This…is…not Sparta! But it is my 300th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share widely to support all this great work, & enjoy, all!
First, a note that yesterday I shared a pre-300 post with some reflections & a couple key requests for y’all. Please check it out if you haven’t already, & please subscribe to these threads, share ‘em widely, support all the scholars & work I feature every week. Thanks!
Articles:
For AAIHS Black Perspectives, the editors of Global Black Thought interviewed Carole Boyce Davies about her groundbreaking work using Black feminist theory to explore Black women’s rights & leadership.
While the folks at Urban History Association Metropole interviewed Elizabeth Macaulay about her book Ancient Fantasies & Modern Power: Neo-Antique Architecture at American World’s Fairs, 1893-1915.
Thanks to the editors of the Civil War Monitor for sharing a fascinating primary source, U.S. Army medical cadet Charles Stubbs’ letter offering tips for military surgeons dealing with Civil War wounds.
For his Pittsburgh City Paper column, David S. Rotenstein highlighted some of the city’s prior, groundbreaking alt publications. & thanks to David for sharing a fascinating column from his colleague Jessie Sage, on how the City Paper & sex workers were in bed together since the beginning (& it was good for everyone).
Two excellent new pieces for The History Workshop this week: Daria Dyakonova on the 1930s Communist Women’s Movement & the dilemmas of the Popular Front; & Marek Maj on how & why we should frame midwifery as labor history.
Four fascinating Pittsburgh Review of Books essays to include in this week’s thread: Rahaf AlMubarak on a new project that brings together Greek, English, & Arab voices to represent the polyphonic Arabian Gulf; Liam Battle with case studies that reminds us that the U.S. Southern border is a constructed, ultimately fictive space; Shanzeh Afzal on what we can learn from reading Calvino at the (increasingly costly) gas pump; & Courtney Novosat with a Halloween-week piece on the alternative epistemologies of the 19th century Spiritualist movement.
Also four new pieces at NiCHE Canada to share this week, including three for the ongoing series on “uncharismatic” species in environmental history: David A. Quinche Giraldo on how to talk about “monsters” in science; Peter Soppelsa on dwelling with & without rats; & Claire Waddell-Wood arguing for a more-than-tree approach to forest history.
& thanks to NiCHE Canada for sharing an open-access version of Zachary A. Tingley & Richard Yeomans’ Papers in Canadian History & Environment article on contested fisheries, environmental knowledge, & governance in the Bay of Fundy, 1834-37.
Three other open-access academic publications to share this week, including Catherine Feely in Urban History on urban heritage, civic narratives, & political continuity at the British Empire Exhibition of 1924.
Likewise open-access is Susannah Glickman & Aaron Benanav’s introduction to their vital new special issue of International Labor & Working-Class History, “Toward a Labor History of AI.”
& also open-access is Beau J. Baumann & Jed Handelsman Shugerman in Columbia Law Review on the history & tradition of quasi-judicial administration (as the current Supreme Court threatens it).
Before my own next, pre-election Saturday Evening Post Considering History column drops on Monday, check out these four pieces from Post colleagues: Tanya Roth’s latest Women’s Work column, on the stories of women homesteaders; Christina Stanton with a National Mentoring Day tribute to James McKinney’s journey from music maestro to mentor; Donald Liebenson taking us through the newly-opened National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY; & editor Troy Brownfield with a Halloween-week tribute to sixty years of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
Current Events:
[Note: I continue to not find as many pieces for this section as I’d like, especially not ones without a paywall. In addition to my requests for y’all in the meta-thread above, I’d ask you to share anything you might find, which you can do through this Contact Us page.]
For an Election Week special installment of his Democracy Americana newsletter, Thomas Zimmer offered a threat assessment of the Right’s fascistic fever dreams about the midterms & beyond.
For his Everything is Horrible newsletter, Noah Berlatsky argued that the backlash to Obama’s “elitist” Cheesecake Factory joke is grounded in know-your-place racism.
Moving & vital piece from Jim Downs for STAT (excerpted from his forthcoming book) on what a mother’s 1834 letter about measles tells us about MAHA.
Over at LitHub, Peter Coviello traced the manifold ways that austerity is killing higher ed–& what we can do about it.
For a more optimistic note on higher ed, check out Bradford Vivian for his Campus Information newsletter on why the Serbian Student List victory matters to American campuses.
& for a multilayered take on higher ed representations & realities, past & present, here’s Tressie McMillan Cottom’s latest New York Times column (that’s a gift link) on lessons & losses from the classic sitcom A Different World.
