Dr. Aaron Lewis, a historian of the U.S. South, talks about his dissertation on the historical memories of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America and the importance of studying the Confederacy and its role in perpetuating white supremacy throughout U.S. history. He also discusses how/why Confederate symbols are still present in the United States today and the way their meanings have changed throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

For the final episode of Season Two, Dr. Chad Nelsen, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, and I discuss "surfonomics", the threats our oceans and coasts face, and how surfing can play a large role in conserving our planet.

For this episode, I am joined by surf historian Katie Hunt. Katie is in the home stretch of her History Ph.D. at the University of Kent. She’s an avid surfer at her home break in North Devon. That is…when the waves are good. In this episode, Katie offers us a brief history of the “surf shop,” as well as an overview of its founding years in California from 1935 to 1959—an era in California surfing history considered the golden years of isolated nomadic surf communities.  

The is a special episode with "The Surfing Historian" Podcast host, Jason Old, where he addresses a few questions from one of our loyal listeners. The questions are about his specific research on the proliferation of surf tourism in Nicaragua. Do you have questions for our host? Feel free to visit us at surfinghistorian.com and send your questions on our contact page.

For today’s episode, I chat with Dr. Stefan Krause about his research on surf tourism in Costa Rica and his work on cultural heritage in the Federated States of Micronesia. 

For this episode, I chat with Jesse Reiblich, professor of marine law and policy at the University of Rhode Island, about surf break protection and his most recently published article, "A Global Review of Legal Protection Mechanisms for the Management of Surf Breaks," which he co-published in Marine Policy with Dr. Shane Orchard and Mauricio dos Santos. Jesse Reiblich is an attorney and expert in coastal and marine law and policy. He teaches and researches at the University of Rhode Island in the Marine Affairs Department. Jesse has published on many topics, including coastal access and equity, climate change policy, the public trust doctrine, water law, coastal adaptation, the California Coastal Act, and surf break protection. His upcoming research will focus on environmental justice concerns in the U.S. Territories, coastal access and recreation, and the efficacy of statutory coastal laws.

For this episode, I chat with Dr. Jérémy Lemarié, Associate Professor of Sports Management at the University of Reims in France, about his research on surf tourism, marketing surfing, surfer activism, and solidarity within the global surf community.

For this episode, I interview Environmental Scientist, Dr. Ed Atkin, about his research on developing tools and guidelines for surfing resource management. In New Zealand, Ed works for eCoast Marine Consulting and Research, conducting research in the areas of surf science and surfing resource management. In addition to his doctoral and consulting work, we also chat about his involvement with the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Surfing Research and the International Association of Surfing Researchers—organizations that he has been passionately involved with for quite a while.

For this episode, I interview ethnomusicologist Dr. Tim Cooley about his book "Surfing about Music." Tim is a music professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his research interests center around popular and vernacular music of Central Europe (notably, Poland) and North America—paying particular attention to the roles of musicking in creating individual and community identities. In this intriguing episode, he and I chat about how surf music and how “musicking about surfing” has changed as cultural ideas about surfing itself changed. This wonderful book is featured on surfinghistorian.com.

For this episode, I interview journalist and novelist, Michael Scott Moore. Michael’s the author of "Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results"—a travel book about surfing that was revered as one of the best books of 2010 by The Economist.

For this episode, I chat with Dr. Krista Comer, professor of American Studies and Feminist Studies at Rice University, about the origins of her book "Surfer Girls in the New World Order," as well as her work on "surfeminism."

For this episode, I chat with fellow surf historian, Dr. Kevin Dawson, about his book, Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Cultures in the African Diaspora.

For this episode, social anthropologist and founder of "The PhiloSurfer Club," Dr. Ignacio Iturralde, and I explore surfing and its connection to philosophical thought, looking at how powerful the ocean metaphor is as an energy and dimension that transcends us, that is bigger than us, and that we can't control.

For this episode, I sit down with Dr. Briana (“Brie”) Iatarola to discuss her research on La Libertad, El Salvador and Trestles in San Clemente, California. In the first half of the interview, Brie and I chat about the historical transformation of El Salvador into an internationally recognized "wavetopia" in the wake of the bloody 12-year conflict, which ended in 1992. For the second half, we discuss the impacts of sea level rise at Trestles since 2016 and the environmental challenges that coastal communities including San Clemente and San Diego face, highlighting collaborative community resilience strategies as possible solutions.

For this episode, Canadian sports scholar, Dr. Bettina Callary, and I talk about Indigenous sport participation and the fully Indigenous surf program that she and her colleagues are working on in Unama’ki (Cape Breton Island) in conjunction with the Surfing Association of Nova Scotia and the First Nation Mi’kmaq Physical Activity Leaders (MPALs).

For this episode, I sit down with Brazilian surfer, motorcyclist,  journeyman, and author of “Pan-American Soul: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Surf Trip from California to Brazil,” Adrian Kojin. Adrian and I talk about his surfing motorcycle foray through Latin America in the late 1980s as well as his more recent experience, which was a reboot of that original trip. We also chat about whether or not he managed to find “the meaning of life” during his epic journey.

For this episode, Dr. Patrick Moser and I talk about the history of California beach culture from 1907 to 1945, as well as how one goes about writing surf history and the process of publication with a university press or a surfing magazine.

For this episode, I sat down with public health expert Jesse Casanova. Jesse is the Assistant Director for International Programs at the University of South Florida Health International. While the focus of this episode is to discuss the health risks associated with international surf travel, we also wanted to provide all of our listeners with some tangible ways to mitigate illness during their travels.

In this episode, I sit down with Environmental Science and Resource Management professor, Dr. Dan Reineman, to talk about coastal resource management; his career and life as a professional “coastographer” (a word he coined); and the role of surfers as stewards of their home break. For the bulk of the episode, we focus our attention largely on two places: Southern California and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The episode itself is centered around an article Dan co-wrote with colleague, Nick Sadrpour, titled “The Impacts of Climate Change on Surfing Resources.”

For this episode, I interview sociologist Dr. Kristin Lawler about her book, The American Surfer: Radical Culture and Capitalism; we also chat about her essay on the Nietzschean connections between early twentieth century surfers and the hobos of the Industrial Workers of the World–an essay that will be published in the forthcoming book, Roll and Flow: The Political Ontology of Surfing and Skateboarding; and finally, I get her thoughts on the current state of critical surf studies as a field of academic inquiry.