#ScholarSunday Thread 193

Shared on October 6, 2024

October is here, and with it the year’s first spooktacular #ScholarSunday thread, my 193^rd weekly compilation of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below & don’t boo, enjoy! (Fine, you can boo too, but only in a Casperiffic kind of way.)

Starting with a few favorites from the week as usual, including Keisha Blain for Smithsonian magazine on the legendary Fannie Lou Hamer:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/smithsonian-american-womens-history-museum/2024/10/03/fannie-lou-hamer-and-the-fight-for-voting-rights/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=1042024&utm_content=new

Excellent article from Wendy Rouse for The Gay & Lesbian Review on reconstructing the queer history of the women’s suffrage movement:

https://glreview.org/reconstructing-the-queer-history-of-the-womens-suffrage-movement/

For the latest entry in the SHGAPE blog’s series on the Comstock Act, here’s Allison K. Lange on Comstock’s political cartoons targeting Victoria Woodhull:

https://blog.shgape.org/targeting-victoria-woodhull/

For Public Books, Charlotte Rosen interviewed Reiko Hillyer on her important new book A Wall Is Just a Wall & prison histories:

https://www.publicbooks.org/the-porous-prison/

NPR profiled & interviewed the iconic historian Robert Caro on the 50^th anniversary of his book The Power Broker:

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5123695/the-power-broker-robert-caro-new-book-democracy

& check out this long-overdue AHA Perspectives tribute to historian & higher ed advocate Charles H. Wesley:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/charles-h-wesley-1891-1987/

In current events, great new columns from two of our best public scholarly writers, including Will Bunch for his Philly Inquirer column on Eric Adams:

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/eric-adams-mayor-indicted-policing-20240929.html

& here’s Rick Perlstein for his American Prospect column on what to make of undecided voters in the 2024 presidential election:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-10-02-who-are-the-undecided/

& anytime the wonderful novelist Attica Locke speaks we would do well to listen, as in this Guardian interview on the election:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/05/attica-locke-on-the-us-election-its-white-americans-that-have-to-fix-this

Lots of excellent new podcast episodes this week, including the latest Unsung History featuring Rachel Louise Moran on the history of postpartum depression:

https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/postpartum-depression/

For the latest episode of Freedom Over Fascism, Stephanie Wilson interviewed Kim Allen, co-founder of Georgia’s Power the Vote:

Will Your Vote Count? Kim Allen, Co-founder Power the Vote GA E68

While the SocAnnex podcast talked with Alka Menon about her book Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards:

https://socannex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/podcast/alka-menon-on-refashioning-race/

The Lillian Smith Center’s “Dope with Lime” podcast concluded its series on Smith and religion with an overarching fifth episode:

Episode 28 of Waitman Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast features Dan Stone on the International Tracing Service & the search for survivors:

While The Sword Guy’s 195^th episode features Jamie Goodall on all things pirate histories:

https://swordschool.shop/blogs/podcast/episode-195-pirates-with-dr-jamie-goodall

& for the latest episode of his America: A History podcast, Liam Heffernan interviewed Thomas Ruys Smith on Huck Finn & book banning:

I got to talk with Liam about my new podcast, The Celestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, & the Battle for America, and that episode should be published soon. & in the meantime, make sure to check out the Fifth Inning: The Chinese Exclusion Act & the End of the Educational Mission, before the Sixth drops later this afternoon!

https://americanstudier.podbean.com/e/fifth-inning-the-chinese-exclusion-act-and-the-end-of-the-educational-mission/

Five excellent new pieces for Time’s Made By History this week, including Amber Roessner for Jimmy Carter’s 100^th birthday:

https://time.com/7021819/carter-100-showbiz-presidency/

Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús wrote for Made By History on the long & troubling history behind the vilification of Haitian Americans:

https://time.com/7034714/springfield-haitians-history/

While David Lay Williams wrote for Made By History on how Plato might help us address price gouging:

https://time.com/7021698/plato-price-gouging-inflation/

Also for Made By History, check out Allen Fromherz on how Qatar became a Middle East diplomatic power broker:

https://time.com/7022826/qatar-diplomacy-history/

& finally for Made By History, Ibrahim Al-Marashi highlighted what history has to tell us about Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah:

https://time.com/7027085/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-history/

Two great pieces for the AAIHS’ Black Perspectives blog this week, including Marlee S. Bunch on Barbara Ross & the fight for educational equity:

https://www.aaihs.org/mrs-barbara-ross-and-the-fight-for-educational-equity/

& also for Black Perspectives, check out Tiana U. Wilson’s interview with Dr. Vicki Alexander on her life & career in the struggle:

https://www.aaihs.org/a-life-of-revolutionary-struggle-an-interview-with-dr-vicki-alexander/

Published this week was an important new resource, Kate Masur’s Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C. Region from UNC Press:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469680187/freedom-was-in-sight/

Not new this week but just brought to my attention is Rhae Lynn Barnes & Glenda Goodman’s edited collection American Contact: Objects of Intercultural Encounters & the Boundaries of Book History from Penn Press:

https://www.pennpress.org/9781512825770/american-contact/

For The Guardian, Andrew Lawrence reviewed Lou Moore’s important new book on the history & current state of Black quarterbacks:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/oct/04/the-black-quarterback-is-now-the-nfls-leading-man-but-at-what-cost

While for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Carmen E. Lamas reviewed Renee Hudson’s Latinx Revolutionary Horizons: Form and Futurity in the Americas:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-politics-to-conjure-a-people/

& for what should be a compelling forthcoming release, keep an eye out for Andrew Davis & Jeff Biggers’ new thriller Disturbing the Bones:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/761646/disturbing-the-bones-by-andrew-davis/9781685891459/

Gonna end with more favorites from the week, including a bunch of great cultural studies writing, starting with my Saturday Evening Post colleague Troy Brownfield on the 1980s boom in TV horror anthologies:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/10/the-1980s-horror-tv-anthology-boom/

Also for the Post, check out film reviewer Bill Newcott on the new sports film Rez Ball:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/10/review-rez-ball-movies-for-the-rest-of-us-with-bill-newcott/

One of my two favorite current film reviewers, Outlaw Vern, sought out a Haitian film for this wonderfully thoughtful & timely review:

https://outlawvern.com/2024/09/30/ayiti-mon-amour/

While my other favorite reviewer, Vaughn Joy, focused her first October Review Roulette newsletter on The Fly:

Pretty Gross-Ass Fly for a White Guy

Lots more great newsletters this week, including Kevin Levin’s Civil War Memory on how communities can move past empty statue pedestals:

Moving Beyond the Empty Pedestal

& Etienne Toussaint wrote for his Becoming Full newsletter on how we can influence our academic communities:

You Were Born to Lead—Here's How to Start

Finally, if you want more public scholarly goodness than any one thread can hold, make sure to check out Dion Georgiou’s latest Stop, Look, & Listen column for his Academic Bubble newsletter:

Stop, Look, and Listen #35

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & may your Octobers be spooky in only the best ways!