I also greatly enjoyed Jamelle Bouie’s latest Times column (another gift link), using Constitutional histories to make the case for opposing everything Trump stands for, in this election & beyond.
Finally, four Liberal Currents articles to share this week: Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis on bringing together the politics of equality & autonomy; Victor Ray’s chapter from The Reconstruction Papers, an argument for a Third Reconstruction; Adam Gurri making the case that liberalism (beyond political philosophy) is for ordinary people; & Gurri’s latest Editor’s Notes column, on international victories that offer an opportunity for momentum against the global fascist movement.
Podcasts:
Starting with cultural studies conversations as usual, including a relatively new podcast that I had missed: Experts in a Dying Field, co-hosted by Patrick Iber, Aaron Bady, & Lili Loofbourow, with two complementary recent episodes on Patricio Guzmán’s documentaries & You Can See Everything.
For a Halloween-week episode of Ross Lennon’s History on Film podcast, Candice Frederick joined to discuss the years in horror films, from Obsession to Backrooms & beyond.
Over at Kelly J. Baker & John Brooks’ Pod Only Knows podcast, Matthew J. Cressler (whose new book is featured in the Books section below) joined to commemorate the 5th anniversary of Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass.
Two new episodes from Mike Jamison’s Pop Culture Basement network this week: for Bill Dunn’s After Hours podcast, Bill & Mike discussing Amazon Women on the Moon (1987); & for the Pop Culture Basement podcast itself, Dawn from Rants in Our Pants joining Mike to talk about another 1987 classic, The Monster Squad. (I can’t share that conversation without adding Vaughn Joy’s recent, delightful Review Roulette post on Monster Squad!)
& for the TV is Good podcast, co-host Alan Sepinwall rejoined Kathryn VanArendonk to talk the new season of The Diplomat, The West Wing, & Alan’s recent book on Rod Serling.
Turning to American history conversations, episode 454 of Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World podcast features Char Weigel on Westchester County’s Revolutionary life between two armies.
The latest episode of Jerry Landry’s Presidencies of the United States podcast features Richard Lim on his new book & George Washington’s greatest act of leadership.
While for a special episode of her Civics & Coffee podcast, Alycia Asai interviewed Kelly Burton about the very different sides of the Revolution & Founding captured in her new book The Price of Union: Race, Power, & the Making of American Democracy. & for her regular Saturday episode, Alycia shared a Halloween special on the iconic slasher film Friday the 13th.
Over at the United States at 250: Remembering & Forgetting podcast, student host Grace Turney interviewed Shira Lurie about liberty poles & popular politics in the Early Republic.
For their War of the Rebellion podcast, Neils Eichhorn & Andrew Houck talked with Andrew C. Isenberg about his book The Age of the Borderlands: Indians, Slaves, & the Limits of Manifest Destiny, 1790-1850.
For the latest Axelbank Reports History & Today episode, Evan interviewed Nathaniel Philbrick about his new book The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, & the Making of the Modern World.
While Andrew Hartman joined the Guerrilla History podcast to talk about his recent book Karl Marx in America.
Tim Galsworthy joined the Authors of History podcast to talk about his recent book on the Republican Party & Civil War Memory.
& episode 119 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past podcast features Soyica Diggs Colbert on her new book Freedom’s Gate & writing the history of cultural icons through their friendships.
Turning to more global historical subjects, for the Challenging Histories podcast Amy Fuller interviewed Olivette Otele about African Europeans: An Untold History & Britain’s multicultural past.
The latest episode of Matt Gabriele’s American Medieval podcast is a Halloween-week special featuring Mikki Brock on European witch hunts & the devil in the pre-modern world.
For the devil in the modern world, check out the latest episode of Waitman W. Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast, a conversation with Aliza Luft about the French Catholic Church & the Holocaust.
Over at his Shipwrecks & Sea Dogs podcast, Rich Napolitano told the tragic story of the 1980 collapse of the Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland.
While the latest episode of Brandy Schillace’s Peculiar Book Club podcast is a conversation with Sam Kean about his fascinating new book The Museum of Lost Things.
Two new episodes of Jacke Wilson’s History of Literature podcast this week: an interview with Bruce Nichols about his new book The Emerson Circle: The Concord Radicals Who Reinvented the World; & one with Fiona Sampson about her new biography Two Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Likewise two new episodes of Lauren Lassabe Shepherd’s American Campus Podcast this week: this one featuring Noam Scheiber on the rise & revolt of the college-educated working class; & a Halloween special on campus ghosts featuring Chris Broadhurst & Gordon Maples.
