#ScholarSunday Thread 204

Published on December 22, 2024

It’s the most wonderful time of the week—straight from the North Pole (well, very snowy Massachusetts anyway), my 204^th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, share widely please, & enjoy, all!

Starting with John Warner’s Inside Higher Ed piece on one of the year’s most prominent & frustrating trends, the rise of AI in education:

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blogs/just-visiting/2024/12/11/great-ready-faculty-bot-ification

While for other, equally frustrating trends in higher ed labor & community, Shannon Mattern for her blog on the one-year anniversary of her hospitalization is a must-read:

https://wordsinspace.net/2024/12/13/the-limits-of-refusal/

Going beyond higher ed to broader questions of technology & community, here’s S.E. Smith for The Verge on what happens when web content disappears:

https://www.theverge.com/24321569/internet-decay-link-rot-web-archive-deleted-culture

& for thoughtful reflections on our culture of posting & sharing online, here’s Anne Helen Petersen for her newsletter:

Posting Less

Turning to other great public scholarly writing for the week, here’s my Saturday Evening Post colleague Edward Humes on an inspiring father-son recycling project:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/12/owens-list-finding-a-way-to-recycle-zombie-trash/

& for her Saturday Evening Post Common Threads column, Einav Rabinovitch-Fox wrote on the history of Christmas lights:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/12/common-threads-christmas-lights-the-most-american-of-inventions/

While Annie Zaleski wrote for PBS’s American Masters on the surprising success of Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/rockin-around-the-christmas-tree-longevity/34982/

Three great contributions to Contingent magazine’s Star Trek series this week, including Nicole Donawho on dogs in space:

https://contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/15/mans-best-friend-in-space/

Here’s James Thajudeen for Contingent’s Star Trek series on the character of Khan & anxieties, real & imagined:

https://contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/17/anxieties-real-and-imagined/

& here’s Chris Levesque for Contingent on the final frontier of civil-military relations:

https://contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/20/the-final-frontier-of-civil-military-relations/

For his Liberating Narratives site, Bram Hubbell wrote on rethinking how we teach the 19^th-century opium trade:

https://www.liberatingnarratives.com/opium-was-one-of-those-things/

Here’s Matthew Teutsch for his Medium blog on an exhibition he & Rebecca Brantley curated for the 80^th anniversary of Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit:

https://interminablerambling.medium.com/lillian-e-smith-80th-anniversary-exhibition-4081460e6bf1

Kinsey Gidick wrote for Smithsonian magazine on the Carolina Corps, Black soldiers who fought for the British during the American Revolution in exchange for emancipation:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/these-black-soldiers-fought-for-the-british-during-the-american-revolution-in-exchange-for-freedom-from-slavery-180985617/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHNMKVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHasPRUIW-Xoa4nZ_7cIjwqShPBXp-yHcQVc5XJqIKs5lJYF8M2sL1RVXlA_aem_n2bBgzqOrG4Hmh89ANoKKA

Here’s Bronwen Everell for the History News Network on how Western scholars have used their economic history to misrepresent African cultures:

https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/nuggets-of-condescension

& thanks to Karin Wulf for sharing this great write-up of the John Carter Brown Library of the Early Americas’s launch of the Race & Regency Lab:

https://jcblibrary.org/news/race-and-regency-lab-launch

For The Conversation, Ana Lucia Araujo wrote on how the holiday season was a time of not just revelry but also rebellion for enslaved people:

https://theconversation.com/for-enslaved-people-the-holiday-season-was-a-time-for-revelry-and-a-brief-window-to-fight-back-245246

Sticking with The Conversation & turning to current events, here’s Anna Mae Duane on the benefits of humanities classes:

https://theconversation.com/how-humanities-classes-benefit-students-in-the-workplace-and-combat-loneliness-242184

& Beverly Moran wrote for The Conversation on how Trump’s expiring tax cuts made income inequality & life for Black Americans worse:

https://theconversation.com/trumps-2017-tax-cuts-expire-soon-study-shows-they-made-income-inequality-worse-and-especially-hurt-black-americans-233758

Speaking of income inequality, here’s the next installment of Rick Perlstein’s American Prospect series on billionaires he’s known:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-12-18-conrad-and-me/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHPv9VleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVp0khxK-7WyjUZZm47NASMkHZ0w1XOn0PZBsIfIPCHbHf-EAEBe7uhFZA_aem_nghm2mxFd7mHD71aGUlCkw

