#ScholarSunday Thread 198

Published on November 10, 2024

Not gonna lie, my 198^th #ScholarSunday thread was by far the hardest of any of them yet to finalize. Partly that’s for the specific reason that a lot of this great work was created pre-election, making for a Frankenstein’s Monster of a thread to be sure. And partly that’s for the broader reason of, y’know, every-freakin-thing.

But la lucha continua, & to my mind what we do—especially what we all do in all the work, but also what I do in compiling & sharing that work in these threads—is more vital than ever. So here’s a ton of great public scholarly writing, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Share more below please, share the thread widely if you would, & enjoy!

Also: while I am now a bit more fully on Blue Sky (https://bsky.app/profile/americanstudier.bsky.social), my plan remains to stay largely off of social media moving forward. So it’ll be really important for y’all to share things with me (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) if these threads are gonna continue, as I hope they can and will.

Starting with a few favorites from the week as usual, including Olivia Paschal for the New York Review of Books on the politics of land in Appalachia:

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/11/03/who-owns-the-mountains/

Another great entry in Martha S. Jones’s Hard Histories at Hopkins series, this time on an 1850 petition & intersecting Baltimore communities:

A New Chapter in the Life of Mr. Johns Hopkins

For her History Chef blog, my longtime agent Suzy Evans wrote about Andrew Jackson’s 1828 inauguration:

https://lincolnslunch.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-election-of-1824-and-andrew-jackson.html

& here’s Olivia Stowell for Public Books on Laguna Beach at 20 years old:

https://www.publicbooks.org/pre-recession-bliss-or-ignorance-laguna-beach-at-20/?utm_content=bufferf6187&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Speaking of Public Books & turning to current events (but non-election-specific, as I can’t bear to share many of those post-mortems quite yet), here’s Gregory Laski on the now even more pressing question of whether colleges can save democracy:

https://www.publicbooks.org/beyond-rank-ambition-can-colleges-save-democracy/?utm_content=bufferee1bf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Joanne Freeman wrote for The Atlantic on two election lessons from 1800:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/2024-election-precedent/680541/?gift=pr28VhmR13y5x8fIL08Zt6s0T9hYZj-BlsY8b6NumfU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

& for the AHA’s Perspectives column, Ben Rosenbaum wrote on the organization’s Congressional briefings program one year in:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/congressional-briefings-one-year-in/

Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest Unsung History featuring Carolyn Renee Dupont on the Electoral College:

https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/Electoral-College/

Martha S. Jones talked with OMNY’s The Bright Side about Black women voters & the legacy of the 19^th Amendment:

https://omny.fm/shows/the-bright-side/20241105-bs-full-v1

Speaking of inspiring Black women, the latest Civics & Coffee episode featured Donna Nicol on her book on groundbreaking educator Claudia Hampton:

https://www.civicsandcoffee.com/black-woman-on-board-with-dr-donna-nicol/

& for a lot more on race & higher ed, check out the latest episode of Matt Seybold’s American Vandal, featuring a ton of experts on HBCU histories:

https://marktwainstudies.com/HBCU/

For the latest episode of the Writing Westward podcast, Holly Miowak Guise joined to talk about her new book Alaska Native Resilience:

https://writingwestwardpodcast.podbean.com/e/068-holly-miowak-guise-alaska-native-resilience-voices-from-world-war-ii/

While episode 55 of Drafting the Past features Robin Bernstein on her new book Freeman’s Challenge & maintaining scholarly integrity:

https://draftingthepast.com/podcast-episodes/episode-55-robin-bernstein-and-the-disco-ball-of-integrity/

Episode 33 of Waitman Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast features Chris Webb on the Belżec extermination camp:

Episode 103 of the Historians at the Movies podcast features Craig Bruce Smith & Robert Greene II on The Terminator:

I concluded my podcast The Celestials’ Last Game with a special Postgame Press Conference: History, Sports, & the Battle for American Memory:

https://americanstudier.podbean.com/e/postgame-press-conference-history-sports-and-the-battle-for-american-memory/

& the post-election episode of Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show podcast features Heather Cox Richardson on what we do now:

