It’s November, and like Mariah it’s time for my 248th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week to be defrosted. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all!
A reminder that these threads are now featured on my wife Vaughn Joy & my Black & White & Read All Over public scholarly website. We’re trying to model an independent space for our work & all of yours too, so make sure to subscribe (for free) to support us, & thanks!
Articles:
Starting with a pair of excellent articles for the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal’s opening, including Daniel Macfarlane for the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE).
While Danny Robb wrote for JSTOR Daily on the Canal’s anniversary & how the waterway altered the economic landscape of the Northeast U.S.
& over at my own public scholarly AmericanStudier blog, last week’s series was dedicated to figures who helped built & develop the Erie Canal.
Speaking of my blog, I’m excited to share the first Guest Post for the new Black & White & Read All Over site, Regina Mills on Carmen Sandiego & Latinx representation in video games.
Couple other great video game studying pieces this week as well, including Bret Devereaux for his Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry blog on first impressions of the new Europa Universalis V.
While for the aforementioned NiCHE & their series Playing Inside: Board Games, Video Games, & the Indoors, Candice Allmark-Kent wrote about unsettling settlement in Fallout 4.
Continuing with that theme and turning to other great writing from the week, here’s a gift link to Ned Blackhawk’s Atlantic essay on how Native nations shaped the American Revolution.
While Howard W. French wrote for The Wall Street Journal on the complex role of slavery in building America’s wealth.
For the Journal of the Early Republic’s Panorama blog, Reeve Huston followed up their JER article “Politics as Plural Noun” with further thoughts on that Early Republic subject.
For Literary Hub, here’s James Fox on how the Chiltern Hills woodsmen can help us rediscover the lost arts of the English woodlands.
Fascinating essay from Mason Stockstill for the Pittsburgh Review of Books on why the new PRoB podcast Third Person Limited will explore the vital role of point-of-view.
Equally fascinating essay from Noah McCormack for The Baffler on how the history of literacy is also the history of class.
David S. Rotenstein wrote for Link Northern Kentucky on how repair day will beautify & preserve the historic Eastside Covington neighborhood.
& speaking of Rotenstein, he also contributed a Halloween column to the Pittsburgh City Paper on the gangland intrigue behind the city’s “most haunted house.”
Also a pair of Halloween special articles from monsters expert Surekha Davies, including this essay for Smithsonian magazine on the enormous 16th century Portuguese panel painting Hell.
While Davies also wrote for Aeon on how we’ve long used the category “monster” to eject individuals and groups from being respected as fully human.
A trio of columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Jeff Nilsson on how AI is creating a new era of physiognomy.
Ryan Reft wrote for the Post on how anti-Semitism is a necessary context for understanding the trial, conviction, & lynching of Leo Frank.
Finally for the Post, Lanee Lee visited & offered a first look at the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream in Washington.
Current Events:
Turning to current events public scholarly writing, Adam Chandler wrote for The Handbasket on how we often get so much wrong in our conversations about SNAP benefits.
While for his New York Times column (that’s a gift link), Jamelle Bouie linked those expiring benefits to the empty promises of Trump’s imperial presidency.
Speaking of that presidency, Alan Elrod wrote for Liberal Currents on the White House ballroom, MAGA aesthetics, & the meanings of this building project.
For In These Times, Rebecca Burns wrote about what role the landlord played in the notorious Chicago apartment building ICE raid.
Speaking of Trump’s policies on immigration & more, check out this Brennan Center expert brief on the legal hurdles facing his attempts to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship.
Important piece from Tressie McMillan Cottom for the New York Times (that’s a gift link) on how the Graham Platner debacle reveals the weakness when Democrats equate “working-class” with whiteness.
Bracing & vital column from David M. Perry for the Minneapolis Star Tribune (also a gift link) on why “ethical AI” is so fraught when the technology has been linked to teen suicides.
Speaking of AI, Katja Bruisch wrote for the Dublin Review of Books on how publishers are frustratingly asking authors to move over for the technology.
Gonna end this section with two more inspiring essays, including Olivia Messer for The Barbed Wire on how Texas is a lot more queer than you think.
