March has come in with more administration lyin’, which means all the more reason to share my 265th #ScholarSunday thread of public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, share as widely as you can, & solidarity, all!
Articles:
Starting with a handful of pieces to conclude this year’s Black History Month, including Steven W. Thrasher for Literary Hub on Jesse Jackson’s legacy of support for LBGTQ rights & HIV/AIDS prevention.
Fascinating reporting from Pax Ahimsa Gethen for Assigned Media on a panel discussion celebrating the queer & trans, Black & Latinx tradition of ballroom culture.
Campbell Robertson wrote for the New York Times (that’s a gift link) on historical Black medics who paved the way for ambulance EMTs.
Here’s Jean Greene for the Jackson Advocate on the education movement that shaped Black Mississippi from Tuskegee to Utica (h/t Linda Monk for sharing this article).
While Peter Johnson & Michael Phillips wrote for the Dallas Morning News on how the tragic blinding of Isaac Woodard changed Harry Truman & contributed to early civil rights era reforms.
Turning to other great articles from the week, for the Denshō Project’s “Ask a Historian” series, Selena Moon wrote about the experiences of disabled people during WWII Japanese incarceration.
Here’s Daniel Sims for the Network in Canadian History & Environment on the intersection of environmental & cultural genocide when the W.A.C. Bennett Dam met the Lejac Indian Residential School.
On a more inspiring note, Balkan Diskurs wrote for Global Voices on how Bosnian-Herzegovinian professor Nejra Turčinović has returned to creating silly & delightful children’s illustrations.
Speaking of children’s favorites, for the History of Parliament site Hannes Kleineke wrote about how late medieval House of Commons members traded Paddington’s favorite, imported marmalade.
Here’s Matt Jordan for Penn State’s News Literary Initiative on what films can teach us about the fight for press freedom in American history (& our own moment).
While for the Journal of the Early Republic’s Panorama, Camille Kaszubowski wrote about Episode 4 of The American Revolution & why civilians matter.
Four open-access academic publications to share this week, including the entirety of the new Modern American History issue which features a Forum on birthright citizenship (including the work of Hardeep Dhillon, Beth Lew-Williams, Maddalena Marinari, & more).
Amy Garret Brown wrote for Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies on teaching the researched family profile essay as meaningful culturally sustaining pedagogy & counterstory.
Here’s Jianhao Xu for Cultural & Social History on politics, media, & the representation of Chinese youth suicide & melancholy, 1930-37.
While Pamela Herd wrote for the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, & Law on the politicization of federal health agencies & why MAHA will not make us healthy again.
A trio of columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Daniel T. Blumstein on 1960s biologist Lee Metzgar & what animals teach us about expertise.
For his Everyday Heroes Post column, Ken Budd highlighted leukemia survivor Melody Lomboy-Lowe who is using the power of books to help kids fight cancer.
While Mike Bezemek wrote for the Post on scandal & subterfuge in the race between Frederick Cook & Robert Peary to reach the North Pole first.
Current Events:
Turning to current events writing, vital work from Kelly Hayes for her Organizing My Thoughts newsletter on lessons in solidarity & intimacy from Minneapolis.
While Sofia Johnson wrote for the Pittsburgh Review of Books on how Michel de Certeau helps us understand what happens when we can’t walk in an occupied city.
Bracing & important work from Will Bunch for his Philadelphia Inquirer column (that’s a gift link) on the hidden ICE detention center blueprint that should horrify every American.
Equally bracing & vital essay from Victor Ray for Group Threat on how Du Bois’s Souls of White Folk helps us understand Marco Rubio’s white nationalist speech in Munich.
Speaking of Group Threat, Heba Gowayed also wrote for them this week, on how the Trump administration is illegalizing refugees.
A pair of great articles from Zeb Larson to share this week, including this one for Liberal Currents on how MAGA is actively seeking to immiserate the country to cement their power & this one for Truthdig on the many faces of the world’s biggest Neo-Fascist network.
Speaking of the fight against global fascism, comprehensive & crucial essay from Zack Beauchamp for Vox on lessons from other authoritarian states on how to fight Trump.
A pair of Public Books essays to highlight, including Jonah Siegel on the Trump administration’s controversial National Security Strategy of the United States of America & Ben Parker on the mediocre “student” essays that ChatGPT produces.
Speaking of AI, Oni J. Blackstock wrote for Health Affairs on New York City & State’s new AI laws & how communities must now take the lead.
For 19th News, Jessica Kutz reported on how Epstein’s influence on academic institutions shaped the exclusion of women in STEM.
Speaking of the exclusion of women, Jessica Valenti wrote for her newsletter on how the U.S. Olympic Men’s Hockey team failed the locker room test & their fellow athletes.
