#ScholarSunday Thread 227

Shared on June 1, 2025

Today’s my younger son’s high school graduation, but through the proud Dad tears I’m still sharing my 227^th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new books from the last week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all!

Starting with some favorite writing from the week as usual, including Taylor McNeil for TuftsNow on history undergraduate Jaiden Mosley’s surprising research into his family history:

https://now.tufts.edu/2025/05/22/quest-his-roots-led-surprise

In a similar vein, I loved Jean Suzuki’s piece for Discover Nikkei on tracing her grandfather’s journeys from Hiroshima to Canada:

https://discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2025/5/26/tracing-my-grandfathers-journeys/

Also check out Nainika Dinesh’s wonderful Contingent magazine essay on how their PhD research took them to surprising locales:

https://contingentmagazine.org/2025/05/26/on-the-road-to-allahabad/

& for his latest column for NextPittsburgh, David S. Rotenstein wrote about how the city’s Black-owned bbq restaurants are competing against communal memories:

https://nextpittsburgh.com/eatdrink/pittsburghs-black-owned-barbecue-owners-compete-against-memories/

Two great pieces for the AHA’s Perspectives blog this week, including Miriam F. Ascarelli on New Jersey’s forgotten Morris Canal:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/the-morris-canal/

Also for Perspectives, Sarah Muncy previewed the June 2025 issue of the American Historical Review, including its rethinking of “Big Asia”:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/rethinking-a-continent/

I learned a lot from the latest post for the Urban History Association’s Metropole blog, Charlotte Leib on LA’s fires & a century of landscape manipulation:

https://themetropole.blog/2025/05/27/engineering-nature-igniting-risk-las-fires-and-a-century-of-landscape-manipulation/

For JSTOR Daily, Danny Robb wrote about the 1950s origins of the National Science Foundation (NSF):

https://daily.jstor.org/science-in-war-science-in-peace-the-origins-of-the-nsf/

Provocative & important essay from Sophie Lewis in Spectre journal on revisiting Andrea Dworkin’s Zionism:

https://spectrejournal.com/are-women-weak-jews/

While for the London Review of Books, Jeremy Harding visited the Africa Museum on the outskirts of Brussels:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n10/jeremy-harding/paths-to-restitution

A few open-access journal articles to share this week as well, including Wendy McMahon & Rebecca Tillett in Comparative American Studies on American lit & climate change:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14775700.2025.2493440?src=exp-la

I really enjoyed the open-access forum on Cultural Wars at 100 in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/isis/2025/116/2

& published last year but new to these threads is the excellent Legacy forum in honor of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s upcoming bicentennial (h/t editor Eric Gardner for sharing it):

https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/53522

For lots more public scholarly articles & work of all kinds, check out the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age & Progressive Era’s monthly round-up:

https://blog.shgape.org/minding-the-gape-april-2025/

Two great columns from Saturday Evening Post colleagues this week, including Jeff Nilsson on a divisive antebellum tariff:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/05/the-abominable-tariff/

& Nancy Rubin Stuart wrote for the Post on the American photojournalist & spy who captured the heartbreak of WWII:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/05/an-american-photojournalist-captured-the-heartbreak-of-world-war-ii/

Turning to current events, bracing & vital MSNBC column from NAACP president Derrick Johnson on the 5^th anniversary of George Floyd’s death:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/george-floyd-death-anniversary-congress-police-reform-rcna208268

For The New Yorker, Jelani Cobb wrote about the tumultuous Spring semester & what institutions of higher ed need to realize about Trump:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/02/a-tumultuous-spring-semester-finally-comes-to-a-close?utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=bluesky&mbid=social_bluesky&utm_brand=tny

Also in The New Yorker, make sure to check out Aida Alami’s essay on the radical courage of Noor Abdalla, Mahmoud Khalil’s wife:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-radical-courage-of-noor-abdalla?utm_campaign=falcon_FCzP&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=tny&mbid=social_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=bluesky&mbid=social_bluesky&utm_brand=tny

Excellent Los Angeles Times op-ed from Sara Dant on why public lands should stay public & protected despite Trump’s push to privatize them:

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-05-25/public-lands-national-parks-blm-monument-privatization-donald-trump

I fully second Ryan Cooper’s column for The American Prospect on why we should devoutly hope Elon Musk is serious about leaving government:

https://prospect.org/power/2025-05-30-go-elon-never-darken-our-doors-again/

For a very telling parallel to Trump, Musk, et al, here’s Veronica Anghel for Journal of Democracy on how the far-right almost destroyed Romanian democracy:

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/how-the-far-right-almost-destroyed-romanian-democracy/

Hugely important conversation between Victor Ray & Sam Hoadley-Brill for The Philosopher on critical race theory, science, & pseudoscience:

https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/critical-race-theory-science-and-pseudoscience?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Thought-provoking essay from Annie Abrams in Slate on why we need a better answer to right-wing narratives about literacy & education:

https://slate.com/life/2025/05/classical-education-book-banning-literacy-reading.html?tpcc=giftedarticle