Three new installments of the Black Studies Podcast to share: Ashley Newby’s conversation with Carol D. Lee from Northwestern University’s Department of Black Studies; John Drabinski’s talk with J Finley from Pomona College’s Department of Africana Studies; & John’s interview with Patrice Green, the Curator of African American & African Diasporic Collections at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Thanks to Mark Anthony Neal for sharing a new episode of the Left of Black podcast, Chris Ouma’s interview with Petal Samuel about her new book The Quiet Zone: Caribbean Expressive Cultures & the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance.
Continuing with current events conversations, the folks at the Climate Curious podcast talked with Dana R. Fisher about her new study on the need for better climate communication.
The latest episode of the Scholars Strategy Network’s No Jargon podcast features Jamila Michener on the politics behind Medicaid debates.
For their Strict Scrutiny podcast, Leah Litman & Melissa Murray traced the many ways that the DOJ is a corrupt clown show, & then interviewed Rachel Shelden about her new book on the Supreme Court (featured in the Books section below).
While for the latest episode of their The Oath & the Office podcast, John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider talked with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen about the company’s responsibility for January 6th.
Two new episodes for Liberal Currents podcasts to share this week: Samantha Hancox-Li’s latest Neon Liberalism, a conversation with Bret Devereaux about what the video game Hearts of Iron IV reveals about our enduring myths about WWII; & a midterm election special episode of Caitlin M. Green & Trent R. Nelson’s Half the Answer, featuring Ryan Cooper, Marisa Kabas, & Jonathan M. Katz.
& speaking of the midterms, Heather Cox Richardson’s American Conversations podcast this week featured no fewer than four current or prospective members of Congress: Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse; his fellow Colorado Rep. Jason Crow; New Hampshire Rep. Maggie Goodlander; & Tennessee State Rep. & Congressional candidate Justin J. Pearson.
Books:
The amazing folks at UNC Press published five important books this week: Rachel A. Shelden’s aforementioned The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History; Kathryn Benjamin Golden’s This Insurgent Ground: Black Women, Marronage, & Rebellion in the Great Dismal Swamp; Michael L. Walden’s North Carolina in the Anxious Age: People, Places, & Policies That Will Shape the NC Economy Through the Turbulent 21C; Colin Anderson’s Culture & Containment: Race, Geographic Mobility, & Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century America; & a reprinting of Earl Wright II’s Jim Crow Sociology: The Black & Southern Roots of American Sociology, with a new Foreword by Zandria F. Robinson;
Also out this week from the University of South Carolina Press is Stephen R. Wise’s Smoke on the Battery: Charleston & the Longest Siege of the Civil War.
Published this week by Verso Books is Ewan Gibbs’ An Injury to All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class.
& over at his website, Matthew J. Cressler shared the details of his newly published, co-authored book, Body + Blood: Catholic Horror in America.
Out tomorrow (Monday 11/2) from De Gruyter Brill is Rebecca Brückmann, Silke Hackenesch, & Charlotte A. Lerg’s edited collection Radical in the Ordinary: Women’s Activism in Everyday American Life.
& now available for pre-order from UNC Press are two much-anticipated May 2027 releases: Matthew Casey’s The Muckraker of Port-au-Prince: Joseph Jolibois Fils & the Fight for a Free Haiti; & Jamin Wells, Robin Reshard, & Joe Vinson’s edited collection, Righting the Past: A Florida Community Reclaims Its African American History.
For LitHub (via the University of Minnesota Press), David Bering-Porter shared an excerpt from his new book, Undead Labor: Capitalism’s Zombie Worker.
While the Pittsburgh Review of Books shared a trio of excerpts this week: Elizabeth Kilcoyne’s essay from Noah Ashley Blooms’ edited collection These Dreaming Hills: Dark & Wondrous Tales from Appalachia; Amy Stanford Gaskin from her book Marilyn Forever!: Marilyn Monroe—A Symbol of Hope; & the magazine’s founder Ed Simon from his book Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain.
Over at Public Books, Jack Halberstam interviewed Gil Z. Hochberg about her new memoir My Father, the Messiah. & Public Books also featured two book reviews this week: Ángeles Donoso Macaya on Mila Burns’ Dictatorship Across Borders: Brazil, Chile, & the South American Cold War; & Matteo Lupetti on Stefano Gualeni’s What We Owe the Dead: An Experimental Detective Novel Set in a Dystopian Society;
For Metropole, Jonathan Ezra Goldman reviewed Jennifer Baum’s Just City: Growing Up on the Upper West Side When Housing Was a Human Right.
