It’s gonna be May—well, it is May, & with it comes my 274th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share widely, & enjoy, all!
First, a shout-out to A. Brad Schwartz, who completed last week’s Easter Egg hunt first & did Nic Cage proud. He wanted to highlight once more his phenomenal Columbia Journalism Review article on the 1930 prison fire that helped make CBS Radio a must-listen source; also check out his follow-up conversation with WYNC’s On the Media.
Make sure to head to my Bluesky timeline for this week’s thread, to see the new Easter Egg clue & earn yourself & your work a shout-out at the top of next week’s thread!
Articles:
Thanks to Andrew Rihn for sharing a wonderful essay from March that I missed, Lucas Shaefer’s Paris Review in memoriam for the documentarian Frederick Wiseman. (Everybody, remember to email us with suggestions for threads!)
Lots of great articles from this week to share, starting with Larry Glickman’s must-read essay in The Atlantic (that’s a gift link) on our shared understanding of the 14th Amendment, now lost.
Mary Ellen Wright wrote for Lancaster Online on the opening of a vital new museum in that Pennsylvania region, the Thaddeus Stevens-Lydia Hamilton Smith center.
For another important new historical exhibition, check out this Charnwood Forest website piece on the opening of an exhibit on the history of the Geopark village of Nanpantan.
The editors of the great New York Almanack site highlighted the 1839-45 New York Anti-Rent War & its relevance today.
Here’s Brendan Davey for Grime Square on the rise & fall of the 1970s brewing industry in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood.
For his Pittsburgh City Paper column, David S. Rotenstein traced how horse racing & rambling built professional sports in that city.
Clara Vlessing wrote for The History Workshop on how the historic anarchists Louise Michel & Emma Goldman continue to pop up in unexpected places like pop music & the shipping industry.
Vital piece from Danny Robb for JSTOR Daily on what the 1950s establishment of the National Science Foundation revealed about the bipartisan consensus on science.
While Tom Wells wrote for the Oxford University Press blog on why the Henry Kissinger recordings are a vital primary source.
& I’m very excited for the next AAIHS/Global Black Thought roundtable, which begins tomorrow (Monday 5/4) & will focus on Kali Nicole Gross’s Vengeance Feminism, including a concluding response from the author.
Three columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Einav Rabinovitch-Fox’s latest Commons Threads column on the origins & evolution of May Day.
Donald Liebenson wrote for the Post on ten films that reveal the indiscreet charms of the pre-Code era in Hollywood.
& the Post film reviewer Bill Newcott shared an essay on his return to Cozumel after four decades that is both travel writing & a fascinating glimpse into cultural memory.
Current Events:
Turning to current events public scholarship, I’ll share five of the many great pieces on the Supreme Court’s historically awful decision in Louisiana v. Callais, starting with Ari Berman for Mother Jones.
Richard L. Hasen of the Safeguarding Democracy Project argued in Slate that the decision is the Court’s worst ruling in a century.
For Contrarian News legal expert Leah Litman called this evisceration of the Voting Rights Act a coup against multiracial democracy.
Sherrilyn Ifill wrote about the decision for her newsletter, contextualizing it with Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction, & Civil Rights era histories.
& for his Civil War memory newsletter, Kevin M. Levin argued that the decision illustrates how Jim Crow didn’t die, it just went to law school.
Turning to other current events, Laurie Lathem wrote a personal narrative for Electric Literature offering her observations from inside immigration court.
For their Dallas Observer column, Michael Phillips, Rick Halperin, & Hadi Jawad wrote about the Texas GOP’s “Anti-Sharia” crusade & the history of state Islamophobia.
Bracing & vital reporting from Sonel Cutler & Jacquelyn Elias in the Chronicle of Higher Ed on the nearly 1/3rd of faculty who say they’ve censored their research in recent years.
In a similar vein, I really appreciate Ben Wright’s argument for Inside Higher Ed on how we shouldn’t be talking about colleagues in Texas & Florida.
For broader contexts for those trends, check out Emma Loffhagen’s Guardian interview with the legendary Kimberlé Crenshaw on her new memoir & the backlash to civil rights.
Excellent LitHub essay from Omer Aziz on how we can see parallels to the propaganda of early Nazism in our moment & society.
For the Boston Review, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò connected the WHCD shooting to an argument that elite impunity has fueled fantasies that violence & catastrophe are for other people.
As usual, deeply impressive work for the Prison Journalism Project, this time from Kimberly C. on how there ae no real mirrors in prison.
& speaking of vital journalistic voices, check out Tony Norman in the Pittsburgh Review of Books on why the closure of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette might also be a liberation.
Podcasts:
Starting with a few recent podcasts that I missed, including a Working Class History series on the 100th anniversary of the 1926 general strike.
I likewise missed the latest episode of Ian Saxine & Tiffany Link’s Mainely History, featuring James Melcher on Maine’s enduring history of liberal Republicans.
