Neither travel nor snowstorms can keep my #ScholarSunday threads from their appointed rounds—so here’s my 264th of public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all!
Articles:
Starting with some favorites from the week, including Karin Wulf for the new In Pursuit project on how Martha Washington created a new national office (& also check out this live conversation between Wulf & Jim Ambuske about Martha!).
Paul Lindholdt wrote for Commonplace journal on myths & realities of the late 19th century Pacific Northwest smuggler Lawrence Kelly.
For Contingent magazine, Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell sent a postcard from the tiny Basque fishing village of Getaria, birthplace of Balenciaga.
While I really enjoyed Jonathan Burdick for The Erie Reader on Connie Hawkins, the Pittsburgh Pipers, & Northwestern Pennsylvania’s brief bush with professional basketball.
For the History News Network’s newsletter, Bruce W. Dearstyne highlighted Calvin Coolidge’s controversial call for inaction on the nation’s 150th birthday.
Speaking of anniversaries, for the Journal of the Early Republic Panorama’s ongoing series on Ken Burns’s American Revolution, Donald F. Johnson wrote about episode 3 & the problem of violence.
For the Museum of English Rural Life, Lottie Wood wrote about gender fluidity, rural landscapes, & mid-20th century Women’s Land Army.
While for the History Workshop, Nilakshi Das offered an important historical & contemporary challenge to the longstanding myth of the “bogus” student.
& the folks at the Royal Historical Society shared a series of resources for teaching slavery in secondary & higher ed classrooms, including Katie Donington, Abdul Mohamud, & Robin Whitburn introducing their co-authored book Teaching Slavery: New Approaches to Britain’s Colonial Past.
A trio of open-access academic articles to share this week, including Gareth Knapman for The Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History on the 1811-15 British occupation of Java.
Also open-access is the new special issue of the Journal of the Civil War Era, edited by Gregory P. Downs & Kate Masur & focused on historians of crisis in a moment of crisis.
& open-access for the next month is a special issue of Early American Literature, New Directions in Quaker Literary History, edited by Jay David Miller & Kaitlin Tonti.
A trio of columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Tanya Roth’s latest Women’s Work column on Fannie Barrier Williams & the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
Selina Alipour Tabrizi wrote for the Poston the history & evolution of fast-food advertising in America.
& here’s Teresa Bitler for the Post on the life & legacy of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first Catholic saint born on American soil.
Current Events:
Turning to current events, for the Los Angeles Times Surekha Davies used Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show to think about American identity before, during, & since 1776.
For legal & Constitutional parallel questions, check out Akhil Reed Amar for the New York Times (that’s a gift link) on the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship case.
Vital essay from François Furstenberg for Public Books on contemporary misuses of the university.
For AAIHS’s Black Perspectives, Robert Greene II offered a moving & important eulogy for Reverend Jesse Jackson.
& SAGE GRAY (Walter D. Greason) shared a pair of important pieces this week, including this one for his Spokesman-Recorder column on Black global leadership & this one for New American History offering resources on Prince & art & music as resistance.
Podcasts:
Lots of great new podcast episodes dropped this week, including a pair for Alycia Asai’s Civics & Coffee: this conversation with Vaughn Joy about her new book Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy; & this one on the Exodusters, the lesser-known late 19C Great Migration.
For episode 87 of her Drafting the Past podcast, Kate Carpenter interviewed Andrew Edwards about his new book Money & the Making of the American Revolution.
While the latest episode of the Presidencies of the United States podcast traces the Early Republic life & legacy of Secretary of the Navy turned Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson.
For his America: The Story of the USA podcast, Liam Heffernan talked with Rebecca Fraser about the vital 19th century Black dressmaker, author, & activist Elizabeth Keckley.
For the latest episode of his History on Film podcast, Ross Lennon talked with Landon Palmer about resources for teaching 70s Hollywood.
For episode 15 of his American Medieval podcast, Matt Gabriele was joined by Thomas Lecaque to talk about American Holy Wars.
While for episode 72 of his Holocaust History podcast, Waitman Beorn talked with Carolyn Dean about empathy, witnessing, & the role of images in teaching the Holocaust.
Turning to current events conversations, for his Civil War Memory podcast Kevin M. Levin talked with Jonathan S. Jones about the ongoing controversy over VMI & the Lost Cause. (For historical contexts for that controversy, check out my blog post on the Dunning School, part of this week’s series on non-favorite scholarly ideas!)
