Here it is, my 243rd #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share widely, & enjoy, all!
First, an important & exciting announcement for folks used to reading these threads on Substack—my wife Vaughn Joy & I have a new public scholarly website, Black & White & Read All Over, & these threads will be fully migrating over here.
I don’t imagine I have to articulate the issues that have arisen with Substack over the last couple years. The bottom line is that we wanted to create a space where we can have more say in what & who we support, & where the work of community & solidarity that I hope these threads have embodied for more than five years can go on in a way that exemplifies our best rather than connects to our worst.
We’re also excited to be able to host our respective public scholarship in this shared space of ours, & we’d love to feature your announcements here too as we move forward. So check it out, & if you subscribed to my #ScholarSunday Substack, please consider subscribing (it will still & always be free to do so) here!
[Also note, as these threads are migrating to this new website, the work that I’m sharing will be hyperlinked, rather than separate links. Make sure to click through to check out all this great work!]
Articles:
Starting this week’s thread with a handful of excellent open-access academic articles (the only kind of journal articles I prefer to share in this space), including Katherine A. Durante, Ariel L. Roddy, & Eman Tadros for the Journal of Criminal Justice on health factors for women with incarcerated partners.
Also open-access is Teona Williams for the Journal of Historical Geography on Alice Walker & the preservation of Black women’s history in the Mississippi freedom movement of 1968-70.
Likewise open-access is Simon P. Newman for the Law and History Review on how the end of slavery in Britain was taken not given.
Here’s Rachel Collett for Modern British History on the Capenhurst Women’s Peace Camp of 1982-83 & nuclear resistance.
Speaking of British history, I really enjoyed this open-access History Workshop Journal roundtable on teaching public history in Britain today, featuring Katie Carpenter, David Geiringer, Anna Maguire, & Julia Laite.
& for the final of these open-access articles, here’s Samuel R. Bagenstos’s open-access article for the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform on science & politics in public health regulation.
Turning to other public scholarly writing from the week, a trio of pieces from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share, including Robert Gould on his father John Fleming Gould’s prolific illustrations for the Post in the mid-20th century.
Speaking of Post illustrators, I always enjoy Jeff Nilsson’s Rockwell Files pieces, including this latest one on Norman Rockwell’s painting of a turn-of-the-century buggy ride.
Just a couple days before Johnny Appleseed’s birthday, Jen Rose Smith wrote for the Post on a contemporary fruit detective finding clues to living history.
& for my own latest Considering History column, I was honored to have the chance to celebrate Bruce Springsteen’s birthday with a piece on two mid-90s albums that both foreshadowed the worst of where we are & modeled how we can fight for a more perfect union.
Speaking of Bruce albums, I recently discovered Caryn Rose’s Radio Nowhere site, & loved her most recent piece, part of a series on the Born to Run 50th anniversary symposium.
& if you’ll allow me one more Bruce item, I very much enjoyed Eric Cortellessa’s Time magazine interview with the Boss in anticipation of the new film biopic.
Elsewhere in great public scholarly writing from the week, Jonathan Burdick wrote for the Erie Reader on the compelling Canada Lee’s path from boxer to theater legend.
For Carson Now, here’s Kelsey Penrose on Jacob Davis, the mid-19th century Reno tailor who stitched the future of American style.
Elise Cutts wrote for Science News on Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, the maverick astronomer who forever changed our concept of the stars.
Great stuff from April White for JSTOR Daily on Augusta Baker, the legendary children’s librarian of Harlem.
& Mother Jones shared an excerpt from Susanne Paola Antonetta’s bracing new book on the forgotten history of disabled children under Nazism.
Current Events:
Turning to current events, Jonathan Thompson wrote in Mother Jones on the imminent dismantling of the US Forest Service:
Adrienne Matei wrote for The Guardian on the “trad wife” movement & how fascist strongmen rely on women at home.
Vital work from Sam Rutherford for the History Workshop on how we can & must imagine trans futures.
Inspiring reporting for NPR’S Morning Edition on how “citizen historians” Jim Millward, Chandra Manning, & colleagues are working to document the Smithsonian before it is erased.
Speaking of such attacks, bracing & crucial piece from Robert Post for Verfassungsblog’s US Democracy Under Threat series on the turn against free speech.
