Here it is, my 247th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all!
First, a reminder to subscribe on the new site to make sure you can get these threads & all this great public scholarship every week!
Articles:
Starting with a couple great pieces to get you ready for Halloween, including Alison G. Laurence for Contingent magazine on the Festival of Monsters at UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Monster Studies.
While David S. Rotenstein wrote for his Pittsburgh City Paper column on how mobsters turned the city’s streets into a giant fright house.
Turning to other favorite writing from the week, Grant Wong wrote for the AHA’s Perspectives blog on what he’s learned in the Punk magazine archives.
Fun piece from Greg McKevitt for the BBC on what made Little Richard’s groundbreaking hit “Tutti Frutti” so risqué.
Really enjoyed Arielle Gray’s concluding piece in WBUR’s three-part series on how Black artist Allan Rohan Crite built an artistic family in Boston.
Danny Robb wrote for JSTOR Daily on how Charles Darwin’s origin points as a geologist trained his scientific thinking.
It’s from a few weeks back, but I missed this excellent Angela Murphy post for the Journal of the Early Republic’s Panorama blog on the Underground Railroad & the politics of everyday care.
Two open-access academic articles to share this week, including Erica Buchberger for the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies on what we can learn about local identity in the Lives of the Fathers of Mérida.
Also open-access is Julia Laite in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society on four overlapping but also competing maps of Newfoundland in the late 18th & early 19th centuries.
Speaking of academic articles, check out this University of California Press interview with Nicole Martin on her award-winning article “The Indian, Chinese, & Mormon Questions: The American Home & Reconstruction Politics in the West.”
For Grad students & other interested folks, Clio & the Contemporary have shared the first two installments in their series on Comprehensive Exams, including Summer Perritt on what comps are & Keanu Heydari on preparing for comps.
Three pieces from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including the latest Common Threads column from Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, on how feminists used witch imagery in 1968 Wall Street protests.
Also for the Post’s pre-Halloween coverage, check out Jill Robbins on a road trip through Haunted Kansas.
& I enjoyed Jeanne Wolf’s Post interview with the legendary Ken Burns on the occasion of his new documentary about the American Revolution.
Speaking of Burns’s documentary, here’s Jennifer Schuessler for the New York Times Arts section on the film & its filmmaker (that’s a gift link).
Current Events:
Turning to current events public scholarly writing, here’s Zeb Larson for DAME magazine on the GOP’s movement for a 21st century Jim Crow.
Bracing & vital reporting from Lauren Gill for Bolts magazine on Alabama’s hugely controversial imminent execution of Anthony Boyd.
For the latest issue of Hammer & Hope magazine, Maya Meredith interviewed five Black New Yorkers about their experiences with the Mamdani campaign, inside & out.
Thanks to Walter D Greason for sharing Eric Roston’s Bloomberg article (featuring photographs from Mike Belleme) on disaster recovery as big business in 2025.
For his Daily Heller column for Print magazine, Steven Heller interviewed curator B.A. Van Sise about their new multimedia exhibition on Fascist Italy.
For a model of resisting fascism, here’s Ben Schwartz for The Nation on history lessons for the new Committee for the First Amendment.
For another such model, here are Kellie Carter Jackson & Nicole Hemmer for The Guardian on their American history teach-in at the Smithsonian.
Fascinating editorial from Rose Harris-Birtill for the Open Library of the Humanities journal on lessons from the first decade of the Open Library of Humanities.
& I really enjoyed this 60 Minutes interview with artist Amy Sherald on the critical patriotism that led her to cancel her Smithsonian exhibition.
Podcasts:
Tons of new podcast episodes this week, including the latest for Kelly Therese Pollock’s Unsung History featuring Amy Erdman Farrell on the history of the Girl Scouts.
For the latest episode of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past, she interviewed Raphael Cormack on how he makes meaning from unreliable sources.
Episode 423 of Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World podcast features Zara Anishanslin on forgotten artists of the American Revolution.