I’ll end this section on an inspiring note, Kate Masur for the Brennan Center for Justice on the amicus brief that she & Martha S. Jones have filed for the birthright citizenship case.
Podcasts:
Lots of great podcast episodes to share this week, including the latest for Kelly Therese Pollock’s Unsung History featuring John Garrison Marks on his new book & the complicated legacy of George Washington & slavery.
That’s one of many Black History Month episodes this week, including the latest for Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World featuring Shirley L. Green on her book Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence.
Historian & musician David Gilbert joined Robert Philipson’s Shoga Speaks podcast for part two of a conversation about how African American artists moved from minstrelsy to Broadway.
While for episode 197 of Axelbank Reports History & Today, Evan interviewed Gloria Browne-Marshall about her book A Protest History of the United States.
Speaking of protest histories, Robyn Spencer-Antoine joined Liam Heffernan’s America: The Story of the USA podcast to discuss the Black Panther Party. & Liam also shared his latest In the Making current events conversation, featuring Tim Galsworthy on a particularly chaotic stretch is US political history.
Galsworthy also joined the folks at York St. John University for a virtual talk about his new book The Republican House Divided.
For a lot more on book talks & other publicity plans, check out the latest episode of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past, featuring UNC Press director of publicity & communications Sonya Bonczek.
The latest episode of Alycia Asai’s Civics & Coffee podcast continues her Gilded Age series with a focus on the different ways we can analyze the men who built industrial America.
Speaking of the Gilded Age, for The Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast Cathleen Cahill was joined by Kelly L. Marino to talk about her book Votes for College Women: Alumni, Students, & the Woman Suffrage Campaign.
While for the Academic Life podcast’s New Books Network channel, Christian Gessler interviewed Katie Rose Guest Pryal about her book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education.
For the latest episode of the History on Film podcast, Ross Lennon was joined by Christopher Olson & Carrie-Lynn Reinhard to talk all things professional wrestling studies.
The latest episode of Brandy Schillace’s Peculiar Book Club podcast features Daniel Stables & his delightful new book Fiesta.
While over at Matt Gabriele’s American Medieval podcast, Rachel Schine joined to discuss medieval Islam & race.
& for episode 134 of John Fea’s The Way of Improvement Leads Home podcast, he interviewed Annette Laing, proprietor of the excellent Non-Boring History newsletter.
Turning to current events conversations, Rich Napolitano’s Shipwrecks & Sea Dogs podcast shared a two-part series on the preventable 2023 tragedy of the Titan submersible.
For Vox’s podcast, producer Nate Krieger dug into the histories of US immigration enforcement before ICE, featuring the expertise of Nancy Foner, Brianna Nofil, & Kevin Kenny among others.
For their This Ain’t It podcast, Melissa & Matthew Teutsch discussed myths & realities of “taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
For her latest American Conversations episode, Heather Cox Richardson interviewed Minnesota Senator Tina Smith.
For WNYC’s On the Media podcast, host Micah Loewinger was joined by Victor Packard to discuss the century-long phenomenon of “media capture” in the US.
Speaking of media capture, this week on their The Oath & the Office podcast John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider were joined by NPR’s Mike Pesca to discuss Trump’s pressures on the press.
A couple very different podcast milestones to celebrate this week, including the 400th episode of Mark Hurst’s Techtonic featuring notable interviews from over the years.
& check out the debut episode of the fascinating Be Gay Solve Crimes podcast, with hosts Mia Mulder, November Kelly, & Lucy from Scotland discussing the 1940s Sherlock Holmes adaptation The Woman in Green.
Finally, I’m excited to share the Game Plan for Season 2 of my podcast Baseball, Bigotry, & the Battle for America, which drops its First Inning on Opening Day!
Books:
A quartet of important new books published this week, including Oscar de la Torre’s edited collection Black Atlantic Worlds: Landscapes Histories of the African Diaspora from Harvard University Press.
Also out this week is Jennifer Doleac’s The Science of Second Chances: A Revolution in Criminal Justice from Macmillan.
Likewise just published is Fay Bound-Alberti’s fascinating The Face: A Cultural History from Penguin.
& also newly published & available open-access is Gijs Dreijer’s Private Entrepreneurship & European Imperialism: Dutch Entrepreneurs in the Scramble for Africa, 1830s-1910s from Springer.
Forthcoming in April & available for pre-order from Princeton University Press is Catherine Fletcher’s The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires.
Forthcoming in June from Simon & Schuster is Lauren Working’s A Golden World: How the Americas Transformed Tudor & Stuart England.
While out in September & already available for pre-order from Yale University Press is Michael Leroy Oberg’s much-anticipated The Central Fire of the Iroquois: A Five-Hundred-Year History of the Onondaga Nation.
Over at Haiti Then & Now, Celucien L. Joseph interviewed Ronald Angelo Johnson about his new book Entangled Alliances: Racialized Freedom & Atlantic Diplomacy During the American Revolution.
