In the coming year, The Junto has big plans to expand on its initial podcasting success and we are proud and excited to announce the creation of “The Junto Podcast Network.”

The blog began its podcasting efforts in an attempt to engage in the kind of conversations better suited to a discussion format than a blog post or roundtable and to reach out to an audience beyond the blog’s core audience and readership. Thirteen months ago, we launched our first podcast, “The JuntoCast: A Podcast on Early American History.” “The JuntoCast” has succeeded beyond our initial expectations and thirteen months later continues to grow with each passing month. “The JuntoCast” was designed to put topics, themes, personalities, and events in early American history under scrutiny in a way that is sufficiently engaging for our fellow academics and yet accessible enough for a general reader/listener to enjoy and find valuable. Many people enjoy listening to university lectures on iTunesU and many people enjoy listening to a more popularly-oriented history podcast like “Backstory.” With “The JuntoCast,” we try to split the difference.

But we didn’t want to stop there. “The JuntoCast” is not an all-inclusive podcast format and there are many interesting topics and angles at which to look at early American history, especially in its relation with our contemporary culture. And so we were happy to introduce a new podcast, “The History Carousel: Bringing the Past Full Circle with the Present,” which is produced and hosted by Rachel Herrmann. “The History Carousel” provides a different way of engaging with early American history than that of “The JuntoCast” and both are complementary to each other. Together, these two podcasts comprise “The Junto Podcast Network.”

But we don’t want to stop there, either. Going forward, “The Junto Podcast Network” allows us to not only further develop our two current regular podcasts, but also offers us the opportunity to bring you special, one-off podcasts, including interviews with historians, March Madness podcasts, “live” conference recaps, etc…. The possibilities are endless. We want to continue to expand our coverage of early American history and academia by expanding the ways in which we engage with our audience (and vice versa). We hope you’ll enjoy the offerings on “The Junto Podcast Network” and find them useful and worthwhile. As always, we are open to suggestions, whether about individual podcasts or for special podcast ideas. We produce these podcasts for our audience and if there’s something we can do to make them better, please let us know.

Subscribe to “The JuntoCast” via iTunes

Subscribe to “The History Carousel” via iTunes