Let’s close out this eternal month of May right, with my 278th #ScholarSunday thread of public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all!
No winner of last week’s Easter Egg hunt (which was focused on the Fast & Furious films, fam), so Ima take Curator’s Privilege & shout-out my awesome wife Vaughn Joy & her book Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy. Ask your library to order a copy, & thanks!
& make sure to head over to my Bluesky timeline for the clue to this week’s Easter Egg hunt, to earn yourself & your work a shout-out at the top of next week’s thread!
Articles:
Gonna start with a number of pieces for Memorial Day, including my latest Saturday Evening Post Considering History column, sharing lessons from a recently recovered treasure trove of WWII letters from my late grandfather!
On a similar note, Charlie Sykes wrote on his To the Contrary newsletter about his mother’s first husband & hero, the WWII soldier Lambert Hruska.
Over at her History in the Margins blog, Pamela D. Toler shared reflections from a Memorial Day spent near Omaha Beach.
For her Fortify newsletter, Nicole F. Carr wrote about the racial politics behind the origins & the evolution of Memorial Day.
& over at my AmericanStudier blog, I likewise spent the week writing about why & how we need to better remember the holiday’s Decoration Day origins.
Lots of other great public scholarly articles to share this week, including Michael S. Donovan for the AHA’s Perspectives on what we can learn from his inherited WWI trench art lighter.
To commemorate Jewish American Heritage Month, Shō Poetry Journal shared a wonderful playlist of poems they’ve recently published.
For Hyperallergic, Hannah Benson highlighted what we can learn about the private worlds of Charlotte Bronte & Octavia Butler from exhibits at the Huntington Library.
For the Chicago Reader, Morley Musick conducted wonderful oral history interviews with regulars at the city’s beloved Harold Washington Library.
While for his Pittsburgh City Paper column, David S. Rotenstein traced the fascinating histories of turn of the 20th century drag performers.
Two great LitHub pieces to share this week, including Lisa E. Davis on how America’s first war on drugs was also a war on jazz, & Natalie Zina Walschots on why literary & cultural villains are often so much more interesting than the heroes.
Likewise a pair of NiCHE Canada articles to share, including the latest in their “Land, Memory, & Schooling: Environmental Histories of Colonial Education” series, from Crystal Gail Fraser & Jess Dunkin; while Bruno Esperante, Evan Fernandez, & Gabriel Coleman highlighted lessons for nitrogen governance from when fertilizer become geopolitics.
& check out the call for participants in the latest AAIHS & Black Press Research Collective workshop, which will take place in October & focus on Black journalism in global perspective.
Four open-access scholarly resources to share this week, including Sophie Fuggle & Briony Nelson’s article in French Historical Studies exploring the contours of the carceral archipelago.
Also open-access is Jack Hanlon in the History Workshop Journal on turn of the century London meat porters & the white working class.
Thanks to SAGE GRAY (Walter D. Greason) for sharing an open-access version of his article on Northen spatial segregation & a blueprint for structural reparation.
& for an important new digital scholarly resource, check out the Huygens Institute’s Suriname Time Machine.
Besides my Memorial Day column above, three pieces from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Sena Ho on Patsy Mink’s groundbreaking battle for fundamental human rights.
For his Our Better Nature column, Paul Hetzler wrote about an innovative use of beavers to counter tree-killing mosses.
& Nancy Monson wrote for the Post on the rise of a new type of wellness retreat focused on reading clubs.
Current Events:
Turning to current events scholarly writing, one of the biggest stories of the week was Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, & it produced a number of great pieces, including two from Roopika Risam: this Bluesky thread connecting his ideas about AI to her book Data Empire; & this Religion Dispatches article linking those AI critiques to histories of enslavement.
For the Pittsburgh Review of Books, John Miller wrote about the Pope’s vital alternative to our current techbro overlords.
While John Fea wrote for the AHA’s Perspectives on how AI & historical thinking offer two vastly different visions of higher education.
Also for Perspectives, here’s an open-access version of Douglas Sackman’s essay in their May 2026 issue on what histories of technology tell us about AI.
& for all of us opposed to AI, make sure to check out Karen Hao’s vital new AI Resist List project.
One of many reasons to resist is AI’s effects on the climate crisis, & this week NiCHE Canada & Activist History featured two more articles in their Great Acceleration series, including Alicia Carefoote on carceral landscapes in Canada’s Great Acceleration, & Shannon Stunden Bower on knowledge & science in this fraught moment.
I really appreciate this piece from the folks at the Cultural Landscape Foundation on how Trump’s proposed changes to DC are a slap in the face to Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. & so many others.
Vital reporting as always from Marisa Kabas in her Handbasket newsletter, this time on the anti-ICE protests at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall incarceration camp.
