News updates are sent daily. You can unsubscribe at any time.
ASU prof to host 'History Detectives' on PBS
Digg|
Save|
License|
Print|
E-mail|
Heritage educator Sylvia Brenner, right, guides “History Detectives” host Eduardo Pagán through the interpretive center at Pancho Villa State Park in New Mexico. The exhibit details many aspects of the purported raid of 1916.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Eduardo Pagán, host of the TV show “History Detectives,” poses with re-enactors of the 1916 Pancho Villa raid on Columbus, N.M. The re-enactors portray the Villistas who rode with Villa and the U.S. cavalrymen who chased them back into Mexico.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Eduardo Pagán a professor of history and American studies at Arizona State University, makes his debut Monday as host of the popular PBS television series “History Detectives.”
The summerlong show, which is beginning its seventh season, features four researchers who help people solve a mystery, usually regarding a family heirloom or other historical object.
“To be sharing the love and fascination of history with a larger American audience is a tremendous privilege,” Pagán says.
In the season premiere, the group investigates an unusual watch fob thought to commemorate Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s purported 1916 raid on Columbus, N.M.
The three-part episode also looks at a machine that may have been intended to record messages from the dead and dogs trained for war.
Pagán says he often refers to the PBS show in his ASU classes.
“The show is all about history methods,” he says. “How do historians know what is accurate? One of the things that I so enjoy about doing history is the process of discovery, and I think that’s what comes across in ‘History Detectives.’”
In the previous six seasons, one of the four researchers hosted each episode.
The four are Wes Cowan, an independent appraiser and auctioneer; Elyse Luray, an independent appraiser and expert in art history; Gwendolyn Wright, a professor of history and architecture at Columbia University; and Tukufu Zuberi, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
On TV
The seventh-season premiere of “History Detectives” airs 9 p.m. Monday on PBS. Info: www.pbs.org/historydetectives.
Please add your comments, but follow these guidelines to keep this a safe, credible place for discussing the news: