#ScholarSunday Thread 201

Published on December 1, 2024

I know I said I’d be taking a week off from #ScholarSunday threads for the holiday, but when there’s this much great work to be thankful for, we gotta share it! So here’s my 201^st thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more in comments, share widely, & enjoy, all!

Starting with a trio of excellent, open-access scholarly articles, including Theresa Ventura in Isis on disaster nationalism in the US colonial Philippines:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/733146

Also open-access is Celestine S. Kunkeler in Contemporary European History on the Dutch Civil Militia & the history of the paramilitary radical right:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/authority-vigilance-paranoia-placing-the-dutch-civil-militia-in-the-history-of-the-paramilitary-radical-right-19181940/2823626F8C85E7C93D7E349B739753FF

& make sure to check out this entire, fully open-access special issue of REDEN focused on “LGBTIQ+ Representations & Media in US Popular Culture”:

https://erevistas.publicaciones.uah.es/ojs/index.php/reden/issue/view/201

Turning to other great public scholarly writing, I really enjoyed Fara Dabhoiwala in the London Review of Books on what we’ve learned about the portrait of Francis Williams:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/fara-dabhoiwala/a-man-of-parts-and-learning

Great stuff from Daniel Richter for the Urban History Association’s Metropole blog on magical & exiled urbanisms in Miami:

https://themetropole.blog/2024/11/25/magical-and-exiled-urbanisms-in-miami/

& a nicely nuanced essay from Peter C. Mancall in Zocalo Public Square on how fear, not prudishness, motivated book banners past & present:

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/the-puritans-were-book-banners-but-they-werent-sexless-sourpusses/

Turning to current events, vital work from Nick Turse for The Intercept on the profound hypocrisy of the US military celebrating Native American Heritage Month:

https://theintercept.com/2024/11/28/army-native-american-heritage-month/

For Clio & the Contemporary, here’s Sarah Keyes on Kevin Costner’s Horizon & the white man’s world of the Wild West:

https://clioandthecontemporary.com/2024/11/27/wild-west-survives/

Patrick Fealey’s profoundly bracing & vital first-person essay on homelessness in Esquire is a true must-read:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a62875397/homelessness-in-america/

& two important pieces on Trump’s proposed Cabinet to share this week, including David Milne for Foreign Policy:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/21/trump-secretary-state-rubio-hegseth-waltz-gabbard-gaetz-kissinger/

& Lydia Wilson wrote for New Lines magazine on Pete Hegseth’s tattoos & Christian Nationalism’s obsession with the Crusades:

https://newlinesmag.com/essays/pete-hegseths-tattoos-and-the-crusading-obsession-of-the-far-right/

Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest Unsung History featuring Seth Rockman on his new book Plantation Goods:

https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/Plantation-Goods/

The latest episode in Matt Seybold’s American Vandal’s higher ed series is built on a phenomenal interview with Tressie McMillan Cottom:

https://marktwainstudies.com/lowered/

For episode 54 of Your Most Obedient Humble Servant, Kathryn Gehred interviewed Mary Wigge on the Knox family during the Revolutionary War:

https://www.r2studios.org/show/your-most-obedient-humble-servant/episode-54-i-am-frightened-when-i-look-at-her/

While Rachel Shelden joined David Priess’s Chatter to talk about the election of 1876 & election & national security:

Speaking of telling late 19C histories, Jacqueline Fear-Segal joined Liam Heffernan’s America: A History to talk about the Sand Creek Massacre:

For episode 166 of Axelbank Reports History & Today, Evan interviewed Heath Lee on her new book on Pat Nixon:

While for episode 36 of his Holocaust History podcast, Waitman Beorn talked with Stuart Bertie, Mary Brazier, & Lesley Moore on visiting Holocaust sites:

& for episode 106 of the HATM podcast, Jason Herbert was joined by Sarah Bond & Bret Devereaux to talk all things Gladiator II:

& check out part 4 of Dave Taylor’s The Lincoln Conspirators at Fort Jefferson video series, this one focused on the infamous “Dungeon”:

https://lincolnconspirators.com/2024/11/29/the-dungeon/

Speaking of podcasts, I spent Thanksgiving week on my blog offering thanks to folks who helped make my podcast, The Celestials’ Last Game, possible & some of my favorite work ever:

https://americanstudier.blogspot.com/2024/11/november-25-2024-podcast-thanks.html