& I’ll end this section with Kate Nelson’s wonderful essay in Civil Eats on how Sioux chef Sean Sherman is decolonizing the US food system:

https://civileats.com/2025/05/20/sean-sherman-expands-his-vision-for-decolonizing-the-us-food-system/

Lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including episode 66 of Kate Carpenter’s Drafting the Past, featuring Padraic Scanlan:

https://draftingthepast.com/podcast-episodes/episode-66-padraic-scanlan-makes-the-medicine-go-down/

For the latest episode of John Fugelsang & Corey Brettschneider’s The Oath & the Office, Michael Vorenberg joined to talk about both his new book on Lincoln & modern disinformation:

For the latest episode of Mainely History, Elizabeth DeWolfe joined Ian Saxine & Tiffany Link to talk about Agnes the Spy & a notorious Gilded Age scandal:

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

Speaking of spies, Suzanne Cope joined Daniel Ford’s Writer’s Bone podcast to talk about her new book on Italian women spies & assassins who fought the Nazis:

https://www.writersbone.com/podcastsarchive/2025/5/25/episode-712-suzanne-cope

While Joanne Paul joined the Beyond Shakespeare podcast to talk about her new book Thomas More: A Life & Death in Tudor England:

https://audioboom.com/posts/8727503-discussing-thomas-more-with-dr-joanne-paul

Over at Mother Jones’s More to the Story podcast, Sarah Kendzior joined to talk about her new memoir & the destruction of the great American road trip:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/trump-national-parks-summer-road-trips-sarah-kendzior/

While Ellen Schrecker joined the folks at Democracy Now to talk about McCarthyism & Trump’s war on universities:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/30/mccarthyism_universities

The latest episode of the Civics & Coffee podcast focuses on the Panic of 1873:

https://www.civicsandcoffee.com/the-panic-of-1873/

While Episode 14: “The Corruption” of Jim Ambuske’s Worlds Turned Upside Down podcast has now dropped:

Because I’m always learning about more public scholarly goodness, here’s a great podcast series I missed last fall, the Humanities at Large podcast from Toronto’s Jackman Humanities Institute:

https://www.humanities.utoronto.ca/news-events/media/humanities-large-podcast

& since I’m sharing podcasts from last fall, I’ll ask you to check out my own, The Celestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, & the Battle for America, if you haven’t already:

https://americanstudier.podbean.com/

A trio of great pieces for Time’s Made By History blog this week, including Catherine Conybeare on what Saint Augustine can teach us about the new Pope:

https://time.com/7286397/history-saint-augustine-pope-leo-xiv/

Speaking of Pope Leo XIV, William S. Cossen wrote for Made By History on the history behind the new Pope’s name:

https://time.com/7288305/history-pope-leo-xiv-name/

& also check out Kristen Martin’s bracing & powerful Made By History post on the devastating history of baby relinquishment:

https://time.com/7280998/devastating-history-baby-relinquishment/

Over at the AAIHS’s Black Perspectives blog, Garrett Freas has shared a very timely post on the remains of segregation & Apartheid in South Africa:

https://www.aaihs.org/the-remains-of-segregation-and-apartheid-in-south-africa/

Lots of important new books published this week, including Aaron Gillette’s Nazis in the New World: German Students in the United States, 1933-1941 from Johns Hopkins University Press:

https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/53667/nazis-new-world

Also published this week was Paul Elie’s The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, & Controversy in the 1980s from Macmillan:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374272920/thelastsupper/

As highlighted with a podcast above, likewise published this week was Joanne Paul’s new bio Thomas More from Penguin:

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/thomas-more-a-life-dr-joanne-paul/7765640?ean=9781405953603

& the folks at UNC Press highlighted five new book releases this week, including Robert Fitzgerald on hardcore punk in the age of Reagan & Augustus Wood on class warfare in Black Atlanta:

https://uncpressblog.com/2025/05/27/new-this-week-may-27th/

Not new but as important as ever are the Our Bodies, Ourselves books, the earliest editions of which have now been digitized by Jay Moschella & colleagues at the Boston Public Library:

https://ourbodiesourselves.org/the-latest/boston-public-library-digitizes-the-earliest-our-bodies-ourselves-books

A number of compelling book reviews this week as well, including Ruben Reyes Jr. for The New York Times on Kevin Nguyen’s new novel Mȳ Documents (gift link below):

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/books/review/kevin-nguyen-my-documents.html?unlocked_article_code=1.J08.zhKW.eFOS3zJzXcxC&smid=bs-share

For the LARB, Devin Thomas O’Shea reviewed Andrew Hartman’s important new book Karl Marx in America:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/marx-the-fourth-boom/

