#ScholarSunday Thread 212

Shared on (Saturday) February 15, 2025

Traveling this weekend, so it’s a Special Saturday #ScholarSunday thread—my 212^th of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all!

Starting with a number of great pieces for #BlackhistoryMonth, including Chloë Bass for Hyperallergic reviewing Imani Perry’s new book Black in Blues:

https://hyperallergic.com/988271/before-black-there-was-blue-imani-perry/

Vital New Yorker essay from Hanif Abdurraqib on Octavia Butler, the LA fires, & the things that cannot be recovered:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/lessons-for-the-end-of-the-world?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Weekly:%20February%208%2C%202025&utm_term=lithub_weekly_master_list

For the Journal of the American Revolution’s All Things Liberty site, Andrew Lawler wrote about Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian regiment:

https://allthingsliberty.com/2025/02/lord-dunmores-ethiopian-regiment/

For his Medium column, Mark Anthony Neal wrote about the “sanctified” funk of the great Sly & the Family Stone:

https://medium.com/@tnimixtape/the-sanctified-funk-of-sly-the-family-stone-by-mark-anthony-neal-5ef453a1eafa

Important piece on the 1939 Bruins blog correcting the NCAA’s mistaken Jackie Robinson post with detail & nuance on that historic college football team:

https://1939bruins.wordpress.com/2025/02/08/the-ncaa-gets-jackie-wrong/

Speaking of football, lots of thoughtful reflections on Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance this week, including David Dennis Jr. for Andscape:

https://andscape.com/features/genius-of-kendrick-lamars-super-bowl-halftime-performance/

& Austin McCoy on Kendrick is a must-read as his excellent newsletter & work always is:

My thoughts about Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance

For an excellent resource in discussing hip hop history & a great deal more, check out Walter Greason & Tim Fielder’s Graphic History of Hip Hop

https://www.graphichistorycompany.com/

& finally, for my new Saturday Evening Post Considering History column I used February birthday celebrant & American icon Langston Hughes to highlight the patriotism of Black History Month:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/02/considering-history-langston-hughes-and-the-patriotism-of-black-history-month/

Couple other columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to share this week, including Nancy Rubin Stuart on groundbreaking doctor Virginia Apgar:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/02/virginia-apgar-the-doctor-who-saved-the-lives-of-millions-of-newborns/

& Harold Holzer wrote for the Post on a youthful Abraham Lincoln’s 1842 duel:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/02/lincolns-duel/

A number of excellent pieces for the AHA’s Perspectives blog this week, including Anna Booker for the “What is Scholarship Today” series on documenting unrecognized local histories:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/documenting-unrecognized-local-histories/

Holly Scott also wrote for the Perspectives “What is Scholarship Today” series, on asking the right questions:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/asking-the-right-questions/

Here’s Shae O. Omonijo for Perspectives on the power & politics of monuments to Black women:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/reinscribing-history/

& I really enjoyed Amanda Lanzillo’s Perspectives piece on poetic battery manuals from late 19^th century India:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/poetic-battery-manuals/

Two important pieces for the History News Network this week, including Gabriel Winant on the rise & fall of liberal historiography from the 60s to the present:

https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-history-of-liberals-and-history

& Andrew Donnelly wrote for the History News Network on the history of deriving political meaning from Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality:

https://www.hnn.us/article/lincoln-male-intimacies

Turning to current events, Kevin M. Levin wrote for Slate on why the return of the name “Fort Bragg” isn’t what Confederate heritage groups were hoping for:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/fort-bragg-name-alvin-trump-pete-hegseth-liberty.html

Mike Brock continues to do yeoman’s work at the Notes from the Circus newsletter, including this piece on procedural courtesy & Constitutional collapse:

The Velvet Glove and the Dying Constitution

Zeb Larson’s latest for Dame magazine makes a compelling case that we’re living in a new age of robber barons:

https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/02/05/were-living-in-a-new-age-of-robber-barons/

