I wrote a #bookhistory love letter to some smart folks: @ryancordell.org @rscar.bsky.social @jmadelman.bsky.social (& others!) - thx to @gbarnhisel.bsky.social and all who had their mitts on this thing, & to @amantiquarian.bsky.social for supporting the research back in 2009 - only took 16 yrs lol!

scripted curricula that includes books is maybe better than just excerpts, but it's not the same thing as teachers empowered to choose which ones to teach and how to approach them

Time to fill an egregious gap in my reading.

I got to do a lightning round about my devotion to Clarissa with @sinsleyh.bsky.social, and she has honored me beyond measure by pairing it with one by Frances Ferguson. Swoon! open.substack.com/pub/clarissa...

This!

People in my phone!! I will be giving a talk at Harvard’s Mahindra center on Oct 23, at 6pm: “Aphra Behn’s White Female Pen” It’s about Oroonoko (1688) and the nominal emergence of the racial category “white” in the late 17th C. (from my book, which I’m still revising, still eager for feedback…)

I’ve never read Dorothy Richardson and I’m thinking about diving in. Best complete edition of Pilgrimage?

What a bizarre, beautiful, brutal novel. I suspect that it will stay with me for a long time.

New issue of Legacy is out, and open access! 🗞️ Click right here to access Volume 42, No 1: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55448 ! On the menu: - "Leaving Giants Unslain: Idle Activism in Catharine Sedgwick's The Linwoods and Other Writings" by Jordan L. Von Cannon 1/3

I hear the of sounds of simpering university admin everywhere… “If the University of Chicago can cut grad programs in the humanities, so can we!”

One month from today! On 7/28 come celebrate the gorgeous new @sandtclassics.bsky.social edition of Poe's PYM by hearing me & @rezekjoe.bsky.social talk about Poe's PYM! And why not buy a copy which includes a lively conversational afterword wherein me & @rezekjoe.bsky.social talk about Poe's PYM!

syllabi looking more and more like online recipes that include the person's life story

A father screams for his child from a tiny interview room within a basement waiting room inside LA federal building. The space is not a holding area. No food. No water. No diapers. Those initially detained include a 2-year-old US citizen and a woman with high-risk pregnancy.

edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/2025/06/04/c... CFP: Special issue of Edith Wharton Review

This is so grim.

I’m co-organizing this proposed panel, “The Latinx-Asian Commons,” for @c19americanists.bsky.social 2026 conference with @ayendy.bsky.social! Please consider submitting, and please share widely! Due 8/1

many thanks to @tomkoenigs.bsky.social for this deeply engaged review of Situation Critical @dukepress.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

I’m getting a server overwhelmed message trying to access the Frederick Douglass Collection on the LOC website. Anyone know if this problem is specific to the Douglass papers or a more general issue?

Excited to get my copy of @laurelvhankins.bsky.social’s The Art of Retreat. A must read for anyone interested in the development of fiction in the United States!

An exciting delivery from @bucknellupress.bsky.social. The Art of Retreat considers the aesthetic possibilities of domestic retreat imagined in the fiction of the early US. You can read more and order the book at the link in my profile.

This special issue looks really fascinating—excited to dig in: utppublishing.com/toc/ecf/37/1...

Very excited about this!

Scripps is currently searching for a VAP in American Studies for AY 2025-26. Please share widely. I’m not on the search committee but I’m happy to answer any questions about the position: www.scrippscollege.edu/hr/faculty/v...

My curlew and I will be walking, with students and banners and singing, through the campuses today (beginning at Scripps' Humanities Building, east side). Heads in the clouds, hearts on our sleeves. Join us if you're in Claremont! 11:30, ending at the Lenzner Gallery at 12:30 #alltogethernow

I hung up my DOGE termination letter near where I’m writing my book, as a reminder that the Humanities matters to a free and open society. Far worse than the end of my NEH grant is the wholesale gutting of the NEH itself, an incalculable loss that we must fight to prevent.

Scripps is currently searching for a VAP in American Studies for AY 2025-26. Please share widely. I’m not on the search committee but I’m happy to answer any questions about the position: www.scrippscollege.edu/hr/faculty/v...

I’m really proud to be one of the coaches working with Princeton. If you’re in the humanities or social sciences, please consider applying.

They did it. They terminated my NEH grant. Their letter went to my junk mail. This is an active grant that would have finished on June 30. “Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government” They are so afraid of us.

The daily barrage of evil made me hold back on a cover reveal, but maybe this is the day. Out later in 2025, this book, like 7000+ books & so many other rich projects, would not exist without the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. These stories must be told & we must save the NEH.

#TBT NBF: Dr. Thomas Koenigs, @tomkoenigs.bsky.social, Jul 2024: In *Founded in Fiction,* Koenigs argues that Early US literature was far more diverse in its applications and served more purposes than simply the aesthetic or artistic. ⬇️ www.g19collective.org/g19-new-book...

Eighteenth-Century Studies is looking for a new Reviews Editor. I'm finishing up my term and happy to answer questions about it! asecs.org/publications...

I could not be more excited about this book.

Wholeheartedly co-sign! The CBBS has provided me with a crucial network of professional support since my first conference in 2017. And they are fun. IYKYK.

Early Americanists! If you’ve never attended the CBB conference, I cannot recommend it highly enough. The lack of concurrent sessions create a really wonderful sense of collective endeavor and it produces more sustained conversations. Sad to be missing this year’s!

Still an invaluable book.

📣 [CFP Mina Loy] @yasnabozhkova.bsky.social and I are looking forward to reading your proposals for our special issue of Feminist Modernist Studies. There's still time to send us something! ✨ @modernistudies.bsky.social – @moderniststudies.bsky.social think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

Today is the day! Take a look at the CFP for the 2026 Biennial Conference of The Society of 19th-Century Americanists: UNDERGROUND www.c19society.org/2026-confere... The Conference website will go up at the end of April / early May, and submissions will be due Sept 5th.

very excited about this ✨

Read several big novels this year that I suspect will stick with me for a long time (James; Septology; Ducks, Newburyport), but this is the one that I can’t stop thinking about. I’m completely haunted by it. Unlike anything I had ever read.

Well, this sure looks like a must-read for 19thC Americanists.

Spread the word! @natewolff.bsky.social and I have extended the deadline for submissions for our Arizona Quarterly special issue on the American novel at the turn of the 20th century. New date is Jan. 2nd. azq.arizona.edu/call-papers-0

here's the TOC for Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century! the Introduction and Practical Materials section are both pretty hefty, about 15k words each (three parts of 5k words in both), and each contributor's essay is 2-3k words

I've tortured all of my friends and all of the websites long enough about this chapter not to share the first paragraph, now that the whole thing is fully drafted. See why this was so hard? Don't worry, I'm citing everyone on earth. This chapter gets us to the next one, on Phillis Wheatley.

Baby’s first Marathon! Or almost. Discovered after the fact that a marathon is, in fact, 26.219. Alas!

Need an excuse to escape the family for a while this Thanksgiving? Why not finish your essay for our special issue on the American novel at the turn of the 20th century?! There's still about a week left to submit.

“Founded in Fiction” is out in paperback today from @princetonupress.bsky.social! I’ve learned a great deal from the responses to the book and I hope it continues to generate conversation about the history of early American fiction in this new form: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb....