Like Rudolph or Mariah, the #ScholarSunday powers grow ever stronger as December deepens. See for yourself with my 253rd thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all!
First, a reminder that we’re accepting nominations for work of all kinds from throughout 2025 for a special year-end thread. Check out the call & share all the things (including your own), please!
Articles:
Starting with a holiday special, my new Saturday Evening Post Considering History column, inspired by my wife Vaughn Joy’s vital new book on Hollywood Christmas films in the age of McCarthy!
Speaking of Vaughn, make sure to check out her phenomenal Contingent magazine essay on the many Frankensteins—Shelley’s, del Toro’s, & ours.
& for another great take on lessons from del Toro’s film, here’s monster expert Surekha Davies for her Strange and Wondrous newsletter.
My column is just one of many great Saturday Evening Post pieces this week, including Tripp Whetsell on a much-anticipated new biography of comedy legend Sid Caesar.
Teresa Bitler wrote for the Post on the very American story of Kentucky bourbon legend Mary Dowling.
As a dedicated advocate for the Massachusetts Wampanoag tribe, I really enjoyed Jen Rose Smith for the Post on the reclamation of their nearly-lost language.
& ahead of tomorrow’s Pearl Harbor anniversary, Don Vaughn wrote for the Post on the civilian pilots who were the first American airmen to face Japanese fighters.
Turning to other great public scholarly writing from the week, here are Adrian R. Bell, Anne Curry, & Jason Sadler for The Conversation on their new digital database of 290,000 English medieval soldiers.
Over at the Urban History Association’s Metropole blog, Colin Wood interviewed Father Stephen M. Koeth about religion and suburbanization.
Fascinating work from Bram Hubbell for his Liberating Narratives site on using chess to teach Afroeurasian exchange in World History classes.
Dinyar Patel wrote for the BBC on how forgotten photos reveal the women who powered India’s freedom struggle.
Beautiful & vital New York Review of Books essay from Annette Gordon-Reed on the divisions & contradictions in Thomas Jefferson & America.
For his Pittsburgh City Paper column, David S. Rotenstein highlighted the forgotten history of the Hill District’s cinemas.
Two excellent pieces for the AHA’s Perspectives column this week, including Cody Dalton on Virginia’s historic Mabry Mill & the contested realities of preservation.
While Leigh Gardner wrote for Perspectives on what U.S. policymakers need to know about the histories & layers of U.S.-Africa relations.
& I really enjoyed this Boston University Arts & Sciences magazine profile of the career & perspective of the awesome Koritha Mitchell!
Current Events:
Turning to current events, I missed this excellent recent Guardian column from Bill McKibben on how Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to America mirrors MAGA evangelical perversion of Jesus.
For his MS Now column, Philip Bump interviewed a number of historians of Nazi Germany & the Holocaust on parallels & distinctions with Trump’s fascism.
For Ms. magazine, Felicia Kornbluh adapted a post from her excellent History Teaches… newsletter on historical contexts for sex, power, impunity, & the Epstein files.
Soraya Chemaly wrote for Time magazine on the real, parallel ways that school & the patriarchy alike are failing boys.
In a similar vein, here’s Robert N. Kraft for Psychology Today on how we can understand the danger of misinformation in the manosphere.
Bracing & phenomenal essay from Stephanie Foote for the relaunched Dial magazine on West Virginia University’s transcendental grifter, Gordon Gee.
& equally bracing & important work for The Word, featuring Stacy Kess’s interview with four professors on the challenges & opportunities of teaching journalism in this moment.
Podcasts:
Tons of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest for Kelly Therese Pollock’s Unsung History featuring Michelle Craig McDonald on the American history of coffee.
Episode 77 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past features Marc James Carpenter on dealing with deceptive source materials & more.
The latest episode of Christina Gessler’s The Academic Life podcast features Aria S. Halliday on her new book Black Girls & How We Fail Them.
While for the New Books Network’s Military History channel, Miranda Melcher interviewed Jonathan S. Jones about his new book Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans & America’s First Opioid Crisis.