& Shannon Mattern wrote for Places journal on how amid our war on public knowledge, libraries are pushing outward to create civic infrastructure.
Podcasts:
Lots of great podcast episodes to share this week, including a Halloween special episode of Backlisted featuring Andrew Male & Laura Varnam on Wuthering Heights.
For episode 72 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past, Joanne Paul joined to talk about her more academic & more public books.
Episode 20 of Jim Ambuske’s World’s Turned Upside Down has dropped, focusing on the first overt acts of rebellion in Lexington & Concord.
For the new episode of Axelbank Reports History & Today, he interviewed Joseph J. Ellis about his new book The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding.
For episode 5 of John Heckman’s new podcast for the Civil War Monitor, Jennifer Raab joined to discuss Civil War photography.
While for the latest episode of the War of the Rebellion podcast, Craig Thompson Friend joined Niels Eichhorn & Andrew Houck to discuss his book Becoming Lunsford Lane: The Lives of an American Aeneas.
Over at the New Books Network, host Ryan Tripp interviewed Amanda Laury Kleintop about her book Counting the Cost of Freedom: The Fight Over Compensated Emancipation After the Civil War.
For the latest episode of her Civics & Coffee podcast, Alycia Asai discussed lessons about power, law, Y& order from the history of the Insurrection Act.
While Civics & Coffee also dropped a second episode this week, featuring Eden Collinsworth on her new book on Victoria Woodhull.
& speaking of Asai, check out this interview with her about the forgotten women of welfare history on Holley Snaith’s Say It with History podcast.
Michael Phillips & Betsy Friauf talked with the folks at the Green & Red podcast about their new book on the history of eugenics in Texas.
The latest episode of Liam Heffernan’s America: A History podcast features Sabrina Mittermeier on the history & cultural significance of Disneyland.
While the latest episode of the Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs podcast features Jennifer Keefer on the SS Andaste, a ship lost on Lake Michigan in 1929.
Turning to current events conversations, for Chris Mackowski’s Emerging Civil War podcast Kevin M. Levin joined to talk about the new exhibit on Confederate monuments at LA’s Brick Museum.
For The History Workshop’s podcast, host Marybeth Hamilton interviewed Laura Forster & Joel White about their book Friends in Common: Radical Friendship & Everyday Solidarities.
Speaking of solidarity & community, for her Freedom Over Fascism podcast Stephanie G. Wilson talked with Marlon Weems about building community through storytelling & independent journalism.
& Wilson shared a second episode of Freedom Over Fascism this week as well, a conversation with Dean Blundell, Canada’s speaker of truths about rebuilding America.
For episode 8 of their This Ain’t It podcast, Melissa & Matthew Teutsch discussed SNAP cuts, faith, & the cost of compassion.
For the new episode of their The Oath & the Office podcast, John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider talked with Rep. Ted Lieu about how Congress can stop Trump’s power grabs.
While for her latest American Conversation, Heather Cox Richardson was joined by journalist & FairVote senior fellow David Daley about the Voting Rights Act, the upcoming elections, & more.
Speaking of this week’s elections, Didi Kuo joined Micah Sifry’s This Old Democracy podcast to discuss the need for more robust political parties.
& for more on the elections & other current topics, make sure to check out Sree Sreenivasan’s latest Sunday #NYTReadalong at 8:30 this morning (h/t Walter D. Greason for sharing it)!
Made By History:
Three excellent new posts for Time’s Made By History blog this week, including Renata Keller on a key lesson from the Cuban Missile Crisis: the need for allies.
While Michael Trotti wrote for Made By History on the troubling roots of off-year gubernatorial elections.
& here’s Made By History editor Felicia Angeja Viator with a Halloween special post, a brief history of creepy clowns.
Books:
A trio of important new book publications this week, including Jonathan S. Jones’s Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans & America’s First Opioid Crisis from UNC Press.
Also out this week is Samuel Holley-Kline’s In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico from University of Nebraska Press.
Likewise published this week was Kori Schake’s The State & the Soldier: A History of Civil-Military Relations in the United States from Polity Books.
For a fun Halloween week publication, check out Stav Appel’s The Torah in the Tarot deck & accompanying booklet from Ayin Press.
