This entire thread sums up my professional life. We've convinced ourselves "this isn't going anywhere" when it's barely even here. Tressie McMillan Cottom mentioned a week or so ago in a video that we're acting as if it's already a certainty...all because those who profit from our compliance said so

I did an interview with WBHM about donations made by enslaved people to Irish famine relief, and talked about solidarity and humanitarianism on this St. Patrick's day: www.wbhm.org/local-news/2...

I agree with everything Hannah said here and also thing (especially if the student is an undergraduate) that dating a student should be a fireable offense.

A professor who pursues non-academic conversations with a student in one of his classes, who solicits a social relationship as soon as the semester ends, who brings her that kind of gift when they meet? THAT PROFESSOR BEGAN BEHAVING INAPPROPRIATELY BEFORE THE SEMESTER ENDED.

History at Bates is hiring a 2-year VAP who can teach the history of the Americas, including a one-semester survey of Latin America from 1491 to the present. I'm not involved in the search, but very happy to talk to anyone about working at Bates! apply.interfolio.com/183291

NJ is doing a great interpretation of Maine at the minute.

We are releasing this report FULL of ways workers can have a voice in workplace tech as Gallup releases polling: “employees who say they have a lot of influence over tech adopted in their workplace are more than twice as likely to report high job satisfaction” news.gallup.com/poll/692693/...

A few months ago I realized my rare and valuable skill—writing code as a historian—was still valuable but no longer rare. Now I'm thinking about what it means when the technical barriers to digital history drop away.

Briefly returning from my social media hiatus to share that my article for the Journal of the Early Republic, on Philadelphian freedom-seeking in the Haitian Revolutionary diaspora, is now live (thank you to @chelseastieber.bsky.social for alerting me!). muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/artic...

Saw a thoughtful thread about AI, don't want to QT or argue. But. The biggest rage factor with LLMs is the people who, because genAI is transformative for coding, think it's transformative for everything else, because they devalue every other form of work and labor and knowledge.

The AHA/Roy Rosenzweig Prize went to Envisioning Seneca Village this year. RRCHNM's founder also wrote about Seneca Village, and Alexandra Miller dug into the Rosenzweig papers to trace the connections.

We've committed to a family trip to Dublin for RSVP this July. Twins' first overseas flight, and first time in Ireland. Balancing excitement and terror.

Plot twist: In 1756, the Publick Whipper himself was a resident of the poorhouse, causing the city to increase "said whippers Sallary" to Twelve pounds per annum.

Someone asked me recently what the most surprising finds of my sabbatical research so far were, and this is the thing that continues to preoccupy me:

Same goes for area of focus. Which humanities fields are thriving now? Which courses have waitlists in the dozens? It's critical race and ethnic studies, the same that are doing the most innovation in digital spaces rn--in fact, the very same that the projects mentioned above take on 7/

There's a lot to say about TAH's new piece, but for me the most important thing to note is that no research is apolitical. It's always embedded in assumption about whose voices have value and whose don't.

I’m beginning every panel I chair for the rest of my career with this frontal attack…

Here's something sort of extraordinary - the copy of the 1790 New York City directory digitized by @nypl.bsky.social belonged to Thomas Addis Emmet.

I'm working on a project investigating the extent to which the Bellevue Establishment (NYC's first public hospital) effectively acted as what we'd today call an immigrant detention center, under the auspices of "public health." So not an oxymoron, I think.

Reading John Waters's "Towards a History of Irish Studies in the United States," I'm learning many new things, but also finding historical context for my experience of gender in Irish Studies spaces. It's a brilliant essay for anyone working in this field.

🗃️ State & local jurisdictions cannot defy federal law but neither can the federal govt order them to enforce every aspect of that law. For some origins of this ongoing tension in immigration federalism, rooted in the history of American slavery, here is a 🧵 on Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) 🧵 1/10

Today's working plan was interrupted by the presence of a squirrel in our bedroom.

An unexpected bright spot in this sabbatical year is that every version of my commute into NYU takes me past the Uzbek supermarket.

The New York Academy of Medicine is a truly wonderful place to work.

