Hey this is today. 😊

This lovely little gravestone in Harvard Square is very old for Massachusetts. Very few gravestones were made here before 1675, and most of them are like this — mostly text with a few small embellishments. Sarah Hastings, died 1673, age 34

The Museo Nazionale Storico degli Alpini has written about my visit to their archive 10 days ago 🙃 They were the kindest people and have a great collection of photos about the First World War on the Italian front, especially in the Trentino. www.museonazionalealpini.it/oggi-la-visi...

You probably know but others might not that your pal @sommecourt.bsky.social covers Newfoundland in his podcast.

When I have the time I’ll write a little more about applying historical perspectives to narrative and world building… people seem to enjoy this design diary

Reposting from last year. This year, I'm not just thinking about family members who served in the First World War, but also about how Americans have destroyed our relationship with our Canadian relatives over the past year.

Protestors entered the grounds of the new Museum of West African Art in Benin City, Nigeria, on Sunday artreview.com/protests-del...

She'll meet with officials, discuss trade, tour innovation hubs, & exchange gifts with Halifax's mayor—a reminder that while federal politics may be tense, city-to-city relationships endure. @MattPrichardTV & I are live in Halifax! Watch our @IssueNBCBoston team coverage all week on @NBC10Boston 3/

“Federal authorities told demonstrators Friday that there would be ‘no more prayer’ in front of or inside the Broadview ICE facility, in a move that mystified local leaders and raised legal questions.” blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/07/f...

16/ "[The memorial] allegedly evaded Trump's executive order to halt policies promoting diversity and inclusion." /end Sources: 🔹 www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/... 🔹 blogs.loc.gov/folklife/201... 🔹 web.archive.org/web/20250720...

14/ Professor Kees Ribbens, senior researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, says that the removal appears to be the result of a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which is currently the focus of controversy over anti-Semitism.

4/ One of those roles was burying the dead, a highly traumatic duty as many of the bodies were severely mutilated. The cemetery was constructed by the 960th Quartermaster Service Company, an all-Black unit of 260 men under the command of a White officer (as was usual).

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

Sitting in a graveyard, waiting to see if the light will shift so I can get a good photo of Seeth Andrews’ gravestone. Due to trees, buildings, and weather, there is a 10-minute window on late autumn days if it’s not cloudy.

I know this is pedantic, but Kim Davis was not "jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses." She was jailed for contempt of court because she refused to follow a court order (she had stopped issuing all marriage licenses). NYT makes it sound like the Woke Police broke down her door.

It's obviously good that people in some states are getting their SNAP benefits. But the piecemeal, on-again-off-again nature of all of this is so chaotic and confusing. Cruel, unnecessary stress for people who do not need more stress.

Kara Walker employs the classical iconography of the defeated warrior: Jackson’s limp arm hangs uselessly dragging a sword it can no longer lift. He is the agent of his own demise, like the Confederacy

Thrilled that Kelly Wisecup and Christopher Pexa will present at the next meeting of the Am Lit & Culture seminar at the Mahindra Center at Harvard, Nov 12, 6pm. This event is co-sponsored with the Native Cultures of the Americas Seminar. Join us if you are in town!

Grading papers on the penitential of Theodore, a fascinating text that I love putting in front of students. As often happens, reading several papers and thinking about them in the aggregate is leading to a lot of thoughts, this time relating to teaching about religion in a history class.

The #Fitchburg Police Department is collaborating with ICE, using the familiar excuse that police officers are only doing crowd control and not actively assisting in arrests. #Massachusetts

Does anyone have an example of a short paper (15-25 pages) featuring an inquiry into overlooked women in the modern civil rights movement? I just want to see what their structure is to make sure I'm doing an understandable style

they haven’t changed this, they still don’t cite a single San Franciscan who refers to Pelosi as “mom”, and it’s still weird af

There is still so much work to do in making slavery and the slave trade a widely known and acknowledged part of the history of places that have minimized those links in the past.

