Science. History. Ears. Happy Together.

This post was written by guest blogger Elizabeth Green Musselman.*

One year ago I began producing The Missing Link, a monthly podcast on the history of science, medicine, and technology. In case you are unfamiliar with the world of podcasting, which is a type of audio blogging that began in 2005, let me give you a brief equation that will explain what I am about to do:

1 year = grizzled, world-weary podcaster experience

When I was young, back in 2004, we got our history from books and articles and the occasional blog, and we liked it that way. Then along came podcasts and whole new possibilities opened up. People who lived nowhere near a university might have access to lectures on their favorite subjects. People who lived nowhere near a framed doctoral diploma - but who had read widely and intensively in the field of history - could find an audience. People who wanted to blather into a microphone about nothing of any substance or value could find an audience, too. As long as you have access to a computer with a decent internet connection, both producing and listening to podcasts are very inexpensive propositions. For listeners, podcasts are typically free. Producers need only spend money on a $20 headset microphone with a USB connection, and the rest can all be had for free. The result is that there is a whole ham-radio-like world out there now, with a thin sliver devoted to history and the sciences.

I have a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science, and spend much of my working life teaching that material to rooms of about 12-25 undergraduates at a time. I wrote a very scholarly book once and it now coasts at the alarming heights of #2,502,659 on Amazon's bestseller list. For someone like me who originally got into this field because she wanted to interest a wider audience in the sciences, my drip-by-drip approach to reaching people has had its limitations. By comparison, the viral-information world of the internet has allowed me to reach between 800 and 1,500 people per episode of my podcast.

So, why podcasting? Why try to reach people through their ears rather than through their eyes? Several reasons. One is that many people have their eyes engaged for long periods of time, during which they still have their ears and much of their brains available. I am thinking here especially of commuting, exercising, housework, and crafting. (You laugh, but knitters, crocheters, sewers and the like constitute an enormous chunk of the podcast listener pool.)

But for me, a far more important reason to transmit aurally is that it enlivens the listener's historical imagination. One of the biggest challenges that I face in an undergraduate classroom is trying to make history seem alive to my students. I find that it helps tremendously to remind them often to imagine themselves in the historical scenarios we are reading about. That self-projection into the past can be difficult for inexperienced readers to do when faced with a text on the printed page. You would think that video would help - and in fact, many of the history majors at my college are avid History Channel fans - but video can shut down as many imaginative possibilities as it opens up. The verite style of most historical documentaries can lull you into thinking somewhere in your reptile brain that what you are watching is real. It has the appearance of truthiness, to borrow Stephen Colbert's phrase.

Audio strikes a good balance between printed text and video. The real-time quality of the narration encourages the listener to animate the past - particularly if the podcast producer has layered in further sound and a sense of place. In addition, podcast listeners are often moving as they listen, which enhances that sense of an animated past. As the listener moves, history moves along with her. And yet, she has the peculiar sensation of seeing the present unfold before her while the voice in her ear describes the past. This forces the listener to imagine her own visuals, and to confront - even if subconsciously - the disjunct between then and now. It can be an eerie and even profound experience.

These thoughts were prompted by a comment that a reader of this blog left when Ben posted a notice about my podcast. "Are there transcripts anywhere?," the blog reader wrote. "Not to be a Luddite, but I've never really 'gotten' the point of podcasts (or audio books for that matter). I can read far faster than I can listen." Granted, podcasts and audio books are not for everyone. Granted, I read from a transcript when I record my own podcast. But I'm not going to post the transcript because it's a category mistake. I wrote that material to be heard, not read. The request reminds me a little of the request that I occasionally get from students for my lecture notes. I refuse - not because I'm a megalomaniac who believes that good learning only happens in my exalted presence. No, I refuse because class time and podcasts are both - when done properly - carefully crafted experiences.

I can only hope that more people will began crafting those experiences themselves. There are still precious few good podcasts on history and the sciences, and only a couple that focus on science and technology studies. (Distillations, produced by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, is another.) Do consider joining us over here in the modern, post-2005 age.

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*Musselman is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Southwestern University. She teaches the history of science, gender studies, and British history, among others. In addition to the podcasts, she is working on a book that uncovers how the Africans and Europeans who populated colonial South Africa thought about nature. Also, she knits.