February is African-American History month in the United States, and the Trans-Atlanticist is celebrating with a number of podcasts about African-American authors.
For this first episode of NovelROMANtics, host Dr. Douglas Cowie and his guest, Dr. Oli Belas of University of Bedfordshire, discuss a pair of crime novels by Attica Locke: Blue Bird, Blue Bird and Heaven, My Home, both of which follow black Texas Ranger Darren Matthews as he tries to unravel the truth of a complicated set of white-supremacist hate crimes in rural East Texas.

Dr. Stefanie Schäfer discusses the cultural history of the “first family,” the concept of civil religion in the US, the development of the academic specialty of First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) studies, the significance of the Obama presidency for race relations and identity politics, as well as the cultural impact of Michele Obama’s new autobiography, Becoming.

Renowned economist and expert on international trade, Prof. Gabriel Felbermayr explains President Trump’s economic policies. Topics include the Trump tax cuts, US-EU trade imbalances, Nordstream2, energy security, and Iran sanctions, as well as forecasts about the future of the US and the global economy.

On November 6, 2018, Americans went to polling places across the US to cast their votes in the mid-term elections. Prof. Bierling, a leading expert in transatlantic relations, discusses the election results and the consequences for the United States, Germany, and transatlantic relations in general.

Fifty years after the Prague Spring, Dr. Thomas Murphy discusses his new book, Czechoslovakia Behind the Curtain: Life, Work, and Culture in the Communist Era. Dr. Murphy and host Andrew Sola explore the history of Czechoslovakia, the events that led to the Prague Spring, the Soviet-led invasion of 1968, and the lives of ordinary people under communist rule. The episode ends with a discussion of recent political developments in central Europe.

Dr. Alexander Phillips and Andrew Sola chart the history of ecological thinking and the origins of ecocriticism as a scholarly discipline and then discuss the importance of the environment in the works of German authors Wilhelm Raabe and Adalbert Stifter. The episode ends by assessing the importance of ecocriticism in the present.

In the June 2018 edition of “This Month at the EU with Dr. Danner,” Andrew Sola and EU insider Guenter Danner discuss Europe’s immigration and refugee crisis, the Latvian banking scandals, and the end of the Greek bailout.

In the April 2018 edition of “This Month at the EU with Dr. Danner,” Andrew Sola and EU insider Guenter Danner discuss the elections in Hungary, the state of the Greek economy at the end of the bailout, and China’s influence on the EU.

Professor Dieter Schulz and Andrew Sola discuss Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and its influence on Dr. Martin Luther King.

German-American basketball legend Wilbert Olinde, Jr., and Andrew Sola discuss ways to maximize one’s potential, learn from life’s challenges, and cope with daily stresses. They also discuss immigration politics in Germany and lessons from Dr. Martin Luther King.