There’s a lot I don’t know about what 2026 (or today) might bring, but I can promise you this: the #ScholarSunday threads will continue! Here’s my 257th of public scholarly writing, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all!
First, a reminder that on New Year’s Eve I shared a special best-of-2025 #ScholarSunday thread. Thanks to everyone for nominating work, & please keep sharing great public scholarship from the last year in comments on that thread!
Second, if you enjoy these threads, I hope you’ll consider subscribing to them (for free!) through our new Black & White & Read All Over website, to help support this work & my wife Vaughn Joy’s work on the site & Biscuits & more!
Articles:
Starting with some favorite writing from the week as usual, beginning with a pair of new essays in Contingent magazine’s ongoing series on monsters: including David Korostyshevsky on zombies, drunkards, & other metaphorical urban monsters.
& Surekha Davies wrote for the Contingent series on the effects of her archival research into monsters, which began during her time as a curator at the British Library & culminated in her recent book Humans: A Monstrous History.
Speaking of archival materials, beautiful piece from Tanya George for Letterform Archive on how Czech designer Sylvie Vodáková’s book covers shaped how generations of readers encountered poetry.
While Michael E. Woods wrote for the Journal of the Early Republic’s Panorama on how diamonds in the archival rough changed his perspective (& thus his JER article) on Andrew Jackson & pro-slavery politics.
Nicolai von Eggers wrote for Age of Revolutions on the execution of Jeannot Bullet & the complex origins & early histories of the Haitian Revolution.
Here’s Matthew Wills for JSTOR Daily on how the reporting of the 1960 U-2 incident offers a case study in Cold War posturing & misdirection.
Thanks to Marcus Chatfield for sharing with Clio & the Contemporary (& all of us) the syllabus for his vital University of Florida course on the History of Indoctrination in the U.S. & Florida.
Over at the Urban History Association’s Metropole blog, Senior Editor Ryan Reft signed off on his phenomenal years of work with a thoughtful retrospective post.
& I’m proud to share the latest great Guest Post for my AmericanStudier blog, Sacred Heart University undergrad Matt Dworkowitz on his research (aided by Professor Kelly Marino) into the discovery of chemotherapy in WWII New Haven.
A trio of excellent columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues this week, including Tanya Roth’s latest Women’s Work column, on a complementary pair of iconic grandmotherly painters.
For the latest installment of his Our Better Nature column, Paul Hetzler examine how humans & animals experience the painful but vital feeling of boredom.
Fascinating 1966 piece from the Post’s archives on how Chinese city dwellers were unexpectedly becoming fans of American country music.
& for my latest, very special Considering History Post column, I offered American Studies contexts for 10 of the most significant historical events of the first quarter of the 21st century.
Current Events:
Turning to current events public scholarship, the week’s must-read is Eric Hayot & Matt Seybold in the Chronicle of Higher Education (but that’s paywalled, so check out this free version if you don’t subscribe) on how the “crisis of the Humanities” is now all of our crisis.
For a very informed view of the contexts for our educational & political crises, check out Edwin Amenta’s Sociologica interview with the legendary Theda Skocpol.
Important essay from Matt McManus in Current Affairs on the historical contexts for why fascists always come for the socialist left first.
Speaking of the socialist left, a pair of thoughtful pieces on Zohran Mamdani’s swearing-in to share this week, including Kim Phillip-Fein’s New York Times Guest Essay (that’s a gift link) on the historical contexts for reclaiming New York for New Yorkers.
& a beautiful essay from Molly Crabapple in The Guardian on how, contrary to false accusations of antisemitism, Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition.
For a very inspiring read for the New Year, check out Adam Gurri for Liberal Currents on why history shows us that we are going to win.
& for a fun read for the end of 2025, here’s Helene Meyers for Lilith on seven feminist pop culture highlights of 2025.
Podcasts:
Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest for Kelly Therese Pollock’s Unsung History, featuring Oscar Winberg on his important new book on All in the Family.
Speaking of pop culture studying, check out episode 40 of Sabrina Mittermeier & Torsten Kathke’s In Front of Ira podcast, analyzing Keeping the Faith.
& speaking of conversations about important new books, the New Books Network’s Jewish Studies host Paul Lerner interviewed Lisa Silverman on her The Postwar Antisemite: Culture & Complicity After the Holocaust (Oxford UP, 2025).
While for his Whiplash podcast, Maxwell Kuzma interviewed Sara Moslener about her new book After Purity: Race, Sex, & Religion in White Christian America (Beacon Press, 2025).
Check out the third & final installment of the Presidencies of the United States podcast’s series on John C. Calhoun, featuring Civics & Coffee’s Alycia & the Vice Presidencies podcast’s Alex as usual.