Slavery and colonial trail to be launched in Glasgow www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I wish Douthat had followed up and asked Andrews what "areas of inquiry" have been "ruled out of bounds in history" because they are "too controversial" and lead historians away from "truth seeking."

DHS confirmed it has stopped automatically storing officials' text messages. Instead, officials are supposed to take a screenshot, send that to their work email, download it onto their work computer and run a text-recognition program on it. Every time. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...

And just in case anyone wants to start their own utopian community in rural northern New England, enjoy this 20-bedroom house on 126 acres in Andover, Maine. www.zillow.com/homedetails/...?

I don’t understand the end game for any of this, it feels like the whole thing, the short term lies that won’t last a day, all of it, all of us, are in a Ponzi scheme and the goal is to not be there at the end holding the bag

Sometimes it's not clear, so I'll clarify it: Even if these are drug boats, simply blowing them up is illegal. And if they aren't drug boats, holy shit it's illegal.

I wonder if holiday flight cancellations will move anyone who isn't already mad as hell about ICE and SNAP and murdering people in boats and everything else. Or if the people who aren't already moved are just immovable.

Time for a ceremonial rewatch of Carly Aquilino

Five yrs ago today in my role as head of Voter Protection for Biden-Harris in Phila, at right about this moment, I was reaching out to our team to figure out who could sneak into a hastily-called press conference by Rudy Giuliani at the Four Seasons Hotel ... and then, what, it's going to be where??

In this moment, this is what the Washington Post is spending its energy on? Disability fraud? That’s the story they’re putting on their once-a-day flagship podcast?

Alright, early Americanists, when are we getting together to see The Testament of Ann Lee?

Boston/Cambridge film buffs, "Every Noirvember at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge and the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, it’s a month for floozies, flophouses and hard-drinking private dicks played for patsies." #FilmSky 🎬 brattlefilm.org/film-series/... coolidge.org/programs/noi...

The Trump airline flight cutbacks reveal the weakness of a US transport system that has not invested in & delivered a 21st century national passenger rail system.

Maine Border Patrol agent bragged about Chicago shooting in text messages

He's really bringing back "my favorite color is Hitler"

Beginning now, the After Dark auction from Vallot Auctioneers in Providence, featuring 20th-century homoerotic art. www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/3933...

Pub day 👑 Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore is officially here! @pantheonbooks.bsky.social A decade-long labor of love, of unearthing an archive said to be lost, building relationships with her family, interviewing those who knew her, and

By this time next week, the estimated deaths due to the illegal destruction of USAID and the shuttering of its aid efforts will breach 400,000. More than 260,000 will be children. Source: www.bu.edu/sph/news/art...

Kavanaugh Slops

Maud Bolin, the first Native American woman from Washington to obtain a pilot's license, lands in Seattle on August 7, 1930. 1/36

BREAKING: After months of stonewalling by Starbucks, unionized baristas just voted 92% to authorize a ULP strike unless Starbucks finalizes fair contracts & stops union busting. If forced, our baristas will strike in dozens of cities on November 13 – the company's busiest sales day of the year.

Today, I'm trying to work with a digital humanities project. I would love to use it and share it widely, but unfortunately, it has decayed badly since it was launched (in 2017), and it tough to use. Longevity (even relatively short-term!) is such a problem in digital humanities.

CFP for Slavery North conference on "Rebellion, Resistance, and Refuge: Slavery and Border-Crossing during the American Revolution" @umassamherst.bsky.social 7/9-7/12/2026, abstracts due 12/19/2025 #vastearlyamerica slaverynorth.com/event/call-f... 🗃️

I was just leafing through 1725 occult tome The Secret Magic of Abramelin the Mage in search of scary invocations for the BOOK, and I came across this list of subordinate spirits to the princes of Hell.

This article is incredible and you better believe I'm going to work this into my lectures on first encounters between indigenous people and Columbus when I teach my American history survey next.

This is Queen Mary and Queen Anne erasure

I hate that—even after everything—my first thought is still, "that can't possibly be real."