& I’ll end this section with two excellent Boston Review essays, including Shiri Pasternak on how the state uses lists & deputized citizens to enforce its will.
/& Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò wrote for Boston Review on why Ezra Klein is wrong about the need for shame if we are to live together.
Podcasts:
Lots of new podcast episodes to share this week, including the latest for Kelly Therese Pollock’s Unsung History, featuring Keisha N. Blain on Marguerite Cartwright & Black women’s leadership.
Episode 19 of Jim Ambuske’s Worlds Turned Upside Down has dropped, focusing on pre-Revolutionary peace negotiations featuring Ben Franklin & many others.
Speaking of Franklin, here’s episode 421 of Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World, featuring Greg Brooking on loyalism & revolution in Georgia.
Over at Niels Eichhorn & Andrew Houck’s War of the Rebellion podcast, they were joined by James Robbin Jewell & Eugene S. Van Sickle to talk about their edited memoir of a 54th Massachusetts officer.
The latest episode of Alycia Asai’s Civics & Coffee podcast focuses on the brutal late 19th-century Modoc War.
The new season of Southern Labor Studies’ Working History podcast kicked off with Dave Anderson interviewing Aimee Loiselle about her book Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican & Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class.
For episode 491 of Brendan O’Meara’s Creative Nonfiction podcast, he talked with Tracy Slater about her new book Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp.
Speaking of Tracy, also check out this recording of her book talk for the Museum of Jewish Heritage, moderated by Alex Chester-Iwata.
For the latest episode of The Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast, Cathleen D. Cahill interviewed her cohost Boyd Cothran about his new book The Voyage of the Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization.
Speaking of nautical histories, the latest episode of the Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs podcast features Alfred Dockery from Blue Ridge True Crime talking about a 2017 murder aboard a private submarine.
For episode 186 of Axelbank Reports History & Today, Evan interviewed Seth Wickersham on his new book American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback.
& speaking of sports histories, check out this recorded roundtable for the British Society of Sports History Conference on 30 years of sports history at De Montfort University, featuring Heather Dichter, Richard Holt, & former students Melinda Reid & Tom Fabian among others.
The folks at The History on Film podcast kicked off season two with The Feral Historian discussing three films that portray “the end of history.”
Two episodes of Liam Heffernan’s America: A History podcast to share this week, including a conversation with Emma Long, Rebecca Fraser, & Nicholas Grant on the Westinghouse Time Capsules & how we might use that medium to engage with our own histories.
& I also appreciated Liam’s Bonus episode on why we should all watch the new Netflix docuseries Katrina: Hell and High Water.
Before we leave Katrina’s 20th anniversary behind, I’ll also re-share my Saturday Evening Post Considering History column on some of the many ways that tragedy foreshadowed our own moment.
Matthew and Melissa Teutsch shared the fourth episode of their new This Ain’t It podcast, focused on Christian Fascism.
For the latest episode of their The Oath & the Office podcast, John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider discussed how Trump & Pam Bondi are coming for free speech.
Over at the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast, Monnica Chan joined to discuss the new realities of college debt.
& I’ll end this section with the inspiring Perseverentia podcast created by students at my institution, Fitchburg State University, & an episode where students discuss how world languages can bridge communities.
Made By History:
Three excellent pieces for Time’s Made By History to share this week, including Aniko Bodroghkozy on how & why we used to be spared assassination videos.
Keisha N. Blain wrote for Made By History on Aretha B. McKinley & all the Black women who knew that civil rights were human rights.
& here’s Bob Crawford for Made By History on how John Quincy Adams’s fight to overturn the “gag rule” offers lessons for today.
Books:
A number of important new books were published this week, including Theo Riofrancos’s Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism from WW Norton.
Two new publications from UNC Press this week, including Anne E. Marshall’s Cassius Marcellus Clay: The Life of an Antislavery Slaveholder & the Paradox of American Reform.
Also out from UNC this week is Erika Pani’s Torn Asunder: Republican Crises & Civil Wars in the United States & Mexico, 1848-1867.
Speaking of the Civil War, likewise out this week is John F. Marszalek’s annotated edition of The Memoirs of General William Tecumseh Sherman from Harvard University Press.
Thanks to Robin Mitchell for sharing a recent publication that I missed, Ogechukwu Ezekwem Williams’s Birth Politics: Colonial Power, Medical Pluralism, & Maternity in Nigeria from Johns Hopkins University Press.