In The New Republic, Jake Grumbach & Perry Bacon offered a new model for Black politics in the aftermath of the Voting Rights Act.
While for Slate’s Jurisprudence, Chika Okafor argued that Justice Alito’s math on “colorblindness” doesn’t add up.
I didn’t expect to ever feature Playboy in these threads, but Brittney McNamara’s article on the return of the Comstock Act is worth giving them the clicks.
Really powerful Public Books conversation with Amber Husain about her new book & why eating disorders are more than just a feminist issue.
Two particularly excellent installments of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American this week: May 23’s on Trump & Arlington National Cemetery; & her May 24th announcement of the important new 250 to 250 video series.
Likewise two complementary Liberal Currents essays to share, including Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis on why Woke 2 must build its own institutions, & Israel Kolawole on how rebuilding state capacity is about reclaiming our collective sovereignty.
Gonna end this section with a handful of vital pieces of advice, including David Rothkopf for his Need to Know on why fighting back is an act of optimism.
I loved this New York Times piece (that’s a gift link) on Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III’s new exhibit & thoughts on American history & ideals.
& since it’s graduation season, here are transcripts of three inspiring commencement addresses: Viet Thanh Nguyen’s to Berkeley English Majors; Pittsburgh Review of Books founder Ed Simon to Carnegie Mellon English graduates; & Hakeem Jefferson at Notre Dame.
Podcasts:
Despite my best efforts, I miss a ton each week, so for this section I’ll be starting with podcast episodes I failed to initially feature, including the first few episodes of Blair Braverman’s new What to Carry, What to Burn (h/t Jeff Sharlet).
I missed two episodes of Holley Snaith’s Say It with History podcast: Katie Gee Salisbury on Anna May Wong & early Hollywood; & Keith Pakela on teaching students critical thinking. & here’s this week’s latest episode, Simone O. Elias on why classic Hollywood films still matter today.
I missed episode 19 of the Civil War Monitor’s Civil War Curious podcast, featuring Joan Waugh on Grant & Lee’s postwar relationship. & here’s this week’s episode 20, featuring Allen C. Guelzo on the causes of the war.
I missed last week’s episode of Rich Napolitano’s Shipwrecks & Sea Dogs podcast, which tells the story of Scottish surgeon & explorer John Rae. & this week Rich was joined by Jenny Chan to discuss the Doolittle Raid & Japan’s Unit 731.
& I missed last week’s second episode of Emily J. Edwards’ Silver Screen Sleuths, featuring Lawrence Allan on The Thin Man. & here’s the new third episode, featuring Keith Roysdon on Zodiac.
Turning fully to episodes from this week, for his Pop Culture Basement podcast Mike Jamison was joined by Henry Bernstein to discuss the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated adaptation of The Hobbit.
For episode 2 of their TV is Good podcast, Alan Sepinwall & Kathryn VanArendonk discussed Outlander & the new For All Mankind spinoff Star City.
The multi-part tribute to Elaine May on the Ticklish Business podcast concluded this week with Elizabeth Alsop on Ishtar.
For his Presidencies of the United States podcast, Jerry Landry was joined by Vulgar History host Ann Foster to start a new series on James Monroe’s wife and daughters.
Speaking of Vulgar History, for its new episode Foster was joined by Kate Lister of Betwixt the Sheets to discuss Victorian sexual myths.
For his America: The Story of the USA podcast, Liam Heffernan was joined by Tim Galsworthy to discuss how the Civil War changed the Republican Party.
While for the latest episode of her Civics & Coffee podcast, Alycia Asai discussed the groundbreaking 19C reform movement the Irish Ladies Land League.
Episode 101 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past podcast features Tara Mulder on the conditions of academic labor, her book on ancient Roman childbirth, & much more.
Mulder also wrote about that project for the latest installment of Sarah E. Bond’s Pasts Imperfect newsletter.
For the latest episode of his American Medieval podcast, Matt Gabriele was joined by Benjamin Saltzman to discuss grief & shame in the Middle Ages.
For the History Workshop’s podcast, Marybeth Hamilton interviewed Tash Walker & Adam Zmith about their podcast The Log Books & recovering queer histories.
While for episode 79 of his Holocaust History podcast, Waitman W. Beorn was joined by Eric Kurlander to discuss the Nazi occult.
Turning to current events conversations, episode 7 of Adam Becker’s Dreaming Against the Machine podcast features Susannah Glickman on the history & future of technology.
For the latest episode of their Whiplash podcast, Max Kuzma was joined by Ish Ruiz to talk queer theology 101.
Over at Public Books’ Writing Latinos podcast, Geraldo Cadava interviewed Mary E. Mendoza about her new book Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, & People Defied the US-Mexico Border.
