Visiting my older son for his uni’s family weekend, but even proud Dad tears can’t stop the #ScholarSunday threads. Here’s my 189th, featuring tons of great writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the last week!
First, a reminder that I’m now far more dependent on y’all to highlight & share things for the threads. So please keep ‘em coming, in comments here or by email (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu). Thanks!
Starting with a couple great pieces for Labor Day, including Robert Burch for the Salt Lake Tribune on African American history in Utah:
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2024/09/02/voices-african-americans-fight/
Also really enjoyed Olivia Paschal’s Facing South interview with Alice Driver about her book The Life and Death of the American Worker:
https://www.facingsouth.org/2024/09/lives-line-interview-alice-driver
Speaking of Olivia Paschal, she wrote for the History News Network on the Agrarian-Distributists as forebears of the New Right:
https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-forebears-of-jd-vance-and-the-new-right
Great column from David Rotenstein for Pittsburgh City Paper on the history of the city’s ethnic clubs, featuring contributions from Pitt historians Rob Ruck & Edward Muller:
I’m really looking forward to this SHGAPE Forum on Anthony Comstock & the Comstock Laws, edited by Magdalene Zier, Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Cathleen Cahill, & Kimberly A. Hamlin:
https://blog.shgape.org/anthony-comstock-and-the-comstock-laws-a-jgape-forum-preview/
Great essay from Sarah Smarsh for Orion magazine on efforts to protect the prairies:
https://orionmagazine.org/article/prairie-grassland-restoration-north-america/
So glad to see BBC coverage of a new Choctaw memorial to their moving connection with Ireland (and h/t to Charles Pierce for sharing this story):
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg3zvq3vz8o
Vital work from Thomas Lecaque for Religion Dispatches on Trump’s apocalyptic QAnon posting spree:
& speaking of right-wing myth-making, Paul Renfro reviewed the atrocious new Reagan movie for Slate:
https://slate.com/culture/2024/09/reagan-movie-2024-reviews-dennis-quaid.html
Tons of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest Unsung History featuring Lindsay Chervinsky on Abigail Adams:
https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/abigail-adams/
Waitman Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast is back after a couple-month hiatus, featuring Joanna Sliwa & Elizabeth White on the counterfeit countess:
The latest installment of the SocAnnex podcast features Jasmine Harris on Black women in the Ivory Tower:
https://socannex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/podcast/jasmine-harris-on-black-women-in-the-ivory-tower/
For the latest #HATM podcast, Nancy MacDonell talked about The Devil Wears Prada & the history of women in the fashion industry:
Bracing & important new episode of The End of Sport podcast on football’s increasingly clear & present dangers to our kids:
https://theendofsport.podbean.com/e/episode-154-football-is-killing-us-school-kids/
& for a more inspiring but still fraught & frustrating & vital sports story, make sure to check out the first Inning of my new narrative history podcast The Celestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, & the Battle for America. The 2nd Inning drops later today!
Four great pieces for Time’s Made By History this week, including Adrian Daub on the history of campus culture wars:
https://time.com/7016826/campus-culture-wars/
Joshua Howard wrote for Made By History on the troubling histories behind J.D. Vance’s rhetoric:
https://time.com/7006868/j-d-vance-rhetoric-white-working-class/
Here’s Julio Capó Jr. for Made By History on how LGBTQ tourism put Florida on the map:
https://time.com/7018332/florida-lgbtq-tourism/
& finally for Made By History, Tithi Bhattacharya wrote on the long histories behind Bangladesh’s anti-austerity protests:
https://time.com/7015595/bangladesh-protests-austerity/
Over at the AAIHS’ Black Perspectives blog, the awesome roundtable on Beatriz Nascimento ended with reflections from its editors Christen A. Smith, Bethânia N.F. Gomes, & Archie Davies:
https://www.aaihs.org/reflections-on-the-work-of-beatriz-nascimento/
& two new Black Perspectives pieces this week as well, including Willie Mack on white nativism, Haitian immigrants, & Black solidarity:
https://www.aaihs.org/white-nativism-haitian-immigrants-and-black-solidarity/
& Sean Gallagher wrote for Black Perspectives on a number of new books that help us remember enslaved women’s resistance:
https://www.aaihs.org/enslaved-womens-resistance-to-slavery-and-gendered-violence/
Speaking of new books, out this week is Jonathan Gienapp’s Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique from Yale University Press:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300265859/against-constitutional-originalism/
Also out this week is Lindsay M. Chervinsky’s Making the Presidency: John Adams & the Precedents That Forged the Republic from Oxford University Press:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-the-presidency-9780197653845?cc=us&lang=en&
& likewise published this week is Daniel Macfarlane’s The Lives of Lake Ontario: An Environmental History from McGill-Queen’s University Press:
https://www.mqup.ca/lives-of-lake-ontario--the-products-9780228022237.php
For a much-anticipated forthcoming book, check out Einav Rabinovitch-Fox’s thread on her project on Pins and Needles:
https://x.com/DrEinavRFox/status/1830637658789265703
Gonna end with a few pieces for all those of us getting back into teaching this week, including Ted Chiang for The New Yorker on why AI isn’t going to make art:
Great interview for Contingent Magazine’s How I Do History series with Christine Sloan Stoddard:
https://contingentmagazine.org/2024/09/01/how-christine-sloan-stoddard-does-history/
& for an inspiring story of historical professors, check out my Saturday Evening Post colleague Will Mari on how professors helped win WWII:
https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/09/how-professors-helped-win-world-war-ii/
Finally, if you can’t get enough public scholarship, make sure to check out Dion Georgiou’s Stop, Look, & Listen newsletter as always!
PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so make sure to share more public scholarly goodness in comments below--& to keep the emails coming for future threads! Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & watch for my podcast’s Second Inning later today!