For episode 63 of the Parks Podcast, John Garrison Marks joined to talk about the current controversy around & longstanding histories of Philadelphia’s President’s House.
For her Academic Life channel for the New Books Network, Christina Gessler interviewed Eunji Kim about her new book The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy.
For the latest episode of the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast, Evan Auguste discussed Haitian immigrants, Temporary Protected Status, & the weight of uncertainty.
While for their This Ain’t It podcast, Melissa & Matthew Teutsch traced how the Epstein List echoes stories we can find in Scripture.
& I’ll end this section with a more inspiring conversation, another for Christina Gessler’s Academic Life channel featuring Alex D. Ketchum on organizing inclusive events & conferences.
Books:
A number of important new books out this week, including Rashad Shabazz’s Prince’s Minneapolis: A Biography of Sound & Place for UNC Press (& check out this excerpt for LitHub).
Out this week from Cambridge University Press is Kate Smith’s Keeping Hold: A Cultural & Social History of Possession in Eighteenth-Century Britain.
Likewise published by Cambridge this week is Christine Grandy’s Race on Screen: Audience Racism in Twentieth-Century Britain.
While out this week from the University of Virginia Press is Bryan A. Banks & Cindy Ermus’s edited collection The Global Age of Revolutions: A History from 1650 to Today.
The Urban History Association’s Metropole published an excerpt from another new book, Marc Stein’s Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s, out now from the University of Chicago Press.
While Public Books featured an interview with Kate Brown about her new book, Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, & Future of the Self-Governing City.
For the latest USIH book review, Robert Greene II wrote about Seth Rockman’s Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery.
For his Martin’s View blog, librarian Martin Maenza reviewed Charles L. Ponce de Leon’s Rolling Stone & the Rise of Hip Capitalism.
While for the Pittsburgh Review of Books, Doug MacLeod reviewed Laurence Glasco’s August Wilson’s American Century: Life as Art.
For lots more scholarly book recommendations, check out the UNC Press blog’s list of must-reads for President’s Day & Black History Month.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
Gonna end with a bunch of great newsletters & blog posts as ever, including the launch of the Historian’s Holonet, Chris Kempshall’s monthly newsletter on the First World War.
For his Campaign Trails newsletter, Kevin M. Kruse wrote about what Elon Musk & Pete Hegseth’s white supremacist perspectives get so wrong about the history of American diversity.
While for his A Necessitous Blog, Eric Rauchway offered an important corrective to another set of historical myths about FDR & tariffs.
For the latest installment of Sarah E. Bond’s Pasts Imperfect, Curtis Dozier discussed new books (including his own) that critique the instrumentalization of Classics.
For her Imperfect Union newsletter, Lindsay M. Chervinsky shared a history of President’s Day as well as an important perspective on where we can go from here.
Two pieces for Kevin M. Levin’s Civil War Memory newsletter to share this week, including his own President’s Day reflections on Washington, Lincoln, & the Union cause; & this fascinating piece on the emotional bonds of Civil War regiments.
Max Perry Mueller’s excellent More, America newsletter is up to the 1830s, with a piece on the compelling Muslim American Omar Ibn Said. (For more on Said, check out my 2020 blog post on his life & legacies.)
For his Matt’s Historical Ephemera newsletter, Matt Eaton offered the first part of a series on the quintessential WWII Englishman Leslie Howard.
Over at his History Sidebar blog, David Rotenstein reflected on the history & role of the endangered medium of local journalism.
For his blog, Will Pooley offered a similarly impassioned & important take on why we need to support archives & databases.
Two new posts from Etienne Toussaint to share this week, including part 1 of a series for The Tenure Track on building sustainable habits that last & this excellent piece for Freedom Papers on Anna Julia Cooper, trust, & the quiet confidence of waiting.
Also a pair of great pieces for Africa is a Country this week, including an interview with Ainehi Edoro on tracing indigenous origins for African fiction & Gilson Lázaro on the multimillion-dollar soccer match against Argentina that controversially concluded Angola’s golden jubilee.
Gonna end with a trio of great cultural studies pieces as usual, including Dion Georgiou for his The Academic Bubble on Manzoor Moghal’s 2010 revisionist biography of Idi Amin.
For Bright Wall/Dark Room’s Best of 2025 issue, Roxana Hadadi wrote about music, money, & the masterpiece that is Sinners.
& for her latest Review Roulette newsletter, Vaughn Joy offered a Formalist perspective on Katharine Hepburn’s hilarious performance in Woman of the Year (1942).
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!
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