Over at the Marginalia Review of Books, Daniel Woolf reviewed Malcolm Gaskill’s Worlds of Fear & Wonder: Living with the Supernatural, Past & Present.
While for the latest USIH book review, Donald T. Critchlow wrote about Paul Heideman’s Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos.
& for Drafting the Past’s new reviews section, Surekha Davies reviewed Eleanor Johnson’s Monstrous Bitch: A History of Terrifying Women. Thanks as well to the Drafting the Past folks for sharing 10 new books they’re excited to read this November.
Made By History:
Five excellent new columns for the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Made By History this week: Samantha Baskind on lessons from how famous artists answered a 1976 question about what independence meant to them; Anya Jabour on what today’s reproductive & gender rights ballot measures could learn from the work of sex researcher Katharine Bement Davis; a second Jabour column, this one on how Cornell’s rape scandal is the latest chapter in the enduring fight against the sexual double standard; Takahito Moriyama on how today’s AI-generated attack ads draw on decades of targeted direct mail campaigns; & Shelley Puhak with a Halloween special on the fraught history of pop culture representations of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who might or might not have bathed in the blood of her victims.
Newsletters and Blog Posts:
Ahead of Election Day, I can’t say it any better than Lincoln Paine did in his A Sea of Words newsletter on why your vote matters.
For the latest installment of their Historians Off the Cuff conversations, featured at both of their newsletters, Kevin M. Levin & the Tattooed Historian (John R. Heckman) discussed the relationship between good history & entertainment.
Over at his The Birth of a Capital blog, Neil Flanagan wrote about the fraught, fascinating 1893 origins of the phrase “City Beautiful.”
I continue to find the First Ladies posts the most compelling installments of the In Pursuit USA project, this week featuring Heath Hardage Lee on Pat Nixon & Maria Shriver on Betty Ford.
For her latest Black Feminist Book Club, Jenn M. Jackson discussed Toni Morrison’s The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, & Meditations.
Two new posts for George Dillard’s Looking Through the Past newsletter this week: this one on how the discovery of the Neanderthal changed how people thought about themselves & foreshadowed modern debates; & this one on mid-19th century Yokohama & glimpses of a city & nation on the edge of dramatic changes.
I missed last week’s Verbum Libere newsletter, which explored themes of mothers & daughters in Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere. & this week’s newsletter continues a WWI series with thoughts on disease, epidemics, & public health on the Italian & Balkan Fronts.
Over at his The Tenure Track newsletter, Etienne Toussaint shared honest & moving thoughts on why he still reads awards lists looking for his name. And for his Freedom Papers newsletter, Toussaint wrote about Jesmyn Ward, inheritance, & the questions we can’t answer.
For his The Reliable Narrator newsletter, Paul Thomas reflected on an October 28th, 1949 letter from Kurt Vonnegut to his Dad.
& for his Ehlers on Everything blog, Mark Ehlers offered beautiful meditations on seeking autumn in a troubled world.
While for his blog, William G. Pooley traced Halloween-week takeaways from a number of recent pieces about the state of the fields of magic & witchcraft studies in 2026.
& over at his Exploring Art History newsletter, Howard Burton kicked off a series on the garlanded skulls known as bucrania (& reflected on AI’s limits in the process).
Two Halloween-week essays for the Pittsburgh Review of Books this week: Christopher Breu on Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma & the exterminating angel of orgasm; & Kibalo Cyrus Signan on Black minstrelsy & horror.
Outlaw Vern’s October horror series are reliably fantastic, but this week I want to share his review of a very different new film, Wildwood (an adaptation of the first book in a series that my sons & I really loved when they were young).
For his weekly Saturday Evening Post film review, Bill Newcott wrote about The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. & I also appreciate Bill’s tribute to some of the many legendary performances from the late Patrick Stewart.
For her annual October Review Roulette piece on a Hitchcock film, Vaughn Joy wrote about Suspicion, Cary Grant, & white men’s audacious lack of shame.
& elsewhere on our website, I’m excited to share my latest AmericanStudier Guest Post, FSU student Chris Martin on his Honors Thesis project, a screenplay-in-progress on the NFL’s only MVP kicker!
Can’t get enough public scholarship, even after 300 of these threads? Me neither, which is why I’ll conclude with Dion Georgiou’s 70th Stop, Look, & Listen compilation!
PS. I’m sure Dion & I missed plenty as always, so please share more writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & I’ll see you next week to start the next 300!
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