I also missed Rich Napolitano’s recent Shipwrecks & Sea Dogs conversation with Jenny Chan on World War II’s Japanese Hell Ships. & this week Rich shared a two-part episode on the shattered ambitions & tragedies of the late 19th century USS Jeannette expedition.
Continuing with great episodes from this week, here’s part two of Ross Lennon’s History on Film series on his teen movie research into the JD Media Archive.
Mike Jamison’s Pop Culture Basement dropped a special mega-episode on The Princess Bride, featuring Bellacissa, Bill Dunn, Brad Reiter, & Anthony.
Over at their Cold War Cinema podcast, hosts Jason Christian & Anthony Ballas were joined by Ryan Ruby to discuss the New German Cinema of the late 20C.
Two new episodes of Alycia Asai’s Civics & Coffee podcast this week, including an interview with Austin McCoy about his new book on De La Soul, & Alycia’s own latest episode, focused on women’s long fight for the right to vote.
Also two new episodes of Liam Heffernan’s America: The Story of the USA podcast this week, including a conversation with Sian Round about the Harlem Renaissance, & the latest of his In the Making current events conversations, featuring comedian Nish Kumar on the King’s visit to the US.
Speaking of Transatlantic connections, thanks to the Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies for sharing a recording of David Dickson’s talk on the early 19th century Moore family archive.
While Chris Brian joined the History Workshop’s podcast to talk about the Undercover Research Project & how undercover police have targeted the British Left.
For Public Books’ Writing Latinos podcast, host Geraldo Cadava was joined by Jaquira Díaz to talk about her new novel This is the Only Kingdom.
Episode 97 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past features Emily Dufton on her book Addiction, Inc. & why more historians should call their sources.
The latest episode of Jerry Landry’s Presidencies podcast features Tim Galsworthy on his new book & how Civil War Memory became a hidden weapon in American politics.
Over at Matt Gabriele’s American Medieval podcast, Matthew Vernon joined to discuss how art can help us think differently about the Middle Ages & our own futures.
For the start of the new season of Holley Snaith’s Say It with History, Pamela Toler joined to talk about her book on Sigrid Schultz & the fight to report the truth in Nazi Germany.
Speaking of Nazi Germany, episode 77 of Waitman W. Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast features Robert Hutchinson on the clemency & paroling of Nazi war criminals.
Turning to more current events conversations, the latest episode of Max Kuzma’s Whiplash podcast features the return of co-host Emma & a conversation about Pope Leo’s recent comments as well as three LGBTQ figures from history we all should know.
Over at Liberal Currents’ Half the Answer podcast, hosts Caitlin M. Green & Trent R. Nelson were joined by Adrian Daub to talk about how the American obsession with “cancel culture” went global.
The latest episode of the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast features Alejandro Camacho on the evolving fight over climate rules.
In a similar vein, James Morone joined John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider’s The Oath & the Office to discuss his new book on Trump’s war on science.
While WNYC’s On the Media has dropped the first episode of their four-part series on the movement to kill FEMA, this one featuring co-host Micah Loewinger on the agency’s origin story.
& for the Classical Antiquity Sidequest podcast, Katherine Blouin joined to discuss how wars of choice destroy culture & memory.
Check out the pilot episode of From the Archives, a new series for my institution Fitchburg State University’s Perseverantia network, this episode featuring FSU librarians Renée Fratantonio, Asher Jackson, & Olivia Rossetti on the university’s trailblazing women & the buildings that remember them.
& I’m really proud of the latest episode of Diamond in the Rough, the second season of my Baseball, Bigotry, & the Battle for America podcast; this Sixth Inning focuses on prominent Japanese American players from the incarceration camps & the community of sports.
Books:
A handful of important new books out this week, including Roland Betancourt’s Disneyland & the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth from Princeton University Press.
Out now from UNC Press is Mary E. Mendoza’s Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, & People Defied the US-Mexico Border.
Likewise out this week from University of Illinois Press is Eladio B. Bobadilla’s Dangerous Migration: Mexican Labor & the Fight for Immigrant Rights.
Also published this week by University of Minnesota Press is Chad Benito Infante’s Murderous Feeling: Gender & Retribution in Black & Indigenous Literature.
& finally, out this week from Johns Hopkins University Press is David M. Perry’s The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook. Perry shared an excerpt from the book on his & Matt Gabriele’s Modern Medieval newsletter. & John Warner interviewed Perry about the book for Inside Higher Ed.
For another important new release, check out the University of Georgia Press’s U.S. History at the 250th: From the Revolution to the History Wars, edited by Catherine Clinton & Jim Downs & featuring Sandra Enríquez, Annette Gordon-Reed, Sandy Grande, Nikole Hannah-Jones, William Sturkey & more!
Also, thanks to the folks at the Immigration & Ethnic History Society for sharing that the University of Illinois Press’ free e-book for May is Sergio M. González’s Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging & Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin.