& for more on the Chinese Exclusion Act contexts for my podcast, check out NPR Planet Money’s two-part series, with part one here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2024/11/19/g-s1-34449/americas-first-major-immigration-crackdown-and-the-making-and-breaking-of-the-west?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1m9IXI9mEILzqviiD_qCJQPEX5d0zsKzGXVgUY0wfciH4JtzwwQPJSK58_aem_nII_QqPOBTvxmSl6jyt3wQ

& part two is here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2024/11/26/g-s1-35805/chinese-expulsion-act-railroads-immigration-crackdown?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1eglnK0WrmZoaWfw66nfnLo2EFYMtj3eq-amvDtt6_Bu37UqJzEYxpqBM_aem_LrjlM_cY5l56sD0QQFDq1Q

Two excellent pieces for Time’s Made By History this week, including Meredith L. McCoy on the troubled relationship between schools & Native American histories:

https://time.com/7177131/native-american-schools-history/

& Elizabeth M. Reese wrote for Made By History on lessons from how Lafayette united Americans in a polarized time:

https://time.com/7177668/lafayette-polarization-america/

Couple important new books out this week, including Julia Ditter’s Scottish Literature, Borders, & the Environmental Imagination from Bloomsbury:

https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350431058

& also newly published is Katherine C. Epstein’s Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State from Chicago:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo222008444.html

Not just out but new to me & fascinating is Jennifer A. Kokai & Tom Robson’s Disney Parks & the Construction of American Identity: Tourism, Performance, Anxiety from Rowman & Littlefield:

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781666932393/Disney-Parks-and-the-Construction-of-American-Identity-Tourism-Performance-Anxiety

& for a review of an important new book, here’s Scott W. Stern in The New Republic on Paul Renfro’s The Life & Death of Ryan White from UNC Press:

https://newrepublic.com/maz/article/188318/tragedy-ryan-white

Speaking of UNC Press, two forthcoming books are now available for pre-order, including Lisa G. Materson’s Radical Solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, Political Allyship, & the Battle for Puerto Rico’s Independence:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469679921/radical-solidarity/

& also available for pre-order is Mary E. Hicks’s Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners & the World of South Atlantic Slavery:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469671468/captive-cosmopolitans/

One more forthcoming title to highlight this week, David M. Perry & Matthew Gabriele’s Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire & Made Medieval Europe from Harpercollins:

https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/oathbreakers?srsltid=AfmBOoqwpHaUo5fgHrK6pBrfZ_59CL7EIJL-Oqqby-HdAVuXYNbMcxDJ

Gonna end with a bunch of great newsletters from the week as usual, including Kevin M. Kruse’s Campaign Trails on why Trump’s victory isn’t a mandate:

Not a Mandate

For his Democracy Americana newsletter, Thomas Zimmer wrote about Russell Vought, the ideologue of the “Post-Constitutional” Right:

Meet the Ideologue of the “Post-Constitutional” Right

& for his Thinking about… newsletter, Timothy Snyder offered a post-election update to an earlier post on the strongman fantasy:

The Strongman Fantasy (updated 11/24)

Going beyond the election, for his A Sea of Words newsletter Lincoln Paine reviewed Margaret Cohen’s 6-volume Cultural History of the Sea:

A Cultural History of the Sea (6 vols.)

Michael Leroy Oberg wrote for his blog on Joe Biden’s apology for the history of Native American boarding schools:

https://michaelleroyoberg.com/boarding-schools/apologizing-for-history/

& finally, a trio of excellent Thanksgiving newsletters to share, including Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American on the holiday’s true histories:

November 27, 2024

Kevin Levin wrote for his Civil War Memory newsletter on Robert Gould Shaw, Thanksgiving, & what matters most:

Robert Gould Shaw, Thanksgiving, and What Matters Most

& check out Vaughn Joy’s latest wonderful Review Roulette newsletter, this one a Thanksgiving special on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?:

Righteous Impatience for Dinner and Progress

Finally, if you need even more great public scholarship (& I’m with you), make sure to check out the 40^th installment of Dion Georgiou’s Stop, Look, & Listen for his Academic Bubble Newsletter:

Stop, Look, and Listen #40

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing, podcasts, books, & more below! Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & may the holiday season continue to be a restful & reflective one for us all.