C-SPAN, the federal government and public programming channel, is coming to Binghamton University this Halloween to tape a lecture of BU professor Stephen Ortiz’s history class, “Modern American Civilization,” as part of its “Lectures in History” series.
The TV series features “people and events that help document the American story,” according to C-SPAN’s website.
Ortiz’s lecture, which will take place at 2:20 p.m. in the Chamber Hall of the Anderson Center, will focus on the New Deal between 1935 and 1940. The class is one of more than 40 classes across the country that C-SPAN chose to tape for the TV series.
Nicholas Kumelov, a sophomore majoring in philosophy, politics and law, said Ortiz was a good selection for the series because he is an effective teacher.
“He’s a really good lecturer … some people wish he would just straight lecture, but the PowerPoint makes it easier to take notes,” he said.
Ortiz has been on television twice before. He was featured as an expert on the PBS program “History Detectives,” and he also once promoted a book he wrote on C-SPAN2’s BookTV.
“If you talk about things you’re comfortable with, it’s not particularly scary,” Ortiz said. “Your mind kind of kicks in, and you talk about stuff you already know. Really the cameras, once you get going, you don’t really notice it.”
Ortiz said he choose to make the New Deal the topic for his lecture because he thought people would consider its historical example relevant today.
“We’re … close to an election year, and I view interesting parallels [with] Roosevelt who went up for reelection in 1936,” Ortiz said. “I wanted a lecture with the most contemporary resonance. It will sound eerily familiar to people. It’ll be fun for me, but really in terms of professional career, it’s not a major landmark. We’re measured more in terms of publication … being on television is still a cool thing, though.”
Ortiz is making attendance optional for students in his “Modern American Civilizations” class. He said he would post notes for the recorded lecture online on Blackboard.
The series can be seen on C-SPAN3’s American History TV, a block of programming that runs every weekend from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Monday.