Here it is, my 285th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all!
Make sure to head over to my Bluesky timeline for the clue for this week’s Easter Egg hunt, a chance to win a shout-out for you & your work at the top of next week’s thread!
Articles:
Starting with a new project that its author shared with me for the thread (something I really encourage everyone to do with their work, at this email address or on Bluesky): Greg Beaman’s vital new documentary study of Alexandria (VA)’s City Hall, Market Square Block, & histories of slavery. & Beaman wrote for the Alexandria Times about one family’s story from that study.
A number of important pieces for & around the continuing 250th anniversary commemorations, including a pair of articles from The Guardian’s Melissa Hellman: this one on the fascinating traveling show Da’ Gullah American Revolutionary Experience; & this one on Philadelphians fighting back against Trump’s attempts to erase such stories.
Also a couple pieces for the Journal of the Early Republic Panorama to share this week, including Jason Hanson on semiquincentennial commemorations in the American West; & a tribute post to the towering Revolutionary scholar Gordon S. Wood, featuring reflections from Andrew Shankman, Karin Wulf, Paul A. Gilje, & Joseph M. Adelman.
For the Pittsburgh Review of Books, Kyle R. Garton wrote about opposition to Trump’s Freedom 250 & the subversive power of American song.
& for the German historical site H/Soz/Kult, Marc Stein offered a fascinating essay queering the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial.
Turning to other excellent writing from the week, a pair of articles for LitHub to share: Ed Simon on Noah Webster’s dictionary of independence & whether “American” will ever be a distinct language of its own; & Jack Parlett on sober queerness in the experiences of himself & some of his favorite artists.
Three interesting new pieces for NiCHE Canada to share this week: Michael Borsk on the Hudson Bay Company & the vital roles of dogs; Maren Savarese Knopf with a contribution to the ongoing series (in collaboration with Active History) for the 150th of the Indian Act; & Sarah Perry with reflections on the 2026 Canadian History of the Environment Summer School (CHESS).
For the Journal of the Civil War Era, Kris Plunkett shared a complex & thoughtful article on the Stand Watie Monument, the Lost Cause, & Oklahoma Cherokee memory of the Civil War.
For Americas Quarterly, Renata Keller wrote about Latin American voices during & responses to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For the Erie Reader, Jonathan Burdick shared the fascinating story of Edwin Garnet Riley, the preacher, poet, & painter of Northwestern Pennsylvania.
While for their Dallas Observer column, Michael Phillips, Rick Halperin, & Hadi Jawad shared legacies & lessons on the anniversary of the 1973 police murder of 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez.
Thanks to John Edwin Mason for sharing a eulogy from the South African Daily Maverick for the controversial anti-Apartheid activist turned Soviet spy Dieter Gerhardt.
I haven’t shared work from Longreads in these threads previously, but I wanted to change that, starting this week with Kyle Devine’s Verso essay (excerpted from his new book) on the uncomfortable truth that record albums are made with oil.
& I’m proud of my weeklong blog series on American early childhood advocates, starting with this post on Jane Addams & ending with a weekend tribute to my favorite such advocate, my Mom Ilene Railton!
A handful of open-access academic publications to share this week, including Mark Wyman & Greg Koos for the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society on the Great Depression in McLean County before Roosevelt.
Luiza Antonie, Jeremy Foxcroft, Kris Inwood, Chris Minns, Fraser Summerfield, & Tianning Zhu wrote in Historical Methods on preliminary findings from a new longitudinal dataset of Canadian women between 1871 & 1901.
& three full open-access new issues of journals to share, including a special Portugal-focused installment of Romance Notes.
Thanks to Duke University for making open-access a special issue of French Historical Studies on histories of immigration thirty years after Gérard Noiriel’s The French Melting Pot.
& likewise open-access (as it always is) is the latest issue of Hammer & Hope, featuring Robin D.G. Kelley on Black radicals reading the Declaration of Independence.
Five columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week: Barbara Noe Kennedy on Lillie Hitchcock Coit, volunteer firefighter & woman behind the Tower; Caroline Eubanks on the historic charms of Fredericksburg’s 19th century Sunday Houses; Selina Alipour Tabrizi on the history of American tea culture, from the Boston Tea Party to modern teahouses; Troy Brownfield contextualizing the new Odyssey film in the long history of cinematic adaptations; & from the Post archives, Milton MacKaye’s 1936 column on the world developing underground around NYC’s subway.
Current Events:
Turning to current event articles, lots of writing on Lindsay Graham this week, including a couple individual newsletters I’ll share in that section below & Tom Schaller for Public Notice on how Graham embodied the rot of modern conservatism.
For Public Books, Pasquale Toscano connected The Odyssey to the ableism of kings & the fury of Trump.
