Zoos are some of the world’s most visited attractions. Yet they often make headlines for controversial reasons such as in 2016 when the Cincinnati Zoo shot and killed a gorilla after a child fell into the animal’s enclosure or in 2017 when poachers killed a rhinoceros at a Paris Zoo for its horns. While schoolchildren and adults alike may delight at the prospect of a trip to the zoo, historically zoos have represented far more than a fun way to spend an afternoon.

More than a century ago, Russian Orientalists advanced a number of erroneous assumptions about Central Asian history that even today remain embedded within the “Silk Road” paradigm. This presentation illustrates how this received wisdom continues to shape our understanding of early modern Central Asian history, and how recent work in Indian history demonstrates the need to rethink these longstanding ideas and approach historical work on the Silk Road with a more critical perspective.

Presented by Karen Asta Arnfred Vallgårda, University of Copenhagen, Denmark at the Center for Historical Research in the Department of History at The Ohio State University on April 15, 2016.

Existential fears of “losing” what is seen as “Western Civilization” have animated many within what is considered the alt-right. However, the valorization of “western civilization” is often rooted in romanticized notions of ancient Greece and Rome, which alt-right groups have appropriated and promoted in recent propaganda. Why and how do nationalists in Europe and the U.S. draw contemporary connections to ancient Greece and Rome? What are the consequences of this for our understandings of the ancient era?

This year, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice—the nation’s first memorial to the over 4,000 African American victims of lynching—opened in Montgomery, Alabama. The opening of the memorial, however, coincides with a recent intensification in debates over Confederate monuments. How do these two trends in commemorating our nation’s past relate to one anther? What messages do these differing monuments send? And what’s at stake in the battle over them?

Presented by Michael Martoccio, Dissertation Fellow, Ph.D. Candidate, Northwestern University, at the Center for Historical Research, Department of History at The Ohio State University on March 21, 2014.

As the world grapples with the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19, it is important to remember that this is not the first but rather the seventh human coronavirus that scientists have discovered since the mid-1960s (four of which just cause a common cold in humans).

Written by Dr. Jim Harris. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. A textual version of this video is available here.