While for the UNC Press blog, Aaron G. Fountain Jr. shared a guest post based on his new book High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, & FBI Surveillance in Postwar America.
& for Contingent magazine, Ben Nadler shared a fascinating article on how & why he wrote Prairie Ashes, his historical novel about the 1930s Illinois Mine War.
For the latest USIH book review, Michael J. Kramer wrote about two recent books, Brigid Cohen’s Musical Migration & Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes & Michael Gallope’s The Musicain as Philosopher: New York’s Vernacular Avant-Garde, 1958-1978.
For the Pittsburgh Review of Books, Renée Nicholson reviewed Austin McCoy’s Living in a D.A.I.S.Y. Age: The Music, Culture, & World De La Soul Made.
While for her newsletter, Lynne Perednia reviewed George Saunders’s new novel Vigil.
& over at her A Writer’s Notebook newsletter, Summer Brennan wrote about our current apocalypse of book reviewing & why we need a new books supplement.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
I’ll end with lots more great newsletters & blog posts as usual, including Maurice Cunningham for his Sinister Interest & Evil in Every Shape: A Dark Money Reader on how the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education is betraying working-class students.
For his Democracy Americana newsletter, Thomas Zimmer wrote about how many of the “Never Trump” conservatives gave themselves permission to go MAGA.
While Sherrilyn Ifill shared an extended & updated version of her vital newsletter on why & how we must stop the SAVE Act.
I missed Jenn M. Jackson’s most recent Love Notes newsletter, on how rest is not resistance: commodification, capitalism, & the cult of self-care.
For a more inspiring form of resistance, check out Dan Sinker’s blog post on gold-medal winning figure skater Alysa Liu & joy as resistance.
While for his Public Comment blog, Ned Resnikoff responded to Becca Rothfeld’s “Listless Liberalism” with a defense of liberal cultural reimaginings.
Turning to more historical subjects, for the ongoing In Pursuit project Joseph J. Ellis contributed a post on the great Abigail Adams.
While for his wonderful More, America newsletter, Max Perry Mueller shared his 1840s nominee, the famed Ute leader Wakara.
Over at his Civil War Memory newsletter, Kevin M. Levin shared some of the material that he had to cut from his forthcoming biography of Robert Gould Shaw.
For her History in the Margins blog, Pamela D. Toler highlighted another forgotten & fascinating female illustrator, Alice Barber Stephens.
I really enjoyed Colin Gorrie’s Dead Language Society post exploring the evolution of the English language through moving backward across the centuries.
For his Ehlers on Everything blog, Mark Ehlers offered a beautiful post on his daughter’s high school photography project, Field of Dreams & the meaning of baseball, & his own career arc.
For the March installment of his Damn History newsletter (his 100th!), Jack El-Hai highlighted the mysteries of the writing workshop for historians and scholars.
On her blog, Theresa Kaminski shared her latest dispatch from her work on her bio of Jane Grant, focusing on women writers & activists & the Great War.
While Etienne Toussaint shared two newsletters this week, including this one for The Tenure Track concluding his two-part series on building sustainable habits that last & this one for Freedom Papers on Fannie Lou Hamer, tested faith, & the ground where growth takes root.
Gonna conclude with a bunch of great cultural studies posts as ever, including James Poniewozik for The New York Times (that’s a gift link) on how Survivor has reflected America across its fifty seasons.
Speaking of island culture, for my AmericanStudier blog this week I highlighted Hawaiian stories, starting with a post on James Michener’s Hawaii & leading up to a post on the 75th anniversary of the publication of James Jones’s From Here to Eternity.
For his Genre Fantasies site, Sean Guynes concluded a sixteen-part series reading through the novels of the fantasy master Thomas Burnett Swann.
As a certified Deadwood superfan, I really enjoyed Elias Isquith for his Life of the Mind newsletter on rewatching the masterpiece show in the age of the oligarch. & through that piece I also found the late Paul Cantor’s excellent book chapter on Deadwood & the state of nature.
I always love when Outlaw Vern reviews a film with particularly striking contemporary connections, as is the case with the Best Picture nominated The Secret Agent.
Speaking of contemporary political pop culture, check out Tim Dickinson for The Contrarian on the new wave of protest music, from Springsteen to the streets.
& finally, while we wait for Vaughn Joy’s next awesome Review Roulette newsletter, check out on her most contemporarily connected past pieces, this great take on The Hunchback of Notre Dame & monsters past & present.
Can’t get enough public scholarship? Well you’re in luck, as Dion Georgiou has shared the 53rd installment of his Stop, Look, & Listen roundup!
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please add more articles, podcasts, new & forthcoming books, & newsletters/blog posts below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & may we all March together toward a better place!
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