For the wonderful Good Men Project (a site for which I’ve written a good bit over the years), John Pavlovitz traced how Fox News has poisoned America & killed the goodness in people we love.
Melissa Gira Grant argued for The New Republic that ICE violence is not an accident but rather part of the job.
Over at Nathan Tankus’ Notes on the Crises, Philip Rocco shared a guest post on how Russell Vought is using the plumbing of fiscal federalism to create a new patronage system.
For one of the catastrophic effects of those actions, here’s Julia Métraux for Mother Jones on how the only research center for disabled parents is losing federal funding.
Victor Ray wrote for MS Now on what we can take away from a Trump-appointed judge’s takedown of Florida’s Stop WOKE Act.
Speaking of pushback on anti-education efforts, here’s Steven W. Thrasher for LitHub on why he’s suing Northwestern University & the U.S. government.
For Dissent magazine, Nick Serpe interviewed Julie C. Suk about her forthcoming book The Shadow Court on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions & the need for reform.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, thanks to Adam Serwer for sharing a gift link to his new Atlantic essay on the majority’s refusal to see evidence of racism.
Thanks to Adam Rothman for sharing a gift link to Charles King’s New York Times essay on what Edward Gibbon’s Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire tells us about America today.
& thanks to Sarah J. Jackson for sharing a gift link to Amanda Su, Emily Holzknecht, & Jan Kobal’s new Times Opinion Video on the struggles of family caregivers for aging parents.
Vital piece from Sara Luterman for 19th News on why SZA’s autism diagnosis is a familiar story for many Black women & girls.
For the Pittsburgh Review of Books, Meredith Nnoka argued that the future is abolition feminist.
As a Jewish American educator & anti-AI stalwart, I really appreciated Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s Life is a Sacred Text post making a Jewish case for AI work exemptions.
& I’ll conclude this section with three excellent Liberal Currents columns: editor Adam Gurri on the heavily armed forces of the federal Jim Crow; Chuck Babbage on how the OMB’s new proposed rule will turn federal grants personalist & partisan; & Christopher Whitaker’s praise for “bureaucracy hacking” & making government work from within.
Podcasts:
For the latest episode of her Unsung History podcast, Kelly Therese Pollock interviewed Leslie Heaphy about the WWII All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. (& for the complementary but also contrasting stories of Japanese American women’s baseball before & during WWII, check out the First & Fourth Innings of my podcast’s second season!)
I missed last week’s episode of Axelbank Reports History & Today, featuring Brian Jay Jones on his book The Capitol: The Surprising Biography of an American Building. & this week Evan talked with David O. Stewart about his book The Democracy We Must Keep: Seven Founders, Nine Documents, & the Ideas That Shaped America.
For the New Books Network’s Revolutionary America podcast, Edward Blum interviewed Robert G. Parkinson about his book Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment & Horror on the Early Frontier.
For the latest episode of the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast, Anna O. Law joined to discuss birthright citizenship, immigration histories, & who gets to be an American.
I missed last week’s episode of Rich Napolitano’s Shipwrecks & Sea Dogs podcast, focused on the War of 1812 Battle of Lake Erie. & this week Rich discussed the WWI sinking & 21C discovery of the US Coast Guard ship Tampa.
For their War of the Rebellion podcast, Niels Eichhorn & Andrew Houck interviewed Mark F. Ehlers about his book Napoleon in America: Bonaparte & the Rhetoric of US Empire.
For the latest episode of her Civics & Coffee podcast, Alycia Asai was joined by Tim Galsworthy to discuss his new book & the politics of Civil War memory.
While the new episode of Jerry Landry’s Presidencies of the United States podcast features Callie Perrone on writing William Henry Harrison: The Musical.
Continuing with cultural conversations, for the latest episode of Emily J. Edwards’ Silver Screen Sleuths podcast she was joined by Meredith Hambrock to discuss Mare of Easttown.
For their TV is Good podcast, Alan Sepinwall & Kathryn VanArendonk wondered whether the new Little House on the Prairie & Deadwood are the same show. (For another fascinating comparative take on Deadwood, check out Vaughn Joy’s Review Roulette piece on the show & Blazing Saddles!)
The new episode of the History As It Happens podcast features Michael Kimmage on what Moby-Dick’s character Starbuck can teach us about democracy.
For her Say It With History podcast, Holley Snaith interviewed Gayle Feldman about Bennett Cerf, Random House, & the making of modern publishing.
Over at his Writer’s Bone podcast, Daniel Ford was joined by Julie Buntin to discuss her new novel Famous Men.
While the Norton Library podcast featured part two of their conversation with translator Ellen Finkelpearl about Apuleius’s The Golden Ass.
I missed last week’s episode of Matt Gabriele’s American Medieval podcast, a conversation with Ada Kuskowski about the medieval f-word (feudalism). & this week, Matt was joined by Surekha Davies to discuss Star Trek & American (medieval) monsters.