Forthcoming on May 19 from UNC Press is Gautham Rao’s long-awaited White Power: Policing American Slavery.
While forthcoming on June 2 from Princeton University Press is Arturo Chang’s A New World of Revolutions: Popular Imaginations & Movements across the Americas.
& forthcoming in September from Oxford University Press is Scott Selisker’s Character Networks in Contemporary U.S. Fiction.
For Public Books, Laura B. McGrath shared an excerpt from her new book Middlemen: Literary Agents & the Making of American Fiction.
The folks at Pittsburgh Review of Books shared two such excerpts, including Randal Maurice Jelks from his My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy & Khiara M. Bridges from her Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans.
For the latest USIH book review, Naida García Crespo wrote about Molly Geidel’s The Development Film in the Americas.
While for her History in the Margins blog, Pamela D. Toler reviewed Matt Alt’s Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
Gonna conclude with a bunch of great newsletters & blog posts as usual, including Felicia Kornbluh for her History Teaches… on the WHCD shooting & how violence begets violence.
For the 17th installment of her Love Notes series, Jenn M. Jackson wrote about how we should be doing more to fight the global epidemic of Black femicide.
While Thor Benson wrote for his Madness newsletter on how we need to counter Trump’s massive damage to America’s science & innovation engine.
Turning to more historical subjects, George Dillard continued his Looking Through the Past series on the stimulants that made the modern world with a newsletter on tobacco.
For the University of Exeter’s Material Culture of Wills project, E.M. Vine highlighted the Will of the Month, from an English Catholic convert in Spain.
Over at his newly relocated newsletter, Matt Eaton wrote about how the screenwriter & lyricist Eric Maschwitz spent WWII recruiting civilian saboteurs.
Somehow I’ve failed to include J.L. Bell’s groundbreaking Boston 1775 blog in this space, but that changes this week, with his latest fascinating post on a quest for the identities of a pair of Revolutionary historical figures.
Two new pieces for the In Pursuit newsletter this week, including Matthew Costello on James K. Polk & the consequences of decisions, & Amy S. Greenberg on Sarah Polk & power exercised through proximity & trust.
The 1870s installment of Max Perry Mueller’s fabulous More, America project focuses on one of my favorite Americans, Frances Ellens Watkins Harper.
For his The Birth of a Capital newsletter, Neil Flanagan wrote about the visionary waterworks of Francis Newlands.
While for her Beyond Curie newsletter, Olivia Campbell wrote about the lifesaving work of Judy Sullivan, NASA’s first woman biomedical engineer.
Over at his Tattooed Historian’s Dispatch newsletter, John R. Heckman offered moving thoughts on the ethical work of the public historian.
For his Freedom Papers newsletter, Etienne Toussaint wrote about Audre Lorde, the cost of staying quiet, & our voices as liberation.
For her Writing Nécessaire newsletter, Cassidy Percoco shared the news of her new gig at a curator at Genesee Country Village & Museum.
While my FSU English Studies colleague Steve Edwards wrote a post on his inspiring forthcoming book, Rare Good: Essays on Art, Autism, & Astonishment.
& Theresa Kaminski shared her 14th Dispatch from the Writing Life, on why & how she’s calling a chapter of her Jane Grant book done.
I earnestly hope that May the Fourth will be with you, & in that spirit here’s Chris Kempshall’s latest newsletter, on Steve Perry’s Shadows of the Empire.
Gonna end with a bunch more great cultural studies pieces, including Jessica DeWitt’s NiCHE Canada interview with Matthew J. Thompson on cinema, ecology, & environmental crisis.
For her Woman & Her Sphere blog, Elizabeth Crawford shared her latest suffrage object, the 1913 Brittania film The Suffragette.
For the Pittsburgh Review of Books, Riona Duncan wrote about how college radio resists the algorithms of our moment.
For Liberal Currents, Joseph Stieb shared a thoughtful essay on the historical sensibility of Mad Men.
Speaking of great TV, this week on my AmericanStudier blog I spent the week analyzing some of the most historically & culturally interesting Columbo murderers!
For Bright Wall/Dark Room’s ongoing issue on comedy, Carrie Courogen highlighted the under-remembered gem Troop Beverly Hills (1989).
For Black Girl Nerds’ Cult Classics series, Wayne Broadway wrote about the hilarious, if muddled, politics of Undercover Brother.
Speaking of imperfect but delightful film comedies, for her latest Review Roulette newsletter Vaughn Joy wrote about how & why Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights breaks the 5th wall.
Finally, for his Academic Bubble newsletter’s Rewound series Dion Georgiou wrote about the 1946 book Thomas the Tank Engine.
& if you need even more public scholarly goodness, check out the 56th installment of Dion’s Stop, Look, & Listen newsletter series!
PS. I’m sure both Dion & I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & remember to check out the new Easter Egg hunt on my Bluesky thread!
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