Over at their War of the Rebellion podcast, Neils Eichhorn & Andrew Houck talked with Andrew Sillen about his book Kidnapped At Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White.
For the latest episode of her Civics & Coffee podcast, Alycia Asai interviewed Elizabeth Cobbs about her new book Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyonce (which I’d put in conversation with my ideas about critical patriotism, such as in this 2021 Saturday Evening Post Considering History column on critical patriotic women from American history).
For her Peculiar Book Club podcast, Brandy Schillace was joined by Anika Burgess to discuss her book Flashes of Brilliance: The Genius of Early Photography & How It Transformed Art, Science, & History.
Over at the History on Film podcast, Bethan Jones & Diane Rodgers joined host Ross Lennon for the first in a multi-part series on The X-Files.
While for the You’re Missing Out podcast, hosts Mike Natale & Tom Lorenzo offered a tribute to legendary filmmaker Michael Roemer through his film Nothing But a Man.
For the latest episode of his America: A History podcast, Liam Heffernan was joined by Julian Chambliss to discuss why America loves comic books.
Over at the Her Place in Theory podcast, host Juliette Marchant interviewed Lydia Moland about the trailblazing feminist Helene Stöcker.
Episode 5 of Matt Gabriele’s new American Medieval podcast features Brett Whalen discussing Jesus from medieval times to our own.
While episode 67 of Waitman Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast features Jack El-Hai on psychiatrist Douglas Kelley’s work with Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg Trials.
Turning to current events conversations, the new episode of Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World features guest host Karin Wulf interviewing two historians leading 250th Commissions in Rhode Island & Virginia.
For the latest episode of the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast, Miranda Elyse Yaver joined to discuss the shutdown & the rising costs of healthcare.
Over at the Center for Ballot Freedom’s This Old Democracy podcast, host Micah Sifry interviewed Daniel Stid about what philanthropy gets right & wrong about its role in a faltering democracy.
For the latest episode of her Freedom Over Fascism podcast, Stephanie G. Wilson interviewed Treb Courie, legal director of the Orders Project, on legal & illegal military orders.
The new episode of John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider’s The Oath & the Office podcast features a special guest, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, on MAGA & the courts.
Speaking of special guests, check out the latest installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s American Conversations, featuring Zohran Mamdani!
I’ll end with two equally inspiring conversations, including the latest for Melissa & Matthew Teutsch’s This Ain’t It on why empathy ain’t no sin.
While for the latest episode of her Social Academic podcast, host Jennifer van Alstyne interviewed Tetine Sentell on the Public Health Resonance Project & how art can help share our research stories.
& check out the first couple episodes of an exciting new podcast about everyday people’s experiences of the past, Patrick Wyman’s Past Lives.
Made By History:
Three excellent pieces for Time’s Made By History blog this week, including Rachel Steely on how Trump’s tariffs threaten the fragile state of soybean diplomacy.
While Irvin Ibargüen wrote for Made By History on how Mexican immigration to the U.S. has always been the opposite of an invasion: an invitation.
& finally for Made By History, here’s Dominic J.M. Howell on the surprisingly political & progressive history of country music.
Books:
A number of important new books were published this week, including Aaron G. Fountain Jr.’s High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, & FBI Surveillance in Postwar America from UNC Press.
Also out this week from MIT Press is W. Patrick McCary’s README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines.
Likewise newly published is Elizabeth McCracken’s A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction from Harper Collins (h/t Benjamin Dreyer for sharing it!).
Also just out is A.S. Hamrah’s Algorithm of the Night: Film Writing, 2019-2025.
Two open-access publications to share this week as well, including Dorothy Noyes & Tobias Wille’s edited collection Exemplarity in Global Politics from Bristol University Press.
Also out & open-access is Matt Leivers & Andrew Valdez-Tullett’s The Archaeology of the Stonehenge Visitor Centre from the Open Library.
Not new this week, but somehow missed on these threads, is Lucy Caplan’s Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera from Harvard University Press.
Forthcoming on Monday 12/15 & available for pre-order from Cornell University Press is Nathan K. Finney’s Orchestrating Power: The American Associational State in the First World War.
