Not ready to emerge into the “daylight” yet? Check out my super-sized 266th #ScholarSunday thread, chock-full o’ public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all!
Articles:
Starting with a handful of pieces for Women’s History Month, including Thomas Lecaque’s beautifully personal Age of Revolutions essay on finding colonial women’s writing in the archives.
For Oxford University Press’s blog, Betty Boyd Caroli produced a timeline of “Wonder Woman of History” Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch’s early 20C fight for affordable housing.
Over at the AAIHS’s Black Perspectives, Hettie V. Williams wrote about the crucial Black women behind the Brown v. Board decision.
For Smithsonian magazine, here’s Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell on Gretchen Prochnik, the Austrian WWII refugee who became one of America’s most iconic dressmakers.
& Jess deCourcy Hinds wrote for LitHub on 8 badass librarians to celebrate on International Women’s Day (& every other day).
Turning to other great public scholarly writing from the week, here’s Danny Robb for JSTOR Daily on the mechanical imagination behind Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry.
The editors of the Civil War Monitor shared a fascinating piece on the era’s early, innovative bullet-proof vests.
For Dissent magazine, here’s Aims McGuinness on how the early 20th century Milwaukee socialists offered a philosophy that was both pragmatic & revolutionary.
For Covert NKY, David Rotenstein wrote about the story & enduring legacy of the popular turn of the century destination that was Stevie’s roadhouse.
Over at Andscape, Jesse Washington offered a requiem for Source magazine James Bernard & his influence on 1990s hip-hop & America.
I really enjoyed Ada Palmer’s Strange Horizons essay arguing that all science fiction & fantasy writers are historians.
The Journal of the Early Republic Panorama’s series on The American Revolution continued with Christopher Thrasher on the documentary’s 5th episode.
While the folks at Ms. magazine have launched their new Founding Feminists series, highlighting the women & gender-nonconforming people who built & rebuilt our democracy.
A pair of open-access scholarly publications to share this week, including my Fitchburg State colleague J.J. Sylvia’s edited collection Critiquing AI in Media, featuring the work of FSU students!
Also open-access is Benjamin Bland in the Journal of British Studies on popular music, the New Musical Express (NME), & race in late 20th-century Britain.
Great column from my Saturday Evening Post colleague Malak Kassem on the history of when & how Americans fell in love with soccer.
While for my latest Considering History column for the Post, I highlighted the groundbreaking Black teenage sprinters from the 1932 U.S. Olympic team.
& speaking of my column, for the one-year anniversary of my Dad’s passing I wanted to share once more my tribute to him & the best of American education.
Current Events:
Turning to current events, I missed George Yancy’s Truthout conversation with Elizabeth Todd-Breland on defending Black history education from racist attacks (h/t Mark Anthony Neal).
I really appreciate Gwen Howerton’s essay for Chron on being a trans student & alumnus of Texas A&M in this era of regressive policies.
Speaking of higher ed battles, Beatrice Marovich wrote for the Pittsburgh Review of Books on the vital moral role that universities play in American society.
Brian Phillips wrote for The Ringer on the proposed Netflix deal & the terrifying tentacles of Paramount’s media empire.
Here’s Kevin Morris for the Brennan Center for Justice on the bygone era of Supreme Court support for voting rights.
Vital article from Zeb Larson for Dame magazine on how our latest attacks on Iran must be contextualized across nearly 75 years of history.
While Keanu Heydari offered for Clio & the Contemporary a post-1979 perspective on today’s mass violence in & against Iran.
That’s one of three great Clio articles this week, which also included Regina Mills on Mayor Mamdani, the Schomburg Collection’s Qur’an, & Afro-diasporic histories.
& finally for Clio, Sibylla Nash highlighted Black History Month’s 100th anniversary in this moment when it’s under such sustained attack.
I would argue that Clio, like so many of the vital public scholarly venues I share in these threads, embody what Ben Earley described this week for the London School of Economics & Political Science’s blog as our “new antiquarianism.”
Podcasts:
Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including episode 89 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past featuring Richard Bell on his global history of the American Revolution.