While for Emerging Civil War, Tim Talbott reviewed Hilary N. Green’s Unforgettable Sacrifice: How Black Communities Remembered the Civil War:

https://emergingcivilwar.com/2025/05/29/book-review-unforgettable-sacrifice-how-black-communities-remembered-the-civil-war/

For the USIH, Audrey Wu Clark reviewed Rachel Louise Moran’s Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America:

https://s-usih.org/2025/05/audrey-wu-clark-on-rachel-louise-morans-blue-a-history-of-postpartum-depression-in-america/

& for History Today, Kristin Semmens reviewed Douglas Carl Peifer’s Hitler’s Deserters: Breaking Ranks with the Wehrmacht:

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/hitlers-deserters-douglas-carl-peifer-review?utm_campaign=86995yhbx-86995yhfa-Tn-Gf-Fb-Cg-Ae&utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_content=media+post&utm_term=OxfordAcademic+86995yhfa&linkId=300000026678933

Want even more history books for your list? Check out Lincoln Paine’s newsletter on the latest winners of the John R. Lyman Awards in Maritime History:

John R. Lyman Awards in Maritime History Announced

Over at her History in the Margins blog, Pamela Toler concluded her AAPI Heritage Month series with two more book reviews, including George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy:

https://www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/05/27/they-called-us-enemy/

& here’s Pamela on Michael Luo’s magisterial Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, & the Epic Story of the Chinese in America:

https://www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/05/30/strangers-in-the-land/

Etienne Toussaint likewise shared a pair of newsletters this week, including for Freedom Papers on why faith & action, not clarity & certainty, lead to progress:

The Power of Faith Over Clarity

While for his Tenure Track newsletter, Etienne shared the fourth part in his ongoing series on outlining a law review article:

Mapping Your Legal Arguments

Two great installments of Kevin Levin’s Civil War Memory newsletter to share this week as well, including reflections on Richmond’s Confederate monuments on the 5^th anniversary of George Floyd’s murder:

George Floyd and the Writing of the Final Chapter of Richmond's Confederate Monuments

& I really appreciate Kevin’s highlighting of & follow-ups to Drew Gilpin Faust’s excellent New York Times op-ed on Memorial Day:

A Memorial Day Message For All Americans

I’ll take any chance to share my own 2020 Saturday Evening Post Considering History column on the holiday’s Decoration Day origins:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2020/05/considering-history-the-lessons-of-memorial-days-decoration-day-origins/

Righteous rant from Mona Eltahawy for her Feminist Giant newsletter on her experiences with the published Unbound:

Bloody Hell!

Daniel W. Drezner wrote for his Drezner’s World newsletter on how the Trump administration is trying to kill American higher ed:

The Trump Administration Is Trying to Kill American Higher Education

Vital work from Nina Jankowicz & the folks at the American Sunlight Project on Trump’s war on global internet regulation:

Exporting the Censorship Lie: America’s War on Global Internet Regulation

While for her History Teaches … newsletter, Felicia Kornbluh wrote about the truth behind the “work requirements” in the GOP’s new budget bill:

History Teaches . . . GOP Policy In the Shadow of the Poorhouse

For the second part of his Future/Conditional series on bad education, Nathaniel Morris highlighted the conflict between indigenous rebels & abusive schoolteachers in revolutionary Mexico:

Bad Education Part 2

While for his Liberating Narratives blog, Bram Hubbell wrote about new ideas for teaching the Crusades in World History:

https://www.liberatingnarratives.com/the-meeting-place-of-muslim-and-christian-merchants/?ref=liberating-narratives-newsletter

Gonna end with a handful of favorite newsletters & blog posts as usual, including Kevin M. Kruse’s latest in his work-in-progress series:

https://campaign-trails.ghost.io/work-in-progress-literacy-tests/

The folks at the Allen Ginsberg Project shared wonderful reflections for Walt Whitman’s birthday on what we can learn from the Bard in 2025:

https://allenginsberg.org/2025/05/s-m-31-whitman/

For his Academic Bubble newsletter, Dion Georgiou wrote about wildly contrasting narratives of the 2012 London Olympics across the political spectrum:

Post-Referendum Olympic Blues

For his Ehlers on Everything blog, Mark J. Ehlers wrote about how Good Night and Good Luck provides vital commentary on our times:

https://ehlersoneverything.blogspot.com/2025/05/good-night-and-good-luck-commentary-on.html

I really enjoyed Cian McGrath’s Frame Rated retrospective for the 35^th anniversary of the film adaptation of The Witches:

https://www.framerated.co.uk/the-witches-1990/

Heather Cox Richardson’s May 30^th installment of her Letters from an American newsletter was particularly excellent, on Musk, Trump, & more:

May 30, 2025

& over at Vaughn Joy’s always must-read Review Roulette, she re-shared and amplified one of her great recent reviews, of The Graduate, along with personal notes about both a new graduate and what’s next for her newsletter:

Graduation Redux

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, especially with all these proud Dad tears, so please share more writing & work, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, & happy reading, listening, & learning, all!