While forthcoming Tuesday 12/16 from UNC Press is Lauren Duval’s The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, & the Making of American Independence.
Also check out this Morehouse University Newsroom piece on an exciting book forthcoming next year, Nicole Carr’s The Price of Exclusion: The Pursuit of Healthcare in a Segregated Nation.
The folks at Publisher’s Weekly interviewed Dan Sinykin & Johanna Winant about their new edited collection, Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century.
For the latest USIH book review, Andrew Hartman wrote about Erik Baker’s Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America.
While for Commonplace journal, Yita Khanin reviewed Matthew J. Tuininga’s The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People.
For tons more book recommendations, check out the second part (part one linked therein as well) of History Today’s Books of the Year 2025 feature.
& also make sure to take a look at Contingent magazine’s vital annual list of books published by contingent scholars, which is complemented by their list of journal articles from contingent scholars.
Newsletters & Blog Posts:
Gonna conclude with lots of great newsletters & blog posts as usual, including an exciting new newsletter, Katharine Hayhoe’s Talking Climate.
For her Burns Notice site, Katelyn Burns wrote about how the viral University of Oklahoma essay scandal is actually about anti-trans bigotry.
For The UnPopulist, Toby Buckle argued that even by a strict definition, Elon Musk’s white supremacist use of Tolkien is fascism.
On a similar note, Paul Waldman & Joseph Dye argued in Public Notice that Trump 2.0 is exactly what a white supremacist administration looks like.
While Laura Flanders wrote for her newsletter about two telling ICE operations she was close to this past Thanksgiving.
For his Everything is Horrible newsletter, Noah Berlatsky wondered if Hegseth will face sufficient consequences for his war crimes.
Powerful & important piece from Kelly Hayes for her Organizing My Thoughts newsletter on why we can’t fight fascism while defunding libraries.
Jenn M. Jackson offered the 13th installment of her Love Note newsletter series, reflecting on the harsh realities of the cold winter setting in.
While Prison Culture offered the 33rd installment of their Prisons, Prose & Protest newsletter series.
For her monthly Civics & Coffee newsletter, Alycia Asai wrote about working women & the labor history we forget.
Over at her Meditations in an Emergency newsletter, Rebecca Solnit linked World AIDS Day to the 70th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ historic protest.
While for his Civil War Memory newsletter, Kevin M. Levin revisited William Mack Lee & a Lost Cause fraud.
For his blog, William G. Pooley shared some important reflections on historical public scholarship & the urgency of the ephemeral.
Speaking of ephemeral histories, for her blog Theresa Kaminski wrote about searching through archival absences to fill in her scholarship.
While for the fourth installment in the Fairy Tales series for her History in the Margins site, Pamela D. Toler highlighted Madame D’Aulnoy, who coined the term “fairy tales”!
Over at his website, Keanu Heydari offered an intellectual memoir of early graduate school & learning to think slowly.
Two new pieces from Etienne Toussaint to share this week, including for his The Tenure Track newsletter kicking off a series on building the foundations of thought leadership in academia.
While for his Freedom Papers newsletter, Toussaint concluded his masterful three-part series on the policing of Black life in America.
Gonna conclude with a bunch of cultural studies work as ever, including the latest installment of Keith Phipps & Scott Tobias’s series for The Reveal on Sight & Sound’s top 100 films list, focusing this time on Jane Campion’s The Piano.
Speaking of great films, check out the Urban History Association’s Metropole blog’s editors sharing their best films of 2025.
For Liberal Currents, Alan Elrod linked Olivia Nuzzi’s memoir to The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives to consider how reality TV media is killing our democracy.
While John Semley wrote for The Baffler on a group of new films that evoke Cold War genres & psychologies.
For Bright Wall/Dark Room’s new issue “What Is to Be Done?,” Riley Womack wrote about the great High Noon.
& for the first review for her annual holiday film Review Roulette series, Vaughn Joy offered a disciplinary approach to the madness that is 1994’s Miracle on 34th Street remake.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as usual, so please share more writing & work, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & may the holiday season get off to a wonderful start for you all!
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