#ScholarSunday Thread 249 (11/9/25)

Here it is, my 249^th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below in comments, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all!

Articles:

Starting with some favorite articles as usual, including Carla Pestana for Commonplace journal on Salem’s frustratingly absent history of witchcraft accusations.

Cookie Woolner wrote for the OAH’s Cold War, Prosperity, & Civil Rights series on the long arc of the battle for gay rights in 20^th century America.

Wonderful essay from Erica Westly for Smithsonian magazine’s Untold Stories of American History series on Charles Oldrieve’s 1500-mile walk on water in 1907.

While Kate Wagner wrote for Untapped journal’s Built Environment series on how McMansions might be transformed into spaces of whimsy.

Speaking of spatial histories, I’m looking forward to the Urban History Association’s Metropole blog’s November series on Metropolitan Consumption, introduced here by Ryan Reft and kicked off with Clif Stratton on the fraught duality of hunger and games in Atlanta’s Southside.

Fascinating essay from Kate Bagnall for Chinese Australia on the early 20^th century Chinese immigrant Tie Cum Ah Chung.

& check out Jessica Moody’s new Plants, Enslavement, & Public History digital project.

Two pieces for the AHA’s Perspectives blog to share this week, including Laura Ansley on what she lost & found when she left academia for Nursing Clio.

& here’s the latest AHA Perspectives Member Spotlight, featuring University of Alabama historian Sarah Steinbock-Pratt.

A trio of columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including NASA scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton on the value of knowing what we don’t know.

Paul Hetzler wrote for his Our Better Nature Post column on why seemingly silly scientific research topics are usually anything but.

While for her Missing in History Post column, Nancy Rubin Stuart highlighted the fascinating 19^th century Black woman known as Stagecoach Mary.

& for my own latest Considering History column for the Post, I used our current renaissance of protest art & art as protest to highlight a few examples of each type from across American history.

Current Events:

Speaking of the Post & turning to current events writing, I absolutely love this USA Today column from Norman Rockwell’s family on Trump’s DHS’s misuse of Rockwell’s works.

For a vital context for the Trump administration’s immigration policies, check out the new digital resource Mapping Deportations: Unmasking the History of Racism in U.S. Immigration Enforcement.

For his Reading the Pictures newsletter, Michael Shaw analyzed what photographs can force us to engage in our current fascist moment.

Here’s Max Burns for Dame magazine on why the federal shutdown & the demolition of the White House’s East Wing are just the tip of the iceberg of Trump’s power grabs.

Vital essay from A.S. Dillingham for the London Review of Books on historical contexts for Trump’s extralegal murders at sea.

For The Nation, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins interviewed Osita Nwanevu about our fraught current moment & his new book The Right of the People.

Bracing & crucial piece for TPM Cafe from former Teen Vogue contributor Allegra Kirkland on what we lost when that publication was shuttered.

Rachele Dini wrote for the LA Review of Books on OpenAI’s “A Machine-Shaped Hand” & the humanities in crisis.

Speaking of AI crises, SFGATE columnist Drew Magary tested out Grokipedia & has some notes on its overt racism.

& to end this section with some good news from the week, Heba Gowayed wrote for The Rumpus on Zohran Mamdani’s campaign & the radical idea that Muslims are human.

Podcasts:

Tons of great new podcast episodes to share this week, including two Halloween specials I missed last week: Amy Fluker joining Mainely History to talk Civil War hauntings.

While for The History on Film podcast’s Halloween special, Sarah Juliet Lauro joined to discuss her book The Transatlantic Zombie.

History on Film also dropped an episode this week, featuring Brad Schwartz on the depictions of McCarthy & Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck.

Speaking of film histories, check out the latest episode in the CineHistorians podcast’s second season, on Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.

One more earlier episode that I had missed, & it’s a very timely one at that, Shelton Stromquist joining History as It Happens to discuss when socialists ran American cities.

The latest episode of Kelly Therese Pollock’s Unsung History features Ashley Rose Young on street food & public markets in New Orleans.

While episode 73 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past features Tyler Anbinder on his multiple book projects, his constant revisions, & more.

Alycia Asai dropped two episodes of her Civics & Coffee podcast this week, including an interview with Matthew Davis about his book A Biography of a Mountain: The Making & Meaning of Mount Rushmore.

