GenX, Church, and Academia (and two pollinators) with Professor Ed J. Blum

What does it mean to grow up saved—and then spend your career studying how race, religion, and power have always been tangled together in the west? Christy sits down with Ed J. Blum, historian of Ideas, to find out. From his evangelical upbringing in suburban New Jersey to his landmark scholarship on W.E.B. Du Bois, Ed traces the through-line between personal faith and intellectual obsession. He and Christy swap stories of religious intensity— her family's fervor (at least on Easter), his Mission work, and the complicated questions both raised about belonging and poverty. Ed also pulls back the curtain on his forthcoming book, which uncovers surprising data about racial categorization in Revolutionary-era America. And somehow, it all ends with a pollinator.