While for her the Academic Life podcast, Christina Gessler interviewed Atima Omara about her new book The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy (and What We Can Learn from Them).
The latest episode of John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider’s The Oath & the Office podcast features filmmaker Andrew Glazer on his investigative documentary Spring of the Vanishing about US complicity in Mexican military murders.
& speaking of documentaries, thanks to Walter D. Greason for sharing this link to the full video of the new PBS doc about Natchez, Exploring the Myth of Southern Charm.
Finally, I’m excited to share the Ninth Inning of Diamond in the Rough: Baseball, Bigotry, & the Battle for America, Season 2, which focuses on aftermaths & legacies of baseball at Japanese American incarceration camps. (& watch this space for next week’s Postgame Press Conference!)
Books:
Starting this section with a recent book that I missed (but just had the chance to review & its great), Lori Harrison-Kahan’s West of the Ghetto: Jewish Women, Old San Francisco, & American Literary Culture from Wayne State University Press.
Four new books out this week from UNC Press: Jason R. Young’s The Mask of Memory: White Racial Fantasy After the Civil War; Allison S. Curseen’s Minor Moves: Black Girls & Unruly Performance in Antebellum Narratives; Jesse Montgomery’s It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story; & Raf De Bont, Vanessa Bateman, & Tom Quick’s edited collection Globalizing Wildlife: Flows, Migrations, & Exchanges.
Also published this week by Penguin Random House is Damario Solomon-Simmons’ Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America.
& speaking of Penguin, out this week in paperback is Noliwe Rooks’ A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune.
For the Philly Voice, Molly McVety interviewed Sarah J. Jackson about her new book A Second Sight: How the Wonder & Vision of Black Mediamakers Push America Toward Freedom.
The University of Nebraska Press blog shared an excerpt from William H. Brewster’s new book The Land of Sand & Cotton: Texas, Workingmen, & Professional Baseball in 1888.
While the Pittsburgh Review of Books shared an excerpt from Deborah Baker’s important new book Charlottesville: An American Story.
For the latest USIH book review, Whitney McIntosh wrote about Lars Cornelissen’s Neoliberalism & Race.
While for Dissent magazine, Mark Erlich reviewed Molly Crabapple’s Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund.
& for Public Books, Will McDonald reviewed Douglas Stuart’s new novel John of John.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
Gonna end with a bunch of great newsletters & blog posts as ever, including Bruce Lesley for Kids Can’t Wait making an important case for children’s fundamental rights.
Over at her website, Dara R. Fisher argued that service corps & volunteer programs model resistance & reinforce our civic fabric.
Lots of great stuff in Sarah Kendzior’s latest newsletter as usual, including an argument for how The Wire exposed the Trump crime syndicate.
For her History Teaches… newsletter, Felicia Kornbluh traced the deep roots of Trump’s corrupt “anti-weaponization” fund.
For his newsletter, Michael Phillips highlighted the overt & destructive Islamophobia of Texas GOP leaders.
For her newsletter, Marianne Dhenin launched a new Journos on Journos series with an interview with Mel Buer about freelancing, covering protests, & more.
Over at his Tattooed Historian’s Dispatch newsletter, John R. Heckman wrote about livestreams, shared learning, & the power of showing up.
For his latest Freedom Papers newsletter, Etienne Toussaint wrote about MLK, generational faith, & the courage to build.
While for her 18th Love Note newsletter, Jenn M. Jackson argued that May is a period of personal as well as educational transitions.
Over at his The Birth of a Capital blog, Neil Flanagan highlighted how his project on Reno is also a heist story about land theft.
While for her 17th Dispatch from the Writing Life, Theresa Kaminski shared takeaways from her recent trip to Scotland.
The New York Almanack blog is always a delightful read, this time focused on Clinton County’s 19C Redford Crown Glass Works.
For his newsletter, Matthew Eaton wrote about Stars in Battledress, an entertainment group that arrived in Normandy not long after the D-Day invasion.
Gonna conclude with a handful of such cultural studies pieces as ever, including Caryn Rose for Salon on how Springsteen’s current tour is a call to action.
For Public Books, A. Banerjee reviewed Industry’s depictions of diaspora.
For Bright Wall/Dark Room’s ongoing 1976 issue, Lindsey Romain wrote about All the President’s Men.
One of my two favorite film writers, Outlaw Vern, reviewed a fascinating new documentary, Phoenix Jones: The Rise & Fall of a Real Life Superhero.
While for her ongoing series on Mel Brooks’ 100th birthday, my other favorite film writer Vaughn Joy offered a delightful take on Young Frankenstein & cultural reception.
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing, podcasts, books below. Thanks, & happy reading, listening, & learning, all!
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