MSU Press Podcast

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Karen L. Marrero to discuss her book, Detroit’s Hidden Channels: The Power of French-Indigenous Families in the Eighteenth Century.

Show Notes

The hidden channels of Detroit’s French-Indigenous history run backward and forward through time, cutting through and becoming visible in the expanse of the imperial record only to disappear into local story and song. These are seams in Detroit’s history that reveal the contingent and “messy” nature of national borders and local identities. As Sophie White describes it, Detroit’s Hidden Channels is a meticulous and sophisticated analysis of Detroit’s founding era … it offers an important rejoinder to standard imperial histories by parting the curtains for us to see, with more clarity and precision than we have before, the place of Indigenous and French women in the making of Detroit.”

Karen L. Marrero is Associate Professor of early American History at Wayne State University where she teaches courses on early North American and Indigenous history.

Dr. Marrero’s book, Detroit’s Hidden Channels: The Power of French-Indigenous Families in the Eighteenth Century, is available at msupress.org and other fine booksellers. You can connect with the press on Facebook and @msupress on Twitter, where you can also find me @kurtmilb.

The MSU Press podcast is a joint production of MSU Press and the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. Thanks to Daniel Trego, Madiha Ghous, Kylene Cave, and the team at MSU Press for helping to produce this podcast. Our theme music is “Coffee” by Cambo. 

What is MSU Press Podcast?

Since its founding in 1947, the mission of the Michigan State University Press has been to be a catalyst for positive intellectual, social, and technological change through the publication of research and intellectual inquiry, making significant contributions to scholarship in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. In this podcast series, we interview MSU Press authors about their research and discuss scholarly publishing with the professionals who make it happen.