Vital work from Jamelle Bouie for his New York Times column on the need for deepening Democratic opposition to Trump:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opinion/democrats-trump-opposition.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iU4.Iew9.HeM-TrbAf6ff&smid=url-share

While Dave Zirin wrote for his The Nation column on the meanings of Trump’s hosting murderer Daniel Penny at the Army-Navy game:

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-army-navy-game-daniel-penny/

& on all those notes, A.J. Bauer wrote for the Nieman Lab’s 2025 Predictions for Journalism series on why the time is now for Right-wing studies:

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/right-wing-studies-time-has-come/

One of the week’s must-reads is David Perry for The Minnesota Star-Tribune on RFK Jr., vaccines, & his son with autism (gift link below):

https://www.startribune.com/on-rfk-jr-vaccines-and-my-son-with-autism-and-down-syndrome/601196570

Samantha Hancox-Li wrote for Liberal Currents on our crisis of gender relations & why we need to put the final nail in the coffin of the Patriarchal Bargain:

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-crisis-of-gender-relations/

Great review of the new film adaptation of Nickel Boys from Doreen St. Félix in The New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/critics-notebook/how-nickel-boys-critiques-the-camera-in-american-cinema

Important piece from Will Tavlin for N+1 magazine on why Netflix’s platform looks the way it does:

https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-49/essays/casual-viewing/

Marissa Fenley wrote for the Mid Theory Collection on the rise of look-alike contests & the search for a public:

https://mid-theory.com/2024/12/20/the-look-alike-contest-and-the-search-for-a-public/

& check out this phenomenal new resource from Alexander Manshel & colleagues at the Post45 Data Collective, charting four decades of NEA Creative Writing Fellowships:

https://data.post45.org/posts/nea-creative-writing-fellowships/

Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest Unsung History featuring Samanta Ege on Florence Price & the Black Chicago Renaissance:

https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/Florence-Price/

For the latest American Vandal episode, Matt Seybold & a ton of guests discuss HBCUs, pedagogical innovation, & strategies for teaching literary history:

https://marktwainstudies.com/teachingarchive/

The latest episode of Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs features Michael Troy on the pre-Revolutionary burning of the HMS Gaspee:

https://shipwrecksandseadogs.com/blog/2024/12/17/the-burning-of-hms-gaspee/

While marine biologist Gina Lonati stopped by Mainely History to talk about Maine’s most endangered marine mammal, right whales:

https://mainelyhistory.podbean.com/e/rightwhales2/

For episode 121 of Can We Talk?, a trio of guests joined to talk about Josephine Rudolph, Alaska’s Jewish pioneer daughter:

Two new episodes of Liam Heffernan’s America: A History this week, including bonus Christmas film content with Vaughn Joy:

& for another holiday special episode of America: A History, Thomas Ruys Smith & Brian Earl talked about the history of Santa Claus:

Speaking of holiday episodes, check out Sabrina Mittermeier & Torsten Kathke on Hot Frosty for their In Front of Ira podcast:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/in-front-of-ira/episodes/26--Bite-into-the-Snowman-Cookie--Hot-Frosty-e2s1ug4

For episode 10 of his Reckoning podcast, Jason Herbert talked with Jack Reid about the history of hitchhiking in the US:

While for episode 38 of his Holocaust History podcast, Waitman Beorn chatted with Jürgen Matthäus about the Soviet Union’s brutal Einsantzgruppen:

While Pamela Toler joined the History Happy Hour podcast to talk about American journalist in Nazi Germany Sigrid Schultz:

For a timely episode of This Day in Esoteric Political History, Nicole Hemmer & co-hosts talked about the origins of the Rural Free Delivery service from the USPS:

Speaking of timely, check out this AHA podcast special episode featuring a panel of historians on AI in teaching & research:

https://www.historians.org/podcast/historians-on-ai-in-teaching-and-research/

Congrats to the OG public scholarly podcast, Liz Covart’s Ben Franklin’s World, on celebrating its 400^th episode!:

https://benfranklinsworld.com/episode-400-ben-franklins-world/

& Emily Herring joined the Young Idealist YouTube channel to talk about her new book on philosopher Henri Bergson:

Five great new pieces for Time’s Made By History this week, including Stephanie Ternullo on the 2024 election & the reshaping of the electoral map:

https://time.com/7199914/2024-election-electoral-map-history/

Here’s Safa Secen for Made By History on what Syria’s new leaders will have to overcome:

https://time.com/7202600/syria-assad-history/

While Jeffrey E. Schulman wrote for Made By History on how Gladiator II is more telling about current American politics than ancient Rome:

https://time.com/7203365/gladiator-ii-american-politics/

& Zachary Loeb wrote for Made By History on what we need to remember about Y2K before watching the new film:

https://time.com/7202122/y2k-movie-history/

& finally for Made By History, a timely piece from Robert E. May on the Lost Cause’s myths about Christmas:

https://time.com/7202555/christmas-lost-cause-myth/

For an important new scholarly book publication this week, check out Stephanie J. Brown’s Watching Women: Military Suffragists Write the British Surveillance State, 1905-1924 from the University of Toronto Press:

https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487555641

Speaking of new books, Matt Gabriele & David Perry shared an excerpt from their new book Oathbreakers at their newsletter:

https://buttondown.com/ModernMedieval/archive/signs-in-the-sky-and-fears-about-the-end-of-empire/

Also out now is Jennifer Harris & Bryan Waterman’s new edition of William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy & other works:

https://broadviewpress.com/product/the-power-of-sympathy-and-other-writings/#tab-description

If you’re on Bluesky, make sure to check out the new account for Walter Greason & Tim Fielder’s must-read Graphic History of Hip Hop:

https://bsky.app/profile/graphichistoryco.bsky.social/post/3ldblyneaxc2b

A trio of pieces for Public Books featuring new books this week, including Regina N. Bradley’s interview with Blair LM Kelley on her book Black Folk:

https://www.publicbooks.org/the-world-didnt-give-it-but-the-world-cant-take-it-away-talking-black-joy-and-black-freedom-with-blair-lm-kelley/

Also for Public Books, Maria Cecelia Ulrickson reviewed a trio of new books that offer excavated archives of the enslaved:

https://www.publicbooks.org/excavating-new-archives-of-the-enslaved/

& finally for Public Books, Marisol Lebrón reviewed a pair of new books on histories of the imperial police state:

https://www.publicbooks.org/a-prison-the-size-of-the-state-a-police-to-control-the-world/

& for the latest USIH book review, here’s Gregg Lee Carter on Alexandra Filindra’s Race, Rights, & Rifles: The Origins of the NRA & Contemporary Gun Culture:

https://s-usih.org/2024/12/gregg-lee-carter-on-alexandra-filindras-race-rights-and-rifles-the-origins-of-the-nra-and-contemporary-gun-culture/

Two important forthcoming books are now available for pre-order, including Kevin Kenny & Maddelena Marinari’s edited collection Rituals of Migration: Italians & Irish on the Move from NYU Press:

https://nyupress.org/9781479825134/rituals-of-migration/

Available for pre-order from WW Norton is Brandy Schillace’s The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story:

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324036319

& for plenty more must-read scholarly books, check out UNC Press’s reading list of works on the struggles of democracy:

https://uncpressblog.com/2024/12/16/struggles-of-democracy-a-reading-list/

Gonna end with favorite newsletters from the week as usual, including Dion Georgiou’s Academic Bubble review of Conclave:

Conclave

Great stuff from my FSU colleague Steve Edwards on reading Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” as a young writer:

Intimacy is everything

For her Degenerate Art newsletter, Andrea Pitzer wrote on the long history of immigrant detention & concentration camps:

https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/rejecting-the-spectacle

While for his Looking Through the Past newsletter, here’s George Dillard on how our new age of violence echoes The Gilded Age:

Echoes of Rage

For his Democracy Americana newsletter, here’s Thomas Zimmer on the modern conservative tradition & the origins of Trumpism:

The Modern Conservative Tradition and the Origins of Trumpism

Matt Carr wrote for his Infernal Machine on Trump’s government by the rich for the rich:

Trump's Billionaire Ball

& Kevin Kruse continued his Campaign Trails series on Trump’s Cabinet nominees:

Cabinet Makers III

For her December 16^th Letters from an American newsletter, Heather Cox Richardson highlighted our long-overdue commemorations of Frances Perkins:

December 16, 2024

I’ll end with a trio of great newsletters for the holiday season, including Chrissy Stoop on the Christian Christmas industrial complex:

https://theflytrap.beehiiv.com/p/the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year-holiday-blues-evangelical-trump

For the next installment of her Review Roulette holiday series, Vaughn Joy reviewed Holiday Touchdown & the current spate of holiday films:

Hat Lore™ is the Reason for the Season

& since the holiday season is ultimately about family & love, I have to end with Kevin Levin’s deeply moving tribute to his late father:

Remembering My Father

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so please share more writing & work, podcasts, new & forthcoming books (including yours!) below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & may it be a relaxing & rejuvenative holiday season for us all!