Over at Ben Franklin’s World, Joseph Adelman chaired a live conversation for a conference on the 250th anniversary of Common Sense, featuring Leanne O’Boyle, Nicole Mahoney, & Jeanne Zaino.
While the latest episode of the Presidencies of the United States podcast features Richard Vague on his new book on the Revolutionary financial leader Thomas Willing.
For their War of the Rebellion podcast, Niels Eichhorn & Andrew Houck interviewed Elizabeth D. Leonard about her book Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky.
Over at her Civics & Coffee podcast, Alycia Asai interviewed Charles Ferguson about his new book Presidential Seclusion: The Power of Camp David. & Alycia also shared her latest weekly episode, on the tragic histories of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
For the National Humanities Center, Blair LM Kelley interviewed Kathleen DuVal about her book Native Nations: A Millenium in North America.
For her Say It with History podcast, Holley Snaith was joined by The History Queen creator Madison Givens to discuss the women of the Black Panther Party.
Speaking of the Black Panthers, for his America: The Story of the USA podcast Liam Heffernan was joined by Joe Street to discuss the life & legacy of Huey Newton.
For the latest episode of his History on Film podcast, Ross Lennon was joined by Tiffany Knoell to discuss analyzing & teaching time travel on film.
Speaking of Ross, he also joined Mike Jamison’s Pop Culture Basement podcast to talk about the Canadian rock band Rush & their fans.
While episode 73 of Waitman W. Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast features Victoria Khiterer on history, memory, & the Babi Yar massacre.
Turning to current events conversations, Matt McManus joined the Vorpolitisch podcast to discuss (in English) the political theory of Liberal Socialism.
Over at Stephanie G. Wilson’s Freedom Over Fascism podcast, Matthew Taylor joined to discuss Hegseth’s extreme Christian White Nationalism.
While for their The Oath & the Office podcast, John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider discussed whether & how Congress can stop Trump’s Iran war.
Speaking of Congress, for her latest American Conversation Heather Cox Richardson interviewed New Jersey Senator Andy Kim.
For the AHA’s History in Focus podcast, host Daniel Story talked with Mark Bradley & Laura McEnaney about the new Authoritarianism 101: A Global History project.
While for Academic Life’s New Books Network channel, Christina Gessler interviewed H. Colleen Sinclair about her research into understanding & combatting disinformation.
Speaking of disinformation, season 2 of the Resistant Communiqués podcast opens with Anna Lekas Miller on global disinformation, journalism, & much more.
For the latest episode of the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast, Joseph Harris joined to discuss what we did & didn’t learn from Covid.
& I’ll end with an inspiring conversation, John Garrison Marks for the Write Now with Scrivener podcast on his new book & his writing process.
Books:
Speaking of new books, three important new publications to share this week, including Beci Carver’s Modernism’s Whims from Oxford University Press.
Out this week from UNC Press is Susan B. Ridgely’s One True Church: An American Story of Race, Family, & Religion.
While likewise just out from Penguin Random House is Camonghne Felix’s memoir & manifesto Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom.
Now out in paperback from Penguin is one of the year’s most important books, Brian Goldstone’s There Is No Place for Us: Working & Homeless in America.
Finally out this coming Tuesday is Anna O. Law’s long-awaited Migration & the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, & Immigrants from Oxford University Press.
For many more imminently forthcoming books, check out Duke University Press’s blog post on a ton of March new releases.
Forthcoming April 28 from the University of Illinois Press is Eladio B. Bobadilla’s Dangerous Migration: Mexican Labor & the Fight for Immigrant Rights.
While forthcoming May 15 from Oxford is Christopher Hodson & Brett Rushforth’s Beyond the Ocean: France & the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions.
Over at the University of Nebraska Press blog, Jill Christman shared some reflections on her new book, The Heart Folds Early: A Memoir.
While architect Neil Flanagan shared a new page dedicated to his forthcoming book The Birth of a Capital on the history & legacy of Washington, DC.
The latest USIH book review features James L. Greer on Karen Benjamin’s Good Parents, Better Homes, Great Schools: Selling Segregation Before the New Deal.
