#ScholarSunday Thread 195

Shared on October 20, 2024

We’re approaching another #ScholarSunday milestone, as here’s my 195^th thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Share more below & enjoy, all!

Starting with a couple favorites from the week as usual, including the great Kiese Laymon for Bitter Southerner:

https://bittersoutherner.com/kiese-laymon-letter-from-home

& I loved Dan Sinykin for The Baffler reviewing Evan Friss’s The Bookshop & highlighting how the market changed bookstores:

https://thebaffler.com/latest/bookselling-out-sinykin

Lots of great writing for the Saturday Evening Post this week, including Juliette De Maeyer & Will Mari on how computers became portable:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/10/how-computers-became-portable-journalists-and-the-origin-story-of-working-from-home/

Including piece from Claudia Laroye on a new exhibition on the origins of the climate crisis:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/10/storm-cloud-picturing-the-origins-of-our-climate-crisis/

Ryan Reft wrote for the Post on a Supreme Court decision before Citizens United that set the stage for campaign finance troubles:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/10/before-citizens-united-the-origin-of-campaign-finance-reform-troubles/

& for my Saturday Evening Post Considering History column, John Denver & I highlighted West Virginia’s enduring & iconic role in American history:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/10/considering-history-take-us-home-country-roads-west-virginia-and-american-history/

Turning to current events, Jack Rakove wrote for the Brennan Center’s ongoing series on the Supreme Court on why it may be time for term limits:

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/lifetime-tenure-supreme-court-justices-has-outlived-its-usefulness

& the great Elie Mystal wrote for his The Nation column on why white men, not Black men, are the problematic voting bloc for Harris:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/black-men-will-vote-for-harris/

Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest Unsung History featuring Lori Ginzberg on the historic Sanders family of Philadelphia:

https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/Sanders/

For Episode 30 of the Holocaust History podcast, Waitman Beorn talked with Marius Turda about Nazi eugenics:

For Episode 70 of Freedom Over Fascism, Stephanie Wilson talked with Andra Watkins about Project 2025 & disaster recovery:

So You Want Help With Your Hurricane? Andra Watkins, on Politicized Disaster Relief E 70

Thanks very much to Deborah Menkart for recommending Chenjerai Kumanyika’s podcast Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD:

https://crooked.com/podcast-series/empirecity/  

Congrats to Liam Heffernan for reaching 50 episodes of America: A History, with an episode featuring Henry Knight Lozano on the history of Hawai’i:

I’ll be on a forthcoming episode of Liam’s podcast talking 19C baseball history & my new podcast The Celestials’ Last Game. & I believe my latest, Seventh Inning: Stealing Home: The Last Game, Part 2 is the heart & soul of that podcast, & I hope you’ll all check it out & spread the word (& watch this space for the Eighth Inning later today!):

https://americanstudier.podbean.com/e/the-seventh-inning-stealing-hole-the-last-game-part-2/

Five excellent pieces for Time’s Made By History this week, including Daniel Mandell on the 100^th anniversary of the important but fraught Indian Citizenship Act:

https://time.com/7026723/indian-citizenship-1924/

William Horne is a must-read as always, this time for Made By History on Christian Nationalism & Jim Crow:

https://time.com/7026778/christian-nationalism-jim-crow/

Jane E. Calvert wrote for Made By History on John Dickinson & the debate that gave us the Electoral College:

https://time.com/7028656/john-dickinson-electoral-college/

Important work from Lara Freidenfelds for Made By History on how the abortion debate can open up a conversation on pregnancy loss:

https://time.com/7023276/pregnancy-loss-miscarriage-politics/

& here’s Elizabeth Garner Masarik for Made By History on the history of the New Age self-development industry:

https://time.com/7022824/history-self-development-industry/

AAIHS’s Black Perspectives has launched another great Forum, this one on Urban Rebellions in the 1960s & kicked off by Tyler Parry on a 1969 Las Vegas uprising:

https://www.aaihs.org/how-the-1969-uprising-challenged-police-brutality-in-las-vegas/

Marissa Spear wrote for the Black Perspectives Forum on Black Panther women’s organizing in Baltimore:

https://www.aaihs.org/baltimore-black-panther-womens-organizing-in-the-1960s/

The great Gerald Horne contributed a piece to the Forum on Panthers, Communists, Black Nationalists, & liberals in Southern California:

https://www.aaihs.org/panthers-communists-black-nationalists-and-liberals-in-southern-california/

& Heather Ann Thompson kept the Forum going with some reflections on the 60^th anniversary of 1960s urban uprisings:

https://www.aaihs.org/reflections-of-the-60th-anniversary-of-urban-uprisings-in-america/

Couple of important new books out this week, including Samuel Perry’s Religion for Realists: Why We All Need the Scientific Study of Religion from Oxford University Press:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/religion-for-realists-9780197672549

Also out this week is Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s Riding like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb from University of California Press:

https://www.ucpress.edu/books/riding-like-the-wind/hardcover

& forthcoming in January is Lori A. Flores’ Awaiting Their Feast: Latinx Food Workers & Activism from World War II to Covid-19 from UNC Press:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469679860/awaiting-their-feast/

Gonna end with some great newsletters as usual, including one from a scholar who just announced her own forthcoming first book, Vaughn Joy, who continued her Halloween Review Roulette series with Vertigo:

The Obsession of Possession

For his Becoming Full newsletter, Etienne Toussaint wrote about shifting from personal gain to collective growth in academic life:

Service without Sacrifice

While Kevin Levin for his Civil War Memory newsletter interviewed Court Carney about his new book on Nathan Bedford Forrest:

'Reckoning With the Devil': A Conversation With Court Carney

& I’ll end with a vital pre-election newsletter, Thomas Zimmer for his Democracy Americana on Donald Trump, American fascist:

Donald Trump, American Fascist

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Happy reading, listening, & learning, all!