Forthcoming this Tuesday from Oxford University Press is Shaily Shashikant Patel’s Smoke & Mirrors: Discourses of Magic in Early Petrine Traditions, from which OUP is currently offering the first chapter open-access here.
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.
Forthcoming 11/18 from UNC Press is Oscar Winberg’s Archie Bunker for President: How One Television Show Remade American Politics.
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.
Speaking of forthcoming books, I was excited to read on Kevin M. Levin’s Civil War Memory newsletter about his newly titled The Cornerstone of Robert E. Lee’s Army: Confederate Slaves at Gettysburg.
For an exciting upcoming book series, check out this call for submissions for UNC Press’s Boundless South, edited by Karen L. Cox & Françoise N. Hamlin.
& speaking of UNC Press, over at their blog Brock Schnoke wrote about author Scott Huffard & his bandmates’ soundtrack of resilience after Hurricane Helene.
For the latest USIH book review, Richard Cándida Smith wrote about Julia Alekseyeva’s Antifascism & the Avant-Garde: Radical Documentary in the 1960s.
While for History Today, Jonathan M. Jackson reviewed Howard W. French’s The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, & Global Blackness at High Tide.
& for a more critical review, check out Noah Berlatsky for his Everything is Horrible newsletter on W. Scott Poole’s Wasteland: The Great War & the Origins of Modern Horror.
Newsletters and Blogs:
Speaking of newsletters, gonna end with a bunch of great ones & other blog posts as usual, including Elizabeth Spiers for her site on Trump’s ballroom.
Liz Dye wrote for Public Notice on Tylenol & how internet conspiracy theories have now become official government policy under Trump.
Donald Earl Collins’s And We Are Not Saved has moved to Patreon, where he wrote about how AI is autocracy pulled over the world’s eyes.
Really powerful essay from Mona Eltahawy for her Feminist Giant newsletter on what rapists look like.
Jason Herbert wrote for his Reckoning newsletter on what the Civil War has to do with working-class whites attacking SNAP benefits.
While Shaul Magid linked two prior debates over religion & free speech to the current anti-Mamdani craze.
For his A Necessitous Blog, Eric Rauchway inaugurated Historiographical Hot Take Halloween with two historiographical traditions that have negatively influenced US policy.
For her History in the Margins blog, here’s Pamela D. Toler on continuing lessons from her boat trip through history in Egypt.
While for his Looking Through the Past newsletter, George Dillard wrote about Gregor MacGregor’s 19th century mapmaking scam.
Over at his The Tenure Track newsletter, Etienne Toussaint offered part 1 in a series on sharpening your research niche.
On a similar note but for creative writing, my FSU colleague Steve Edwards wrote on his newsletter about guiding your own writing with a little help.
& for the Research & Reflections series at his The Academic Bubble newsletter, Dion Georgiou wrote about American Samoa’s historic 2011 soccer victory.
Gonna end with a bunch of great cultural studies pieces as usual, including Olivia Laing for The Guardian on why filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini’s vision of fascism is more urgent than ever 50 years after his murder.
For his Interminable Rambling Medium column, Matthew Teutsch wrote about teaching racism & anti-racism in Nate Powell’s “Cakewalk.”
For The Quietus, Keith Kahn-Harris wrote about Grace Jones’s groundbreaking album Slave to the Rhythm for its 40th anniversary.
& I’ll end with some Halloween-centric cultural studying, including Troy Brownfield for the Saturday Evening Post on the best made-for-TV horror movies.
Nora Gilbert wrote for Public Books on the lost ending of Gaslight that you didn’t know you needed.
Two Halloween special posts from Chris Yogerst for his Adventures in the Archive newsletter, including this one on how Hitchcock’s Psycho inspired Scream’s opening scene.
& Yogerst also followed up his Hollywood Reporter article on Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds with more on the panic that followed the broadcast.
Finally, for the concluding installment in the Monster Mash series at her Review Roulette newsletter, Vaughn Joy offered a delightful but still damn timely piece on The Blob & monsters we never suspect.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more public scholarly writing & work, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & may the next two months be a restful & recuperative holiday season for Mariah & us all!
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