback is back from the DEAD (or at least a season break) in order to cover 2012's most infamous Lincoln movie...Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. DPhil student Ben Willis joins to talk about this infamous piece of cinematic history which dared to ask the question: what if vampires were the secret malevolent force behind major events of American History, and what if Abraham Lincoln hunted them? We discuss Lincoln as an abolitionist, the idea behind the slave power, the ethics of vampires, how many horses could have possibly existed in central Illinois, and more!

Follow us on bluesky at @flashbackhistory.bsky.social

Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute

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This week we are borne back into the roaring 20s and the….teeming two-thousand tens? to discuss Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation of the F Scott Fitzgerald masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. Dr Emily Brady, Broadbent Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, joins to talk all things Gatsby, Gatsby, Gatsby! The roaring 1920s, the book’s long-lasting legacy versus the movie’s somewhat controversial reputation, the music, the costumes, the actors, the green light - we talk it all in the final episode of this season. What else is there to say? It’s the Great Gatsby!

You can follow Emily on Bluesky at @emilybrady.bsky.social, where she posts about her all of her current and upcoming work

Follow us on bluesky at @flashbackhistory.bsky.social

Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute

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We're washing some men right out of hair on this week's episode, as we cover the 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein musicalSouth Pacific! Based on a short story from a collection of the same name and the musical adaptation, PhD candidate in American History at the University of Cambridge Samantha Lane joins to discuss the history behind Rodgers and Hammerstein's depiction of racial relations in the WW2 Pacific. We discuss the movie's place in commenting on racial relations back home in the mid-century US, how its demonstration of stereotypes has held up over the years, interesting choices of color washing in key scenes, and more!

We've moved to bluesky! Please follow us there at @flashbackhistory.bsky.social

Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford's Rothermere American Institute

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We're going back to the West! This week we examine the 2015 survival thriller The Revenant. Associate Professor of Modern US History at St Peter's College and the University of Oxford Stephen Tuffnell joins to talk about Alejandro Iñárritu's tense and violent tale of the Western frontier where one man is pushed to the extreme in order to survive. (Does this movie do for bears that Jaws did for sharks?) We're talking all things Western on this episode — the Revenant’s relationship to the genre, culture's ongoing fascination with it, the Western’s depictions of indignity and the environment, as well as the politics of the frontier of the early 1880s and more!

You can find more of Stephen's work on transnational America wherever academic books are sold.

We've moved to bluesky! Please follow us there at @flashbackhistory.bsky.social

Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford's Rothermere American Institute

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And...Action! This week Flashback jumps to the more-recent past to discuss (for the first time!) Hollywood history. Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Manchester Naomi Sutton joins to discuss Robert Altman's 1992 film, The Player. This meta, Hollywood thriller-satire follows an anxious studio executive trying to a: save his job and b: get away with murder. Naomi and I discuss how his attempts at both reflect the changing dynamics of the movie business in the 1980s and 90s, Altman's career, how celebrities changed the film industry, and women's place in the production side of Hollywood, with some detours to AI, remakes, and romcoms along the way. And for eagle-eared listeners: thanks for bearing with us as we deal with some light technical issues this week!

You can find more of Naomi's work on women in Hollywood at US Studies Online.

We've moved to bluesky! Please follow us there at @flashbackhistory.bsky.social

Flashback is graciously supported by the University of Oxford's Rothermere American Institute

Enjoy the show? Please remember to rate, review and subscribe on your podcast provider of choice