Speaking of Alycia Asai’s Civics & Coffee, it’s going to feature an extended series on the Gilded Age, starting with this weekend’s intro episode.
While for the latest episode of the Imperfect Men podcast, hosts Steve & Cody discuss 19C South Carolina Judge Richard Hutson & his relationship to a ghost.
Over at the Classical Antiquity Sidequest podcast, Sarah Bond joined to discuss labor movements in ancient Rome.
For the latest episode of Matt Gabriele’s American Medieval podcast, Megan L. Cook joined to discuss dirtbag medievalism, book history, & much more.
While for Claire E. Aubin’s This Guy Sucked podcast, Brooke Newman joined to discuss James II, the 17C king who deserves all the hate that he gets.
The Cold War History video podcast series continues with an installment on the 1971 nuclear test on Alaska’s Amchitka Island & the birth of the modern environmental movement.
Over at John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider’s The Oath & the Office podcast, they offered a year in review episode on legal & judicial challenges to Trump.
& speaking of year in review episodes, check out the final 2025 installment of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past, featuring listener highlights of the best history books they read this year.
Made By History:
Two excellent new pieces for Time’s Made By History blog this week, including Andrew Patrick on how current proposals for Gaza’s future echo the history of outsider ambitions for the region.
& Julio Capó Jr. wrote for Made By History on surprisingly profound history lessons from Clue on the film’s 40th anniversary.
For a similarly historically minded take on Clue, make sure to check out Vaughn Joy’s wonderful Review Roulette contextual approach to the film.
Books:
Just one newly published book to share this week (but please share more below!), Michelle R. Warren’s open-access Creole Medievalism: Colonial France & Joseph Bédier’s Middle Ages from the University of Minnesota Press.
Out next Tuesday (January 13th) from UNC Press is Kylie M. Smith’s much-anticipated Jim Crow in the Asylum: Psychiatry & Civil Rights in the American South.
Forthcoming in February & available for pre-order from the University of Nebraska Press is John M. Kinder & Jennifer M. Murray’s vital edited collection They Are Dead & Yet They Live: Civil War Memories in a Polarized America (featuring essays from Tim Galsworthy, Sarah Handley-Cousins, Kevin M. Levin, & many others!).
While forthcoming in June & available for pre-order from Oxford University Press is Anna O. Law’s long-awaited Migration & the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, & Immigrants.
& for the latest USIH book review, here’s Book Reviews Editor Audrey Wu Clark on Sarah Lewis’s The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America (Harvard UP, 2024).
Newsletters & Blog Posts:
Gonna end with a bunch of great newsletters & blog posts as ever, including Sherrilyn Ifill offering a vital year’s end perspective on 2025 in American politics & society.
For his A Sea of Words newsletter, naval history expert Lincoln Paine contextualized the childish & ill-considered plans for Trump-class battleships.
Over at his Forever Wars site, veteran journalist Spencer Ackerman shared his thoughts on watching Bari Weiss murder investigative journalism at CBS.
For similarly enraging current attacks on journalists, check out Nicole Carr’s interview with the founder of the defunded Black Alabama student magazine.
& for equally infuriating attacks on historic cultural works, here’s Catherine Rampell for The Bulwark on the MAGAfication of Norman Rockwell.
For a more inspiring current events newsletter, check out Mona Eltahawy for her Feminist Giant on a New Yorker’s perspective on Zohran Mamdani’s swearing-in.
For the December 28th installment of her Letters from an American newsletter, Heather Cox Richardson focused on the anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre (subject of her excellent 2010 book).
While over at his Civil War Memory newsletter, Kevin M. Levin reflected on the Emancipation Proclamation on its January 1st anniversary.
& speaking of historic anniversaries, I’m really excited for all the entries in Max Perry Mueller’s new More America: Twenty-Five (More) Founders of the U.S. newsletter, which he introduced here and then kicked off with his first weekly installment on Phillis Wheatley.
I can’t share that exciting project without shouting out Christina Proenza-Coles’s vital book American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World.
For the latest essay from Bright Wall/Dark Room’s What is to Be Done? Issue, here’s Carrie Courogen on John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence.
For the concluding installment of her December holiday film series on Review Roulette, Vaughn Joy penned a witty and wonderful piece on An Affair to Remember.
For his A Word About… newsletter, Benjamin Dreyer offered 49 concluding thoughts on language, culture, & more in 2025.
On a similar note, beautiful year-end reflections from Mark Ehlers for his blog on his late father & the lost art of letter writing.
& I’ll end with my own year-end tribute to my late Dad, who passed in March but is with me in every word I write for these threads & everywhere else.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so help get the New Year off right by adding more public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & may 2026 be full of the best of us in response to our worst!
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