Displaying items by tag: maryville college

“Historical research brings all kinds of insight into who we are in the present day as a species.”

MARYVILLE — Ever wonder how human society and culture blossomed into what it is today?

In his new podcast, “You Are a Weirdo,” historian and Maryville College professor Doug Sofer aims to help people learn just how far we’ve come as a species by embracing how the “strangeness” of the present day would be considered even more vastly weird by the historical standards of the past.

“Real history is a process of interpretation — of understanding the past based on evidence” Sofer said. “Good history is equally immersive; it gets you out of your skin.”

So far, Sofer has immersed his audience in interpreting and understanding topics ranging from why tea is considered a distinctly British beverage, despite being grown in Asia, to why jokes have a short shelf life depending on the decade they are told.

Regardless of each episode’s topic, Sofer finds history to be “the study of human possibilities.” Sofer wants people to learn “that real, legit historical research brings all kinds of insight into who we are in the present day as a species.”

The Montgomery Village public housing complex in South Knoxville is separated only by railroad tracks from the Smoky Mountain Smelters Superfund site (and the Witherspoon dump site).  S. Heather Duncan/Hellbender Press

A better use of the SMS/Witherspoon properties in Vestal may be constrained by toxic legacy and uncertain ownership

An imminent cleanup of a Superfund site in Vestal could pave the way for redevelopment and new life for the highly polluted property. But its future is complicated by muddy ownership and contradictory visions for its use.

The Smoky Mountain Smelters company left behind soil, groundwater and surface water pollution when it shuttered in 1994. But federal infrastructure funding is now slated to finish off a cleanup begun by the federal Environmental Agency at the Maryville Pike tract. Groundwater contamination below the surface is the most significant remaining problem.