Here it is, my 244th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more in comments below, share as widely as possible, & thanks, all!
Also a reminder that this is the second thread to be shared on my wife Vaughn Joy & my new public scholarly website, Black & White & Read All Over. If you like what we’re doing over here & are so inclined, please subscribe (& also feel free to share your news for the Announcements page)!
Articles:
Starting with some favorite writing from the week as usual, including Miami University of Ohio’s multimedia interview with alum Leanna Renee Hieber about her new co-authored book America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger Than Fiction.
Check out the latest entry in the Urban History Association’s Metropole blog’s Graduate Student Blogging Contest, Alexandra Miller on pyrotechnic New York youth at the turn of the 20th century.
Wonderful piece for the History Workshop’s Indigenous Historical Practices series, Shelley Angelie Saggar on how recipes help us remember the relationship between the Choctaw and the Irish.
& the folks at Literary Hub excerpted Martha A. Sandweiss’s important new book The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West, now available from Princeton University Press.
Speaking of recovered Western histories, vital reporting from Jenna McMurtry for NPR on Rock Springs, Wyoming’s new monument that memorializes its 1885 mass lynching.
Turning to other great public scholarly writing from the week, here’s Suzuko Morikawa for Clio and the Contemporary on the 50th anniversary of the Thrilla in Manila.
I dedicated my weeklong blog series to that anniversary as well, starting with this post on the entangled and fraught relationship between boxing and American history.
Thoughtful & important Los Angeles Review of Books essay from Jake Romm on artistic depictions of genocide & religious violence over the centuries.
Lots of great essays over at the new Pittsburgh Review of Books this week, but I’ll highlight Eric Lehman on lessons from a writing retreat at Rudyard Kipling’s Vermont home.
Two wonderful pieces from Danny Robb for JSTOR Daily to share this week, including this one on mid-20th century debates over whether bees expressed language through motion.
& also check out Robb’s piece on the 120th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’s breakthrough moment & invention in 1905 Dayton.
Likewise two posts for the AHA’s Perspectives blog to share this week, including Andrew Hardy making the vital case that universities are public history sites.
On a similar but complementary note, Tom Vance wrote for Perspectives on organizational history as a scholarly & strategic resource.
I really enjoyed the chance to get a glimpse into America at 250: A History, the special class that Joanne Freeman, David Blight, & Beverly Gage are teaching at Yale (recordings of the lectures are available for free through that site!).
& speaking of legendary historians, thanks to Kidada E. Williams for sharing The Stranger’s obituary for Quintard Taylor Jr., the preeminent scholar of Seattle’s Black history.
Four pieces from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Selina Alipour Tabrizi on Frank Epperson, the boy who accidentally invented the popsicle 120 years ago.
Amy S. Eckert wrote for the Post on the 100th anniversary of the initial radio broadcast that launched the Grand Ole Opry.
Speaking of historic recordings, check out Donald Liebenson’s Post interview with Frank Sinatra expert Charles L. Granata on newly-released 1940s recordings.
& I really enjoyed young Connor Brownfield’s Post interview with Stan Zimmerman, a long-time comedy writer & producer of such classic shows as The Golden Girls & Gilmore Girls.
Current Events:
Turning to current events, a number of thoughtful pieces this week on the Charlie Kirk memorial, including Nikole Hannah-Jones for the New York Times Magazine (that’s a gift link) on the mainstreaming of extremist views.
Tressie McMillan Cottom also wrote for The New York Times (likewise a gift link) on the memorial, focusing on the idea of forced mourning.
While Chanhee Heo wrote for Religion Dispatches on what the Kirk memorial in Seoul reveals about Christian Nationalism & young Korean activists.
Jamelle Bouie’s New York Times column is always a must-read, including this installment on the realities vs. the myths of Trump’s 2024 electoral victory.
Great essay from Heather Paterson for her Medium column on the ongoing evolution of language on sexuality & gender.
& to end this section with an especially inspiring entry, I really love how Sarah Pawlicki recreated her now-censored National Park Service work with the Women’s History Illuminated project (h/t Cate Denial for sharing this resource).
Podcasts:
Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest for the Sociology of Everything podcast, part one of two with Bradley Campbell on Gaza & genocide as social control.
& I also missed the return of the Sociology of Everything folks after a hiatus, this recent episode on Donald MacKenzie & Judy Wajcman’s Social Shaping of Technology, featuring Wajcman herself!
For the latest episode of her Civics & Coffee podcast, Alycia Asai discussed the myths & histories of Louisiana voodoo.
Check out this recording of a recent History Workshop conversation on the hidden history of paperwork, featuring Liesbeth Corens, Kathleen Commons, Ansar Ahmed Ullah, Sameen A. Mohsin Ali, & Liz Wood.
For the latest episode of the AHA’s History in Focus, they revisit a 2022 essay on Okinawa with its collaborative creators, historian Alexis Dudden & graphic artist Kim Inthavong.
The History on Film podcast continued its second season with an interview with Josh Shepperd about his recent book on the history & value of public media.
Tracy Slater continues her book talk tour for her new book Together in Manzanar with a conversation on the Jewish Women’s Archive podcast.
Episode 6 of the Strange Land Book Club podcast celebrates Banned Book Week with a focus on Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
While episode 62 of Waitman Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast discusses dehumanization & genocide with David Livingstone Smith.