Speaking of the election, tons of public scholarly coverage at Time’s Made By History blog (mostly pre-election, but still vital for us to read & engage of course), including Ben Zdencanovic on Harris’s proposals to help Black men:

https://time.com/7171868/kamala-harriss-opportunity-agenda-history/

Eladio B. Bobadilla wrote for Made By History on the 1994 California vote that anticipated Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric:

https://time.com/7171347/immigration-trump-prop187/

Here’s Allison Mashell Mitchell for Made By History on the history of abortion politics in Florida:

https://time.com/7171700/floridas-history-abortion-politics/

Ana Lucia Araujo wrote for Made By History on how legacies of slavery across the Americans inform U.S. politics:

https://time.com/7134374/slavery-americas-brazil/

& one election post-mortem for Made By History this week, Henry M.J. Tonks on a Democratic Party realignment that aided Trump:

https://time.com/7173651/democratic-party-alignment-history/

Two great pieces for AAIHS’s Black Perspectives blog this week, including Christian McCord on organizing in Cincinnati’s housing projects:

https://www.aaihs.org/organizing-in-the-housing-projects-of-cincinnatis-west-end/

& in a similar vein, H. Shellae Versey wrote for Black Perspectives on Black women, public housing, & resistance:

https://www.aaihs.org/black-women-public-housing-and-resistance/

A pair of new book publications to highlight this week, including Masi Asare’s Blues Mamas & Broadway Belters: Black Women, Voice, & the Musical Stage from Duke University Press:

https://www.dukeupress.edu/blues-mamas-and-broadway-belters

& Lucy Jane Santos’s Chain Reactions: The Hopeful History of Uranium is also now out from Simon & Schuster:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Chain-Reactions/Lucy-Jane-Santos/9781639367443

Also check out another great USIH book review, Ben Stanley on Aaron Eddens’s Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital & the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa from University of California Press:

https://s-usih.org/2024/11/beware-the-stories-we-tell-about-food-ben-stanley-on-aaron-eddens-seeding-empire-american-philanthrocapital-and-the-roots-of-the-green-revolution-in-africa/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGUdOBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHav4IisNueOK4WshW3nvQHAlKA1WAStkLX7-I4EjspDEEyPTWrXhJeon8Q_aem_JO9UsDAct8skVANo29Va9Q

A trio of important forthcoming books are now available for pre-order, including Hilary N. Green’s Unforgettable Sacrifice: How Black Communities Remembered the Civil War from Fordham University Press:

https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531508524/unforgettable-sacrifice/

Now available for pre-order from the University of Chicago Press is Nathan K. Hensley’s Action without Hope: Victorian Literature after Climate Collapse:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo242060390.html

& also available for pre-order from Chicago is John M. Kinder’s World War Zoos: Humans & Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo245346797.html

Finally, the good folks at Haymarket Books have made ebook versions of ten essential scholarly works free for download in this moment:

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/517-ten-free-ebooks-for-getting-free

Gonna end with a handful of excellent election-focused newsletter, including Vaughn Joy’s latest Review Roulette on The Manchurian Candidate:

I Got 57 Problems and Polish Caviar Ain't One

Over at his Academic Bubble newsletter, Dion Georgiou reviewed the new film The Apprentice:

The Apprentice

Speaking of Dion, if you want more public scholarly goodness beyond this thread, as always make sure to check out his latest Stop, Look, & Listen newsletter:

Stop, Look, and Listen #38

For his In Case of Emergency newsletter, William Horne wrote about Frederick Douglass on white American Christianity:

“The Most Deceitful One”: Douglass on White Piety and American Christianity

While Kevin Levin wrote for his Civil War Memory newsletter on the 1864 presidential election:

"The People Are In a Fever of Excitement and Suspense"

& Kevin Kruse offered a brief but important post-election check-in on his Campaign Trails newsletter:

Checking In

Finally, at my own blog I spent the week AmericanStudying the 1924 presidential election, a reminder that there’s always more we can learn from the past as we struggle to figure out the present & work for the future:

https://americanstudier.blogspot.com/2024/11/november-4-2024-1924-election-hardings.html

& on that note, next week marks my blog’s 14^th anniversary, & I’ll reflect all week on this decade & a half of public scholarly blogging. I sure wish that were happening in a better moment, but America in November 2010 was pretty awful too, which was part of why I began sharing my public AmericanStudies perspective. The worst is always with us, & needs our work—which can help push us toward our best. Glad to be in it still & always with y’all.

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more public scholarly writing, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week below! Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & keep the faith, y’all.