Here it is, my 183rd #ScholarSunday thread & first of my post-Twitter era, featuring great public scholarly writing, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. I hope to still post these each Sunday, but that will depend on you all sharing work with me (including your own) so I have things to include!
I’m going to keep each entry relatively short, as has been the case with all the threads so far, & hope that you all will look into these pieces & authors, podcast episodes & voices, books & writers far beyond my starting points!
[Also: Yes, I know this weekend is full of breaking news. But so is every moment in our 2024 world, & a central goal in my sharing these threads for the 4+ years I’ve done so is to get beyond the moment & the noise & make sure we don’t miss all the work being done on vital topics. So I’m gonna keep doing that, whatever this moment throws at us.]
Starting with a favorite from the week, Jennifer Stavros for the Los Angeles Public Press on what LA County’s Homeless Count reveals, & for whom:
https://lapublicpress.org/2024/07/2024-homeless-count-los-angeles/
Because it’s been a couple weeks since my last thread, I wanted to share two episodes of the great Unsung History podcast, including R.E. Fulton on the 19th century lobbyist, spy, & abortionist Josephine McCarty:
https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/Josephine/
& also for Unsung History, check out Donna Nicol on Dr. Claudia Hampton & the history of affirmative action in California:
https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/Hampton/
Likewise out with a new episode is the wonderful Drafting the Podcast podcast, this time a conversation with Tore Olsson on his new book on video game histories:
Finally in the podcast realm, thanks to Dan Morrison for sharing with me the number of excellent recent episodes of the Annex Sociology Podcast, on racism’s fallacies, the Minneapolis police reckoning, & much more:
https://socannex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/podcast/
Couple of great pieces for Time History’s Made By History to share, including Jon Hale on why Freedom Schools are still radical & necessary 60 years later:
https://time.com/6992744/freedom-schools-history/
& also for Time History’s Made By History, here’s Devin Naar on the regional origins of the discriminatory 1924 Immigration Act:
https://time.com/6990567/1924-act-washington-state/
Important new book published this week, Michaël Roy’s Young Abolitionists: Children of the Antislavery Movement from NYU Press:
https://nyupress.org/9781479830091/young-abolitionists/
For my newest Saturday Evening Post Considering History column, I used a surprising statue in Prague to highlight the interconnected histories of four Czech & American Presidents & the meanings of American democracy:
I’m also excited to welcome the great Dion Georgiou to the Saturday Evening Post with his first column, on the Bush & Gorbachev debates over the post-Cold War order:
& speaking of Dion, his Stop, Look, & Listen newsletter is always a must-read collection of public scholarship, this time focused on the UK General Election:
PS. I’m even more sure than ever that I missed a ton, perhaps especially new books but also public scholarly writing, podcasts, work of all kind. Please add more in comments below, email me with contributions at any time (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu), & help keep the scholarly solidary going in the weeks to come!