& I really appreciate this H-Net guest post from Emily Joan Elliott on co-editing an edited collection as an early career academic.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
Gonna end with tons of newsletters & blog posts as usual, including Julia Azari for Good Politics/Bad Politics on lessons from the Iraq invasion for the Iran war.
While Felicia Kornbluh wrote for her History Teaches… newsletter on Iran, Epstein, tariffs, & “Autocratic Legalism.”
& for his Democracy Americana newsletter Thomas Zimmer contextualized the attacks with the overarching trend of MAGA detachment from reality.
That detachment from reality requires the erasure of histories, such as the National Park Service censorship that Kevin M. Levin traced assiduously for his Civil War Memory newsletter.
For painful parallels to such erasures, check out the latest installment of Sarah E. Bond’s Pasts Imperfect, featuring Geoffrey Greatrex, Morag Kersel, Meira Kensky, Shaily Patel, & Justin Vorhis on the closures of academic departments & museums.
For another layer to these threats, here’s Leah Broad for her Songs of Sunrise newsletter on a striking lesson in ChatGPT’s accuracy gap.
While Karl Bode wrote for his The Fine Print site on why oligarch’s aren’t guarantee success in building the world’s biggest propaganda machine.
& over at the Cognitive Resonance newsletter, Pip Sanderson shared a guest post on pursuing cognitive solidarity with our students.
For a very different form of solidarity, here’s Jenn M. Jackson for her Love Notes newsletter on the BAFTAs, ableism, & anti-Black racism.
While Clarkisha Kent wrote for Read for Your Lives on a bizarre Black History Month defined by Black celebration & white agitation.
Turning to more historical subjects, Bram Hubbell shared three new Liberating Narratives posts this week, including this one on teaching WWI consequences of new technologies, this one on teaching the changing role of government economic involvement in the 1930s, & this one on teaching Stalin’s Holodomor using primary sources.
For the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library’s blog, Sean Young shared a post on the botanical, imperial works of Caspar Commelin & Maria Sibylla Merian.
Disha Karnad Jani wrote for the Journal of the History of Ideas blog on redefining who is part of the aggregate in intellectual history.
While for the next installment of the In Pursuit newsletter, Andrew M. Davenport wrote about the contradictions & prescience of Thomas Jefferson.
Turning to Women’s History Month posts, for her History in Progress blog Holley Snaith wrote about how Eleanor Roosevelt changed political communication.
While for her Imperfect Union newsletter, Lindsay M. Chervinsky shared a WHM post on the magic of the archives.
& over at her History in the Margins blog, Pamela D. Toler is sharing her usual inspiring series of Women’s History Month conversations with scholars, starting this week with Anya Jabour, Allison Tyra, Joanne Mulcahy, and Missy Gibson & April Grossinger.
For his newsletter, my FSU colleague Steve Edwards shared some beautiful reflections on writing as belonging.
Over at his A Word About… newsletter, Benjamin Dreyer shared takeaways from conversations with young copy editors.
& I really appreciate Phil Lewis for his What I’m Reading newsletter on the “first comprehensive national report” on the number & state of Black-owned bookstores.
Gonna conclude with a bunch of great cultural studies posts as ever, including Joshua Encinias for the Santa Fe New Mexican’s Pasatiempo on how Jim Henson found inspiration & peace in the region.
Frank Falisi concluded Bright Wall/Dark Room’s Best of 2025 series with a piece on Richard Linklater & Ethan Hawke’s latest collaboration, Blue Moon.
For her History Keeps Happening newsletter, Jill Lawrence shared takeaways from watching a trio of period dramas in the age of Trump.
Over at RogerEbert.com, Chaz Ebert & Nell Minow introduced the latest installment of their wonderful Women Writers Week. & for a full listing of all the amazing writing shared this year, check out the Table of Contents here.
For Public Books, Craig Kelley offered a fun take on Del Toro’s Frankenstein & Victor as an ABD scholarly researcher. & also make sure to check out Vaughn Joy’s Contingent magazine essay on Del Toro’s film & the long history of adaptations of Frankenstein.
& Vaughn Joy also shared her latest Review Roulette newsletter, a fascinating analysis of sound & score in Jurassic Park.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, & happy reading, listening, & learning, all!
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