& for her latest episode of Civics & Coffee, Asai continued her Reconstruction series by considering the period’s legacies into the Gilded Age & beyond.

Over at Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Andrew Lawler joined to discuss the 250^th anniversary of Dunsmore’s Proclamation.

For their War of the Rebellion Podcast, Niels Eichhorn & Andrew Houck interviewed Amy Murrell Taylor about her book The Divided Family in Civil War America.

For the latest episode of his America: A History podcast, Liam Heffernan was joined by Jarid Bahir Browsh & Sabrina Mittermeier to discuss Disney’s America.

Over at Brandy Schillace’s Peculiar Book Club podcast, Andy Kirschner joined to discuss his latest film Sex Radical about Ida Craddock’s defiance of the Comstock era.

Paul Renfro shared this recording of his talk for the IU Kokomo Library on Ryan White, Kokomo, & the politics of HIV/AIDS.

The latest episode of the Shipwrecks & Sea Dogs podcast tells the story of The Star of Bengal, Alaska’s forgotten early 20^th century tragedy.

For episode 65 of his Holocaust History podcast, Waitman Beorn interviewed Andrew Wisely about Nazi Doctor Franz Lucas & the question of post-war justice.

For Jane Austen’s upcoming 250^th birthday, The Race & Regency podcast interviewed Devoney Looser about her new book Wild for Austen.

& check out this piece from Anna Walker & Jane Wright for The Conversation on their new podcast, Jane Austen’s Paper Trail.

Surekha Davies joined Kerry-Ann McDade’s How to Write the Future podcast to discuss monsters & humanity in fiction.

While the Writer’s Bone podcast highlighted the latest installment in the wonderful Best American Short Stories series with an interview with guest editor Celeste Ng & series editor Nicole Lamy.

Continuing with current events conversations, Brad Bolman joined Lauren Lassabe Shepherd’s American Campus podcast to discuss the role of dogs in scientific research.

Episode 9 of Melissa & Matthew Teutsch’s This Ain’t It podcast focuses on socialism, scare words, & the stories we tell ourselves.

For the conclusion of their three-part It Could Happen Here series on lethal injections, Steve Monacelli & Michael Phillips interviewed a pair of guests about the death penalty in America.

The latest episode of the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast features Brian E. Adams on why local elections matter.

For her Freedom Over Fascism podcast, Stephanie G. Wilson was joined by Banner and Backbone co-founder Lawrence Winnerman to discuss the vital importance of culture.

For the latest episode of The Oath & the Office, Corey Brettschneider interviewed Dahlia Lithwick on the Supreme Court’s tariff case.

Finally, for the new episode of the AHA’s History in Focus podcast, nine contributors joined Kate Brown & Emily Callaci to discuss what they’ve learned from mistakes in their research & scholarship.

Made By History and Black Perspectives:

Four excellent new posts for Time’s Made By History this week, including Charles J. Holden on Kamala Harris’s memoir and what Presidents need to remember about VPs.

Bruce J. Schulman wrote for Made By History on how Congress gave up much of its power in the 1970s & 80s.

Just in time for Veterans’ Day, here’s Ed Gitre for Made By History on how a “woke” military won WWII.

Finally for Made By History, Bobby Smith II highlighted the Civil Rights histories that show how cooking can be a pivotal tool for activism.

Over at the AAIHS’s Black Perspectives blog, Ashley Everson interviewed Tacuma Peters about his articles on Afro-descendants in Peru’s Túpac Amaru II rebellion.

Books:

Lots of new book publications this week, including Keegan Cook Finberg’s Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public from Columbia University Press.

Also out this week is Richard Bell’s The American Revolution & the Fate of the World from Penguin Random House.

Published this week from Hachette Books is Max Perry Mueller’s Wakara’s America: The Life & Legacy of a Native Founder of the American West.

The folks at UNC Press shared two new releases this week, including Rosemary Ndubuizu’s The Undesirable Many: Black Women & Their Struggles Against Displacement & Housing Insecurity in the Nation’s Capital & Stephen J. Ramos’s Folk Engineering: Planning Southern Regionalism.

Also now out is Shaily Shashikant Patel’s Smoke & Mirrors: Discourses of Magic in Early Petrine Traditions from Oxford University Press, who have shared the first chapter open-access here.