Intriguing entry from the index to NY Common Council minutes 1784-1831: "premature coffining"

The histories of public health institutions are inexorably intertwined with incarceration. The Bellevue Almshouse, which eventually became Bellevue Hospital, made money in its early years by charging New Yorkers to outsource the punishment of servants and enslaved people.

I wonder if there doesn't need to be something about reputation in the discourse around AI, black box algorithms and scholarship. I wouldn't trust any of the LLMs to summarize the extant research on my current project because I can't check the work.

🗃️ The US attracted more foreign-born people from more places than any other nation in history. We need language to acknowledge that central fact of American history. But we also need language that goes beyond the idea that the United States is, or ever was, simply a “nation of immigrants.” 🧵1/10

The nicest little religious society archive, open from 11 to 1 on Tuesdays, staffed by volunteers who let me stay late (!), brought me tea and cake (!!) and then their dog (!!!) in to help support my research.

In particular, I'm interested in his view that unlike the sciences, replication is not possible in the humanities. In my review, I give some reasons in favor of thinking it is possible. (I've screenshotted the relevant bits).

Are you an environmental humanist? Do you like hanging out with other smart environmental humanists? Would you like to do so for a week this summer in Maine? Then I highly recommend Colby's Summer Institute in the Environmental Humanities! (app due 2/6/26) cah.colby.edu/initiatives/...

Coming soon (June 2026) as the next book in the Glucksman Irish Diaspora Series @nyupress.bsky.social @gihnyu.bsky.social A powerful reinterpretation of global Irish nationalism by @patrickjmahone1.bsky.social nyupress.org/search-resul...

This is a fascinating list and I’m very honored to find THE TROUBLE OF COLOR here among the 2025 books recognized by thé African American Intellectual History Society! www.aaihs.org/the-best-bla...

Added more resources to the Anti-GenAI bibliography! If you have links you think I may have missed while I was in Ireland (November 23 to today), please do drop them! I'll be so glad to add them (and self-promotion is welcome). catherinedenial.org/blog/uncateg...

Do you write research software for the humanities? Consider writing a software paper to share your work! Reach out to me, @nolauren.bsky.social , or any of the other editors at the CHR journal with your questions or ideas.

Speaking of great books on Irish America, my @irishhiststudies.bsky.social book review on @anelisehshrout.bsky.social's excellent 'Aiding Ireland: the Great Famine and the rise of transnational philanthropy' has just come out www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This is definitely exciting, *and* for the time being I am sticking with Transkribus because it gives me a level of granular control that's necessary for my project. Gemini gives me some good results, but enough hallucinations/probabilistic and wrong gap filling to make it impractical.

AI is ruining everything, Exhibit #45392

I am pleases to report that I am replacing my AI-coded em-dashes with semicolons.

Fantastic new work on the impact of (reported) faculty sexual misconduct. Lurking in the findings of this paper is the reality that reporting hurts survivors (and the broader community) more than it helps.

If you are looking for joy, I highly recommend showing Labyrinth to toddlers (especially ones who like to dance).

I'm working on the history of a local home, and becoming a bit obsessed with the second owner - Adam Leroy Jones. He was the inaugural dean of admissions at Columbia & tasked with keeping the college "Anglo-Saxon," a member of the American Eugenics Society, part of the group who developed the SATs.

I take no pleasure at all in reporting that past me did not adequately document her code, and that future me is now wasting a lot of time re-doing work. I will take some pleasure in using past me as an example for students.

Whatever strategy you’re about to suggest, we’ve thought about it. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

#DH folks with macOS development experience - the lovely folks at Figure53 are looking for a new colleague!

I will never stop being tired of Digital Humanities professors who never approach archivists as peers deeming fit to tell archivists how and why to do their jobs differently. It happens time and time again, rarely with a spirit of collaboration and often with an uncomfortable tech-disruptor energy

As the History Representative for ACIS, I have the distinct privilege to chair the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book. If you, or someone you know, has a book copyrighted in 2025 in Irish Studies please do consider submitting! Details here. 🗃️ #speirgorm

We went to the zoo this weekend, and the teenager taking tickets for the carousel was casually reading Claudio Saunt's West of the Revolution.