Here’s Mira Fox for Forward on why the Trump administration’s censorship of websites & online info is an internet age equivalent to Nazi book burning:

https://forward.com/culture/694570/trans-trump-nazi-magnus-hirschfeld-executive-order/

Over at The Conversation, Philip Klinkner & Rogers M. Smith argued that Trump’s rollbacks of rights is part of an all-too familiar American pattern:

https://theconversation.com/60-years-of-progress-in-expanding-rights-is-being-rolled-back-by-trump-a-pattern-thats-all-too-familiar-in-us-history-248526

Great piece from Mehdi Hasan for The Guardian on what Republicans really mean when they blame & attack “DEI”:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/11/dei-trump-republicans-racism

Important The Nation column from Kate Wagner on the worst part of Trump’s Neoclassical architecture fetish:

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/aesthetics-trump-traditional-tariffs-architecture/

& Susan Rinkunas wrote for Jezebel on the “diabolical” campaign to ban abortion pills by rebranding the Comstock Act:

https://www.jezebel.com/inside-the-diabolical-campaign-to-ban-abortion-pills-by-rebranding-the-comstock-act

Lots of great new podcast episodes contextualizing current events as well this week, including the latest for Crooked’s Strict Scrutiny featuring Melissa Murray, Leah Litman, & Kate Shaw on DOGE & an interview with Jonathan Gienapp:

https://crooked.com/podcast/doge-runs-amok-originalisms-ahistoricism/

Just in time for the Super Bowl, Gene Demby of NPR’s Code Switch interviewed Tracie Canada & Domonique Foxworth on football & race:

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/1249795980/code-switch-football-race-ep-1

For her Freedom Over Fascism podcast, Stephanie G. Wilson interviewed Good Influence’s Josh Cook on creating a more effective info ecosystem:

PODCAST: Singing with the Chorus: Josh Cook on Creating a More Effective Info Ecosystem

& for Skipped History, Ben Tumin interviewed Julie Greene on her new book & our ongoing obsession with the Panama Canal:

Explaining the Obsession with the Panama Canal

Turning to other great podcast episodes from the week, for the latest Unsung History Kelly Therese Pollock interviewed Ericka Huggins on the Black Panther Party:

https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/ErickaHuggins/

For episode 59 of her Drafting the Past, Kate Carpenter talked with Marlene Daut about her most recent books & her return to storytelling:

https://draftingthepast.com/podcast-episodes/episode-59-marlene-daut-returns-to-storytelling/

For the new episode of his America: A History, Liam Heffernan interviewed Nicholas Grant & Heather Ann Thompson on US prisons past & present:

While for the latest SocAnnex podcast, Dan Morrison interviewed Cayce Jamil on Durkheim & French Socialisms:

https://socannex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/podcast/cayce-jamil-on-durkheim-and-french-socialisms/

Two new episodes of Jason Herbert’s podcasts this week, including the latest Reckoning featuring George Bonanno on changing how we think about PTSD:

& for episode 117 of Jason’s Historians at the Movies podcast, he spoke with Kathryn Schumaker on Loving, the 14^th Amendment, & more:

Two important YouTube conversations to share this week as well, including Katie Couric’s conversation with Heather Cox Richardson on threats to our democracy:

& check out this National Constitution Center & Federal Judicial Center conversation on Reconstruction & the Constitution, featuring Pamela Brandwein, Sherrilyn Ifill, Ilan Wurman, Martha Jones, Kate Masur, & Dylan Penningroth:

Four excellent new pieces for Time’s Made By History this week, including one from the blog’s editors on how the media spawned McCarthyism & how history is repeating itself:

https://time.com/7213586/media-mccarthyism/

Holly M. Karibo wrote for Made By History on how narcotic farms reveal the history of punitive approaches to drug policy:

https://time.com/7209590/narcotics-farms/

Speaking of failed histories repeating themselves, here’s Ryan LaRochelle for Made By History on Nixon’s attempts to shutter federal agencies:

https://time.com/7216368/trump-repeating-nixons-failed-plan/

& for Valentine’s Day, Rachel Hope Cleves highlighted how the foods we define as romantic have flipped over the years:

https://time.com/7212890/foods-we-think-are-romantic-have-flipped/

Two great pieces for the AAIHS’s Black Perspectives blog this week, including Calvin Schermerhorn on how the racial wealth gap was made:

https://www.aaihs.org/how-the-racial-wealth-gap-was-made/

& Beau Lancaster wrote for Black Perspectives on the significance of Black queer history:

https://www.aaihs.org/on-the-significance-of-black-queer-history/

Couple of important new book publications to share this week, including María de los Ángeles Picone’s Landscaping Patagonia: Spatial History & Nation-Making in Chile & Argentina from UNC Press:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469686134/landscaping-patagonia/

Also out this week from UNC Press & highlighted in this 19^th News review is Aria S. Halliday’s Black Girls & How We Fail Them:

https://19thnews.org/2025/02/aria-s-halliday-black-girls-how-we-fail-them/

Check out Sharon Ann Murphy’s open-access Reviews in American History review essay on recent books on financial history from Sara T. Damiano & Joshua R. Greenberg:

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/948354

& for the latest USIH book review, here’s Francesco Landolfi on Reiko Hillyer’s A Wall is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in the 20^th Century U.S.:

https://s-usih.org/2025/02/francesco-landolfi-on-reiko-hillyers-a-wall-is-just-a-wall-the-permeability-of-the-prison-in-the-twentieth-century-united-states/

Two forthcoming books now available for pre-order, including Pamela Grundy & Susan Shackelford’s Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball, out Tuesday from UNC Press:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469674780/shattering-the-glass/

& I really enjoyed this Waco’s magazine profile of Ronald Angelo Johnson & his forthcoming book on Black soldiers in the American Revolution:

https://www.wacoan.com/the-whole-story/

For a thoughtful revisiting of a classic work of historical writing, check out Dwight Garner for the New York Times Book Review on Paul Fussell’s The Great War & Modern Memory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/books/review/paul-fussell-great-war-and-modern-memory.html

Gonna end with a bunch of great newsletters as usual, including Vaughn Joy’s latest Review Roulette, a Valentine’s tribute to John Sayles, love, & complexity:

An Ode to Love, Complexity, & John Sayles

Great stuff from Kate Heindl for the Basketball Feelings newsletter on how the NCAA selling out trans athletes won’t stop Trump’s cruelties:

A coward needs a scapegoat

For her newsletter, Sarah Kendzior wrote about the powerful men seeking to strip the future for parts:

The Miners

Speaking of this administration’s destructive excesses, for his Campaign Trails newsletter Kevin M. Kruse wrote about the Thursday afternoon massacre at Justice:

The Thursday Afternoon Massacre

While for his Future/Conditional newsletter, Nathaniel Morris wrote about one of those “weeks where decades happen”:

The End of The End of History

For her Abortion, Every Day newsletter, Jessica Valenti argued that there can be no “common ground” with the people killing us:

Fuck the Middle Ground

& for her Freedom Over Fascism newsletter, Stephanie G. Wilson highlighted what the other side in the Information War believes:

Information War: Here's what the other side believes.

Gonna end with a couple particularly beautiful newsletters, including Benjamin Dreyer’s latest A Word About… on the Gulf of Mexico & building a better vocabulary:

The Gulf of Mexico Ain't Just a River in Egypt

& I really loved Gaby Del Valle’s newsletter on anti-immigration leftists & the spirit of Ellis Island:

The spirit of Ellis Island

Finally, if you can’t get enough public scholarly goodness (me neither), check out the 41^st installment of Dion Georgiou’s Stop, Look, & Listen newsletter:

Stop, Look, and Listen #41

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, especially with this Saturday morning publication, so make sure to share more public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books—especially yours!—below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & see you next week if I can compile a thread while traveling (& soon no matter what!).