Likewise now available from Oxford is The Oxford Handbook of Women & International Law, edited by J. Jarpa Dawuni, Nienke Grossman, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, & Héléne Ruiz Fabri.

For the Royal Historical Society’s Historical Transactions blog, Rachael Harkes wrote about her new book Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society: The Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow.

Forthcoming next Monday, 11/17, from De Gruyter Brill is my wife Vaughn Joy’s Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy—pre-orders are paused for the moment, but Indie Pubs will notify you here when it’s available!

While forthcoming on 12/2 is Aaron G. Fountain Jr’s High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, & FBI Surveillance in Postwar America from UNC Press.

Over at the History News Network, Amy Erdman Farrell shared an excerpt from her new book on the history of the Girl Scouts.

While check out this Politics & Rights Review excerpt from Jennifer A. Selby’s Secular Sensibilities: Romance, Marriage, & Contemporary Algerian Immigration to France & Québec.

& I enjoyed this Pittsburgh Review of Books interview with Padma Lakshmi about her new book Padma’s All American: Tales, Travels, & Recipes from Taste the Nation & Beyond.

The latest USIH book review features Jacob Hiserman on David S. Brown’s Beyond the Frontier: The Midwestern Voice in American Historical Writing.

Over at the Latin American Review of Books Gavin O’Toole reviewed Jessica M. Lepler’s Canal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic & Pacific in the Age of Revolutions.

While for the University of Washington Press blog, Holly Miowak Guise & four other scholars recommended reads for Native American Heritage Month.

Newsletters and Blogs:

Gonna end with a ton of great newsletters & blog posts as ever, including Merrill Goozner on how chaos is reigning at the FDA.

For his relocated Democracy Americana newsletter, Thomas Zimmer offered reflections on the state of America one year out from the 2024 election.

On that same subject, Jennifer M. Jackson wrote for her Love Notes newsletter on why we’re never forgiving Trump voters.

While Sherrilyn Ifill offered key takeaways from this year’s more inspiring election results.

For the second part of her Imperfect Union series on Presidents & the Press, Lindsay M. Chervinsky wrote about Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, & the press.

For her monthly Civics & Coffee newsletter, Alycia Asai wrote about contemporary lessons on the 80^th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials.

Over at his blog, William G. Pooley highlighted the complicated legal, marital, & human story of Valerie Margaret Small. 

An anonymous guest poster on Tess Machling’s Big Book of Torcs blog wrote about metal detecting in England & Wales.

Pamela D. Toler continued her History in the Margins boat trip through Egyptian history with the Temples at Abu Simbel.

The new installment of Sarah E. Bond’s Pasts Imperfect newsletter features Rhiannon Garth Jones on the reception of Roman antiquity during the Ottoman Empire.

Over at his The Tenure Track newsletter, Etienne Toussaint continued his series on pursuing intellectual curiosity without losing coherence.

Gonna conclude with a bunch of great cultural studies posts as usual, including Tina Vasquez for The Flytrap on the weird world of Halloween “Villaging.”

Fascinating post from Andrew Smith for the Save Tangmere Tower blog on Len Deighton, garlic, & espionage cooking.

For his Interminable Rambling Medium column, Matthew Teutsch wrote about Albert Camus’s “Creating Dangerously” & the role of the artist in interesting times.

Amardeep Singh wrote for the Pittsburgh Review of Books on what Zohran Mamdani learned his mother Mira Nair’s films.

Also for PRoB, check out Gideon Leek on why the EPA’s 1970s Docuamerica series is still beautiful & urgent.

Really enjoyed this Emory News Center interview with Professor Erica Armstrong Dunbar on her contributions to the TV show The Gilded Age.

I’ll end with great new pieces from our two best current film reviewers, including Outlaw Vern on Americana.

& if you haven’t previously connected The Godfather 2 to The Naked Gun & Simba’s Pride, make sure to read Vaughn Joy’s wonderful latest Review Roulette newsletter!

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, & happy reading, listening, & learning, all!

PPS. For next week’s 250^th #ScholarSunday thread I plan to share a second meta-thread on why I do what I do here & why & how you all should be contributing, sharing, &, yes, subscribing to this site! See you then!