The latest episode of Alycia Asai’s Civics & Coffee podcast tells the story of the South’s devastating 1878 yellow fever epidemic.
For episode 188 of Axelbank Reports History & Today, Evan interviewed Julia Azari on her book Backlash Presidents: Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History.
The latest episode of Liam Heffernan’s America: A History podcast features Camilla Townsend on the story & legacy of Pocahontas.
For the latest episode of Mainely History, hosts Ian Saxine & Tiffany Link interviewed Don Hudson, one of the Appalachian Trail’s early architects, about that trail’s story.
For the new episode of the Midwestern History Association’s Heartland History podcast, hosts Josh Kluever & Kevin Mason interviewed David Hakensen on his book Her Place in the Woods: The Life of Helen Hoover.
For the debut episode of their Historias podcast, Renata Keller & Dustin Walcher discussed their goals for this new audiodocumentary on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Speaking of Renata Keller, she also appeared on the American History Hit podcast to discuss the alternate history where the Crisis sparked a world war.
For episode 64 of his Holocaust History podcast, Waitman Beorn interviewed Nicholas Milton on the ornithologist who became a guard at Auschwitz.
Over at the Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs podcast, host Rich Napolitano was joined once again by Anthony Cummins, the modern-day pirate known as Captain Tonz.
Turning to current events podcasts, for episode 7 of This Ain’t It hosts Melissa & Matthew Teutsch discussed the myth of Christian persecution.
For the new episode of the Scholar Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast, Lina-Maria Murillo discussed the past, present, & future of reproductive care.
For her Freedom Over Fascism podcast, Stephanie G. Wilson interviewed Groundwork Agency creator Aviv Russ about political authenticity on social media.
Speaking of Stephanie, she also rejoined Banner & Backbone for another installment of their Anti Fascist Book Club.
For the latest episode of their The Oath & the Office podcast, John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider discussed universities fighting back against Trump.
While for the latest episode of the This Old Democracy podcast, Micah Sifry interviewed ABA Task Force on American Democracy member Tom Rogers about their landmark new report.
Made By History & Black Perspectives:
Three excellent new posts for Time’s Made By History blog, this week, including Denise Lynn on Paul Robeson & how taking away passports only makes activists more determined.
Christine Adams wrote for Made By History on what French Revolution history reveals about how not to resolve political differences.
& here’s Samuel Huneke for Made By History on a warning about political violence from the Weimar Republic.
While over at the AAIHS’s Black Perspectives blog, Ashley Everson interviewed Sophia Monegro about her new article on the origins of Black feminist thought in the Americas.
Books:
Lots of important new books published this week, including Dan Sinykin & Johanna Winant’s long-awaited collection Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century from Princeton University Press.
Chris Yogerst has a newly published entry on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in the University of New Mexico Press’s Reel West Series.
The UNC Press blog shared seven new releases this week, including Justin Randolph’s Mississippi Law, René Esparaz’s From Vice to Nice: Midwestern Politics & the Gentrification of AIDS, & many more.
Speaking of new releases, thanks to Bluesky’s Dr. Michelle for sharing this Book Riot post on a ton of books published this week.
Two already-published books are newly available as open-access, including Michael Roy’s Young Abolitionists: Children of the Antislavery Movement from NYU Press.
Also now open-access is Sarah J. Zimmerman’s Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire from Ohio University Press.
Forthcoming this coming Tuesday 10/28 is Jonathan S. Jones’s Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans & America’s First Opioid Crisis from UNC Press.
Also forthcoming next week, on 11/1, is Samuel Holley-Kline’s In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico from University of Nebraska Press.
Forthcoming on 11/17 from De Gruyter Brill is my awesome wife Vaughn Joy’s Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy.
While forthcoming on 11/20 from University of South Carolina Press is Tim Galsworthy’s The Republican House Divided: Civil War Memory, Civil Rights, & the Transformation of the GOP.
Check out this excerpt in The Conversation from Renata Keller’s recently published The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis & the Hemispheric Cold War.