Also out now & fully open-access is John Goodridge & Adam Bridgen’s anthology British Working-Class & Radical Writing 1700 from the University of London Press.
Forthcoming October 7th is Joshua Clark Davis’s Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle & the Activists Who Fought Back from Princeton University Press.
& also forthcoming & available for pre-order is my awesome wife Vaughn Joy’s Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy from De Gruyter Brill.
Over at the new Pittsburgh Review of Books, Cynthia Paces reflected on writing her new book Prague: The Heart of Europe, available now from Oxford University Press.
For the latest USIH book review, Miles Yu wrote about Paul W. Schroeder’s posthumous essay collection America’s Fatal Leap, 1991-2016.
While for the latest author Q&A at her History in the Margins site, Pamela D. Toler chatted with Andrea Friederici Ross on her latest book, Sisters of Influence: A Biography of Zina, Amy, & Rose Fay.
Newsletters/Blog Posts:
I’ll end with a bunch of great newsletters & posts as usual, starting with a thoughtful Democracy Americana piece from another public scholar who is leaving Substack, Thomas Zimmer.
Speaking of supporting public scholars in new moves, make sure to register for Karen Attiah’s Resistance Summer School (Fall 2025 edition).
For her Imperfect Union newsletter, Lindsay M. Chervinsky wrote about one change that might help us fix our broken system.
While for his On Data & Democracy newsletter, Adam Bonica wrote about how Democrats have to reform in order to be the anti-corruption party they need to be.
Kevin M. Levin’s Civil War Memory newsletter remains a must-read, including this witty piece reminding Trump about the limits of removing statues.
While for a far more serious historical erasure, Heather Cox Richardson, whose book on the Wounded Knee massacre is more vital than ever, wrote for her Letters from an American newsletter on Hegseth, Wounded Knee, & more.
Jessica Pishko wrote for her Posse Comitatus newsletter on who does & doesn’t get to be a victim of “political violence.”
While Jenn M. Jackson wrote for her Love Notes newsletter on why we need to also hold white women accountable for white male violence.
Over at her Feminist Giant newsletter, Mona Eltahawy paid tribute to the recently passed Assata Shakur (with a more extended tribute forthcoming).
For his Liberating Narratives blog, here’s Bram Hubbell on five resources for teaching or learning about the Haitian Revolution.
Ideas Roadshow continued his series on the Italian Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola with a thoughtful exploration of feminism.
Really powerful essay from Benjamin Charles Germain Lee for Longreads on the fraught use of AI to preserve memories & voices of Holocaust survivors.
Saul Elbein wrote movingly for Heat Death on the loss of a Peruvian whitewater guide & much more.
While Molly Templeton wrote for Reactor magazine on form, function, & the sentences we writers collect.
Speaking of, here’s part two of Benjamin Dreyer’s witty-and-wise-as-ever Diary of a Mad Copy Editor at his A Word About… newsletter.
Over at his Freedom Papers newsletter, Etienne Toussaint offered the third part of his & Robert Monson’s poetic journey through Sinners.
Concluding with great cultural studies writing as ever, here’s Chris Yogerst for his Adventures in the Archive newsletter on how we got the modern soundtrack (& created the “Washington Wives” revolt against music).
I also wrote about the Washington Wives & the 1985 music labeling hearings for my AmericanStudier blog last week.
Wonderful piece from Ruth Joffre for Bright Wall/Dark Room on the great Stand and Deliver (1988).
For his Academic Bubble newsletter, Dion Georgiou wrote about lessons about the pandemic & our own moment from the new show Eddington.
I couldn’t agree more with Tomas Leach for his Little Scraps of Filmmaking newsletter on the responsibility & necessity of cinema-going.
& while you’re watching those movies (wherever you do), make sure to keep in mind the many methodological lenses that my wife Vaughn Joy shared for her Review Roulette newsletter (now on our new site!).
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more public scholarly goodness of all kinds, in comments here or through the email at our new site’s Contact Us page. Thanks, & happy reading, listening, & learning, all!
PPS. Saw this excellent essay from Matthew Teutsch and Emma Williams on Lillian E. Smith and Christian Fascism after I completed the thread, but need to add it as well!
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