For the latest episode of the Cold War Conversations podcast, Richard Lyntton joined to discuss coming face to face with the Srebrenica war criminals.
I missed the return of John Brooks & Kelly Baker’s Pod Only Knows, a conversation with Nitish Pahwa about Pope Leo’s Encyclical.
Continuing with current events conversations, for her New Books Network Academic Life podcast Christina Gessler interviewed Niki Elliott about her book Heart-Centered Connections: Seven Essential Skills for Helping Neurodiverse & Marginalized Children Thrive.
Over at Bradley Onishi’s Axis Daily Brief podcast, Matthew D. Taylor joined to discuss Peter Thiel, the Antichrist, & apocalyptic politics.
For episode 3 of the Labor in the Land podcast, hosts Hector Alvardo & Brian Pearson were joined by union leader Jerry Miluk to discuss Senate Bill 5 & Sonya Rashkovan to talk about collaborative research on AI.
For their Oath & the Office podcast, John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider were joined by Senator Ron Wyden to talk about Trump targeting the press & spying on Americans.
Speaking of Senators, for his America: The Story of the USA podcast Liam Heffernan was joined by a special guest, Bill Bradley, telling his unique but exemplary American story.
Two new installments of Heather Cox Richardson’s American Conversations this week: this one with On Courage co-authors Julia Angwin & Ami Fields-Meyer; & this one with economics professor Justin Wolfers. & Heather’s 250 for 250 video project has dropped more shorts, featuring contributions from Rick Perlstein, Megan Kate Nelson, Kevin M. Levin, & many more.
Finally, I’m excited to share my second conversation with Jenny Chan on the Pacific Front Untold podcast, this one focused on myths & realities of the 14th Amendment & birthright citizenship.
Books:
Out now from Harper Collins is Roopika Risam’s long-awaited Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, & Dominate.
Also out this week from Cambridge University Press is Philippa Carter’s Frenzy in Early Modern England: Madness, Brain Disease, & the Soul.
Likewise new from Cambridge is Andrew J. Huebner & Jennifer D. Keene’s edited collection The Cambridge History of War & Society in America.
& now available on Apple Books is Michael Erard’s The Language Beat: Essays & Reporting on Language & Life.
Two recent publications are now out in paperback: Julia Gaffield’s I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines & Haiti’s Fight for Freedom, from Yale University Press; & Stephen Graham Jones’ historical horror novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, from Simon & Schuster.
Two forthcoming August releases are now available for pre-order, including Molly Farrell’s New World Calculation: The Making of Numbers in Colonial America, from Standford University Press.
& likewise out in August is Yousuf Al-Bulushi, Geo Maher, & Damien M. Sojoyner’s edited collection Reading Black Reconstruction Today from University of California Press.
For Public Books, Eugene R. Sheppard & John Plotz interviewed Shaul Magid about his new book Meir Kahane: The Public Life & Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical.
The Pittsburgh Review of Books shared excerpts from two recent publications: Emily Seyl’s Trinity: An Illustrated History of the World’s First Atomic Test; & Rayelle Davis’ Money in the Mountains: The Cultural Trauma of Appalachia. & also for PRoB, Nicole Yurcaba reviewed Eoghan Walls’ Field Notes from an Extinction.
For the latest USIH book review, Robert Greene II wrote about Reynaldo Anderson’s Afrofuturism & World Order.
Over at Public Books, Michael Knapp reviewed Daniel Sailofsky’s Playing through Pain: The Violent Consequences of Capitalist Sport.
For the Chicago Review of Books, Christopher Bigelow reviewed Sophia Smith Galer’s How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, & the Race to Save Our Words.
Over at Dissent magazine, David Helps reviewed Bench Ansfield’s Born in Flames: The Business of Arson & the Remaking of the American City.
For the 18th installment of her Black Feminist Book Club, Jenn M. Jackson talked about Ruha Benjamin’s Imagination.
For volume 113 of her Maris Review, Maris Kreizman discussed Emeline Atwood’s novel A Real Animal & Pamela Colloff’s Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, & Injustice on the Gulf Coast.
Speaking of new book review spaces, for LitHub Drew Broussard interviewed Josh Cook, bookseller & founder of the important new Porter Square Review of Books. & also at LitHub, check out Tanaz Bhathena on nine feminist mythological reimaginings to read after watching The Odyssey.
Made By History:
Five excellent new pieces for the relaunched Made By History (at the Philadelphia Inquirer) this week: Laura A. Macaluso on why the Liberty Bell’s inscription still rings true; Bryant Simon on his new book & why Philly’s public toilets are so important; Neil J. Young on how history suggests LGBTQ Republicans are making a mistake in the Texas Senate race; Chuck Holden, Jerald Podair, & Zach Messitte on what J.D. Vance has in common with Spiro Agnew; & Zach Battat on what history reveals about the possibility of negotiations with Iran.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
Gonna end with a bunch of great newsletters & blog posts as usual, starting with newsletters that dropped multiple posts this week. At his Looking Through the Past newsletter, George Dillard wrote about both the historical culture known as the Goths & the dark days of the 1870 Siege of Paris.
Three new posts from Karen L. Cox for her America & the Lost Cause newsletter this week: this one on Lindsay Graham’s tap dance with the Lost Cause; this one on how most Confederate monuments never left; & this one on Trump’s election speech & his own Lost Cause.
& four new posts from Kevin M. Levin for his Civil War Memory newsletter this week: this one on why Lindsay Graham abandoned the Confederate Battle Flag; this one on how the Lost Cause landscape was always a Northern product; this one on the changes to Philly’s President’s House & ow we can remember Ona Judge in any case; & this Fort Wagner anniversary post on better remembering the complex realities of Robert Gould Shaw & the 54th.
Turning to other great newsletters & posts from the week, for his newsletter Beau Baumann contextualized Ilan Wurman & other anti-birthright citizenship voices with 1890s xenophobia.
For his A Sea of Words newsletter, Lincoln Paine argued that we need a reckoning with the history of political violence in America.
Over at his Democracy Americana newsletter, Thomas Zimmer made the case for our moment as a world-historic chance to fight for pluralistic democracy.
For The Bulwark, Matt McManus highlighted the Far Right’s ever-evolving catalogue of their enemies.
Over at his newsletter, Robin D.G. Kelley argued that the Left should be paying more attention to Justin Pearson in Tennessee.
Turning to more historical subjects, for her Imperfect Union newsletter Lindsay M. Chervinsky started a new series on the founding principle of civilian control of the military.
For the Scribble Book: A History of Parliament newsletter, Jennifer Davey wrote about historical examples of executive instability in the UK.
The Verbum Libere series on Greek colonization continued with a post on the Adriatic.
The latest installment of Sarah E. Bond’s Pasts Imperfect is a Homer-tastic special, featuring Joel Christensen on his new book Why Odysseus: Survivor, Scoundrel, (Anti)hero, Yoandy Cabrera on Hispanic reimaginings of The Odyssey, & more.
Over at his Liberating Narratives blog, Bram Hubbell wrote about teaching the fur trade & Russia in world history.
For his Local Mythstorian blog, Eli Lewis-Lycett wrote about relics of the cornfield: ritual symbolism & the Moulton Crow Dance.
& a fascinating piece from Chris Lee for the Outside Write newsletter on football during the Spanish Civil War.
For the 20th installment of her Dispatches from the Writing Life, Theresa Kaminski shared that her subject Jane Grant is back in France.
Speaking of returns to France, for his Interminable Rambling column Matthew Teutsch wrote about a second time communing with James Baldwin in Paris.
Gonna end with a bunch of great cultural studies pieces as ever, including Kate Mothes for This is Colossal on John Buck’s pen & ink landscapes on epic wooden panels.
For her History in the Margins blog, Pamela D. Toler wrote about her first time seeing the musical Suffs.
For the LA Review of Books, Huda Fakhreddine shared the uncanny experience of seeing a fictional version of herself on Law & Order.
Fascinating post from Beth Boyle Machlan on her newsletter arguing that Widow’s Bay is about birthright citizenship.
While for Public Books, Hester Blum (co-host of a new podcast on Moby-Dick) argued that Heated Rivalry is the Moby-Dick of Canadian gay hockey shows.
A pair of film essays for the Pittsburgh Review of Books this week: Steven Wingate on Spielberg & Kubrick’s A.I. at 25; & Beryl Satter on Marty Supreme, working-class hero.
Outlaw Vern is always a delight, but some of his reviews hit especially hard in our moment, & that’s the case with his Summer of 1996 retrospective take on Harriet the Spy.
The Bright Wall/Dark Room issue on 1976 continued with Amber Sparks on why the King Kong remake is good, actually.
Speaking of 1976 classics, I loved Vaughn Joy’s latest Review Roulette post, on Bingo Long’s Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings & the Empire Strikes Back reunion of Billy Dee Williams & James Earl Jones.
While for his latest Academic Bubble newsletter, Dion Georgiou shared some of his work in progress on Ugandan refugee turned Conservative politician Ravi Govindia.
& if you want more public scholarly goodness, check out the 62nd installment of Dion’s Stop, Look, & Listen newsletter.
Finally, if you’ve got thoughts of your own to share, check out the CPF for the 2027 African American Intellectual History Society conference in Boston!
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, & happy reading, listening, & learning, all!
Leave a Reply