Two recordings from Stephanie G. Wilson’s Freedom Over Fascism to share this week, including a conversation with social media historian Lindsay Winslow on historical myths.
& Stephanie also shared her conversation with the folks from Banner & Backstone for their Anti-Fascist Book Club podcast.
Also two episodes of Liam Heffernan’s America: A History podcast this week, including VA surgeon Craig Miller joining to discuss the groundbreaking Doctor Charles Drew.
& Liam also shared the latest installment of his In the Making current events series, talking with Emma Long about the attacks on late-night TV.
Continuing with current events conversations, the latest episode of Leah Litman & Kate Shaw’s Strict Scrutiny podcast features Sherrilyn Ifill & Jamelle Bouie on the histories & current realities of the Supreme Court.
For the new episode of John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider’s The Oath & the Office podcast, they were joined by Malcolm Nance to discuss James Comey, the shutdown, & more.
While Episode 6 of Melissa & Matthew Teutsch’s This Ain’t It podcast focuses on banned books, critical thinking, & education battles.
& I have to end this section with a personal favorite, the new episode of Jennifer van Alstyne’s The Social Academic podcast, featuring my wife Vaughn Joy & me on our new public scholarly website!
Made By History:
Three important new pieces for Time’s Made By History this week, including Samantha Barbas on why the U.S. doesn’t ban hate speech.
Also for Made By History, here’s Jennifer L. Foray on lessons from Anne Frank’s story about statelessness & deportations.
& finally for Made By History, this 20-year public university professor really appreciates Deepa Das Acevedo on what academic tenure is really about.
Books
A few new scholarly books out this week, including my Fitchburg State colleague Michael Hoberman’s latest, Imagining Early American Jews from Oxford University Press.
Also out this week, as mentioned above, is Leanna Renee Hieber & Andrea Janes’s America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction from Penguin Random House.
& also newly released & open-access from Cambridge University Press is The Experience of Work in Early Modern England from co-authors Jane Whittle, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb, & Taylor Aucoin.
A trio of forthcoming books available for pre-order to share, including my wife Vaughn Joy’s Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy from De Gruyter Brill.
I’m very excited that David M. Perry’s The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook is also available for pre-order from Johns Hopkins University Press.
& also now available for pre-order is Gautham Rao’s must-anticipated White Power: Policing American Slavery from UNC Press.
I enjoyed this Brooklyn Rail conversation with Brian Harnetty about his new book Noisy Memory, also from UNC Press.
& check out the latest USIH book review, Kit Candlin on Jeff Eleff’s The Greatest of All Time: A History of an American Obsession.
Newsletters & Blogs:
Gonna end with a ton of great newsletters & blog posts as ever, including the relaunch of Thomas Zimmer’s vital (& well worth a subscription) Democracy Americana.
Here’s the October 2025 installment of Jack El-Hai’s excellent Damn History newsletter.
For her Burns Notice newsletter, Katelyn Burns responded to Ezra Klein & others by arguing that there’s no possible compromise on trans rights.
Adam Bonica argued the same for his On Data & Democracy newsletter, making the case that we can’t expand the tent by shrinking it.
While for her Degenerate Art newsletter, Andrea Pitzer used that debate to argue that we have to know what our core beliefs are before we can talk middle grounds.
Joyce Vance wrote for her Civil Discourse newsletter on how the 1st Amendment & the courts are punching back against censorship.
Over at his Doomsday Scenario newsletter, Garrett Graff highlighted how ICE has recently escalated its already extreme “Kavanaugh Raids”.
For her October 2nd Letters from an American newsletter, Heather Cox Richardson also responded to that horrific ICE raid in Chicago.
& for The Bulwark’s newsletter, Adrian Carrasquillo wrote a great piece about the exciting news that Bad Bunny will be headlining the Super Bowl halftime show.
For his The Tenure Track newsletter, Etienne Toussaint wrote about why every scholar needs to tell their own story with purpose & power.
Speaking of telling our own stories, Ellie Leonard shared the first chapter of her important upcoming memoir Death of a Mayfly.
Really beautiful post from Jonathan Parkes Allen for his Deep Time & Doxology newsletter on finding early modern histories & fossil fuels in Navajo legacies.
Gonna end with awesome cultural studies work as usual, including Fran Wilde interviewing contemporary crime authors for Crime Reads on the heist or caper debate.
For the September Books edition of his Criterion Collection column, David Hudson highlighted a ton of important new Film Studies work.
For the latest essay from Bright Wall/Dark Room’s volume on cinematic teachers, Elizabeth Cantwell wrote about Slap Shot.
& for her latest Review Roulette newsletter (& the first new one hosted on our Black & White & Read All Over website), Vaughn Joy starts spooky season with a wonderful piece on The Hunchback of Notre Dame & the real monsters among us.
Finally, if you want even more public scholarly goodness, check out the 51st installment of Dion Georgiou’s Stop, Look, & Listen for his Academic Bubble newsletter.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing & work, podcasts, new & forthcoming books in comments below–& make sure to check out everything on our new website & to share your own news for our Announcements page!
PPS. After I completed the thread, Bluesky user Helenaluna shared this bracing & important article on how rural Missouri hospitals built during the New Deal are being shut down.
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