& the folks at the Pittsburgh Review of Books also have an excerpt from an important new book, Julian Brave Noisecat’s We Survived the Night.
For the latest USIH book review, Daniel S. Holt wrote about Gerald Gamm & Steven S. Smith’s Steering the Senate: The Emergence of Party Organization & Leadership, 1789-2024.
For the International Journal of Comic Art’s blog, Matthew Teutsch reviewed the new graphic novel Erased: An Actor of Color’s Journey Through the Heyday of Hollywood.
& I really enjoyed this Maris Kreizman piece for LitHub on authors can’t let the publishing industry get us down.
Newsletters & Blog Posts:
Gonna end with lots of great new newsletters & blog posts as usual, including Jonathan V. Last for The Bulwark on why we will have to tear down the Trump ballroom.
On that same subject, here’s Seth Masket for his Tusk newsletter on why it hurts so much to watch the East Wing get torn up.
Errin Haines & Amanda Becker wrote for 19th News on how First Ladies made history in that now-demolished East Wing.
& Rachel King likewise offered a brief history of the East Wing for Town and Country magazine.
Elsewhere in current events newsletters, here’s William Horne for his In Case of Emergency on the politics of public defiance, protest, & celebration.
Here’s Mona Eltahawy for her Feminist Giant on seven necessary sins for women looking to defy & disrupt the patriarchy.
Sammy Roth wrote for his Climate Colored Goggles site on why he left the LA Times to start a newsletter about climate & culture.
Wonderful piece from Nicole Carr for her newsletter on how history greeted HBCU graduates returning for Homecoming this past week.
On a similar note, here’s Harry Dunn for his Standing Our Ground newsletter on reflections from JMU’s Homecoming & the #NoKings rally.
While Jenn M. Jackson wrote for her Love Notes newsletter on memory, mourning, & mattering on October 14th, the birthday of both Charlie Kirk & George Floyd.
For the October 25th installment of her Letters from an American newsletter, Heather Cox Richardson highlighted vital 1930s contexts for programs being ended here in 2025.
Continuing with more historically focused newsletters, Lindsay M. Chervinsky shared part one of a new series at her Imperfect Union on Presidents & the press.
For his Civil War Memory newsletter, Kevin M. Levin highlighted Lincoln’s important completion of the Capitol Building during the Civil War.
Excellent new piece from Bram Hubbell for his Liberating Narratives site on why it’s time to stop using phrases like the “Age of Discovery” or “Age of Exploration.”
Over at the Ideas Roadshow they shared an interview with Andrew Wallace-Hadrill on his new book on Herculaneum & the politics of archaeology.
I enjoyed this Secretary of Defense Rock piece for the History Does You newsletter on the myth of Allied technology inferiority in World War II.
Wonderful piece from Asher Elbein for Heat Death on scrapbook cartoons & poems from students & scholars at the dawn of prehistory (go for the triceratops drawing, stay for the rest).
Gonna end with great cultural studies pieces as ever, including Matthew Teutsch for his Interminable Rambling blog on defying reality in S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed.
Benjamin Svetkey wrote for The Hollywood Reporter on the losses of Robert Redford & Diane Keaton, & the twilight of the Hollywood gods.
Great stuff as ever from Benjamin Dreyer for his A Word About… newsletter, this time for the 100th birthday of Angela Lansbury.
For his Academic Bubble newsletter, Dion Georgiou wrote about class, religion, & the detective genre in Honey Don’t!, the second installment in Ethan Coen & Tricia Cooke’s “lesbian B-movie trilogy.”
& for the fourth installment of the Monster Mash Spooky Season series at her Review Roulette newsletter, Vaughn Joy wrote about the psychology of Hitchcock’s The Birds.
I’ll end with a new newsletter well worth checking out, lawyer & public policy expert Andrea R. Flores’s America’s Promise.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing & work, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Thanks & happy reading, listening, & learning, all!
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