I know I said that last week’s #ScholarSunday thread was the final regular one of the year, but y’all did too much good work this week to ignore—so here’s a Christmas bonus, my 256th thread of public scholarly goodness from the past week! Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all!
That also means I’m gonna give y’all a few more days to nominate the best public scholarship from throughout the year for the best-of-2025 meta-thread, which I plan to drop on New Year’s Eve. Check out the call & make sure to nominate great work from any time in 2025, especially your own!
Articles:
Starting with some great writing from this holiday week, including Mary Mallory for her LA Daily Mirror Hollywood Heights column on the 1945 Warner Bros.’ short film Star in the Night.
Laura Sangha wrote for the University of Exeter’s Material Culture of Wills project on some Christmas stories found in the Wills Collection.
& here’s Danny Robb for JSTOR Daily on how Cold War nuclear testing created a radioactive reindeer problem that prompted years of important research.
Over at Contingent magazine, the series on historical monsters continued with M.K. Foster’s fascinating piece on the connection between witch trials & drought years.
Great piece from Elise Garritzen for her Clio’s Footnotes series on what Victorian readers & writers remind us about the allure of biographies.
Two columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Luke Frain on six classic Christmas songs that aren’t actually Christmas songs at all (which I would put in conversation with my 2022 column on the hidden histories behind those & other holiday songs).
& Eileen C. Moore contributed one of the most interesting Post columns I’ve read in a long time, on the clandestine WWII program that helped young Jewish immigrants become an elite intelligence unit.
Current Events:
Turning to current events writing, M. Roger Holland II wrote for the Black Catholic Messenger on a Denver priest who mistakenly dismissed historic Black Catholic hymnals.
John Ganz wrote for his Unpopular Front newsletter on what we can learn from the full video of the pulled 60 Minutes segment, as well as Baris Weiss’s memo about it.
Here’s David M. Perry for his Minnesota Star Tribune column (that’s a gift link) on how the return of the r-word in presidential & public discourse is a frustratingly telling trend.
Maureen Tkacik wrote for The American Prospect on how Marco Rubio’s “narco-terrorism” policy represents a new iteration of the Iran-Contra scandal.
Really important open-access Georgetown Law Journal article from Amanda Frost & Emily Eason on how Trump’s ahistorical citizenship proposals would have rendered a number of 19th-century Congressmen ineligible to serve.
& I’ll end this section with an inspiring article, Christina Couch for Science Today on how mushroom foraging groups from people of color could help close the “nature gap.”
Podcasts:
Lots of new podcast episodes this week, including two more featuring my wife Vaughn Joy on her new book & Hollywood Christmas films:
- Talking about her book with Evan Axelbank for his Axelbank Reports History & Today;
- & talking about The 12 Dogs of Christmas (2005) with Ian Saxine & Tiffany Link for Mainely History;
- Also make sure to check out last week’s thread for a half-dozen more great podcast conversations featuring Vaughn and her book, about which I also wrote in my weekend blog post!
Speaking of holiday films, Sabrina Mittermeier & Torsten Kathke’s delightful In Front of Ira podcast on romantic comedies is back with a pair of new episodes (both available at that link) on Round and Round & Serendipity.
Speaking of ChristmasStudying, check out the latest episode of Liam Heffernan’s America: A History podcast, featuring Thomas Ruys Smith & Brian Earl on how capitalism might be killing the holiday.
& for a historical lens, I appreciate PBS’s Thirteen sharing this important 1963 conversation with Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, James Baldwin, & other artists asking for a nationwide Christmas boycott.
For his Whiplash podcast, host Maxwell Kuzma was joined by Morally Offensive’s co-host Bill to discuss Wake Up Dead Man’s representation of Catholicism.
While Ian & Tiffany’s aforementioned Mainely History offered a second episode this week as well, this one featuring Gilded Age historian Gideon Cohn-Postar on Death by Lightning.
For episode 80 of her Drafting the Past podcast, host Kate Carpenter interviewed Amy Erdman Farrell about how she turned to a new subject for her recent third book, Intrepid Girls: The Complicated History of the Girl Scouts of the USA.
For episode 429 of her Ben Franklin’s World podcast, host Liz Covart was joined by Michelle McDonald to discuss the history of coffee in early America.
For the latest episode of her Civics & Coffee podcast, host Alycia Asai interviewed Richard Bell about his new book on the global American Revolution.
While Josh Kluever & Kevin Mason offered a bonus episode of their Heartland History podcast, featuring Coreen Derifield on her book We Were Still Ladies: Gender & Industrial Unionism in the Midwest after World War II.
& check out the latest episode of West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia podcast, a holiday special featuring Finnish cinnamon buns, Appalachian Christmas tree farms, & how the only doctor in a rural mountain county keeps their practice going.
Made By History:
Just one column for Time’s Made By History this week but it’s an important one, Bernard Koch & David Peterson on how histories of AI explain fears of the bubble bursting.
Books:
For an important recent book publication that I missed, check out Elly Robson Dezateux’s Violent Waters: Environmental Politics in Early Modern England from Cambridge University Press.
The folks at the excellent new Pittsburgh Review of Books shared an excerpt from Vaughn Joy’s recently released Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy, featuring a fascinating find in the Frank Capra Archives.
I also really loved Joseph Ashenden’s PRoB essay on how children’s literature can serve as liturgy during the holidays.
For Geoge Washington University’s Illiberalism Studies Program, Laura K. Field offered an introductory overview of her new book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right.
For the latest USIH book review, Kimberly F. Monroe wrote about Mali D. Collins’s Scrap Theory: Reproductive Injustice in the Black Feminist Imagination.
I really enjoyed Lincoln Michel’s Counter Craft interview with Brandon Taylor on how he wrote his new novel Minor Black Figures.
The editors of History Workshop & its History Workshop Journal have shared their reflections on the best radical reads of 2025.
& looking ahead, Jenn M. Jackson wrote for her Love Notes newsletter on 12 forthcoming Black feminist books that give us hope for reading & activism in 2026.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
Speaking of newsletters, gonna end with a ton of great ones & blog posts as usual, including Rebecca Solnit for her Meditations in an Emergency on feminism vs. Trump & Epstein.
On a similar note, check out Joyce Vance for her Civil Discourse newsletter on why Trump & Epstein’s relationship can’t be redacted.
Thomas Zimmer wrote for his Democracy Americana newsletter (that’s a gift link, but be sure to subscribe!) on what the “MAGA Civil War” is really about.
While for his Civil War Memory newsletter, Kevin M. Levin offered a beautiful tribute to the legendary late National Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin.
& speaking of Civil War Memory, also check out Kevin’s Christmas Day post, featuring some holiday wishes from Robert Gould Shaw (ahead of Kevin’s forthcoming bio!).
For more on Christmas & the Civil War, Heather Cox Richardson’s December 25th Letters from an American newsletter is a must-read as always.
Matt Eaton continued the holiday series for his Matt’s Historical Ephemera newsletter with part two on the RAF’s Christmas in 1944 Italy.
While over at Thony Christie’s The Renaissance Mathematicus blog, they shared part 1 of a Christmas trilogy on evolving pictures of Isaac Newton.
& Vaughn Joy continued the holiday film series for her Review Roulette newsletter with a witty Marxist take on Santa Claus: The Movie (1985).
Finally, a special Christmas bonus, Dan Rather & the team at his Steady newsletter on why the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack gives us plenty of reasons to smile 25 years after the film’s release.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, what will the merriment & all, so please share more public scholarly goodness of all kinds below–& make sure to nominate great work from throughout the year for the best-of-2025 thread I’ll drop on Wednesday!
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