Let my gravestone read "PUNCTUATION GOES INSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS."

i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.

I choose being in the woods with a bear over reading/listening to this.

Cool. What would you call the other wing then? www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/u...

This year, the John Ben Snow Prize is awarded to Melissa Reynolds for her book Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print. Congrats @melkatrey.bsky.social !! 👏 @uchicagopress.bsky.social

😎😎😎😎 GOOD THINGS CAN STILL HAPPEN 😎😎😎😎

Looks like the Dems will pick up 12 seats in the VA House of Delegates, which will go from 51-49 to 63-37 D-R. That's an honestly shocking result.

I’ve seen enough: this is the best and most hopeful night of 2025, by far. The bar—which is admittedly on the floor—has been mercifully cleared.

whatever you think of Spanberger, the fact that her opponent ran a campaign based almost entirely on transphobia and is on track to eat shit in the biggest blowout the state has seen since 2009 is unambiguously a huge win

even if you knew that a spanberger win was a given, it is really wild to see this kind of electoral dunk in virginia. the last thing like it was bob mcdonnell's win in 2009 over creigh deeds

The president who hosted Nick Fuentes for dinner

Happy Halloween 🎃 Our new interdisciplinary series, Manchester Studies in the Supernatural, launches today. If you work on ghosts 👻, witches 🧙‍♀️, demons 😈, or other spooky beings, please do reach out. @devilprof.bsky.social @mikkibrock.bsky.social @vetur.bsky.social ‪‪@manchesterup.bsky.social‬

I am so excited to be working on our new, interdisciplinary Studies in the Supernatural series. If you're working on the supernatural, the occult, the eerie, the other, please do get in touch!

Exciting Halloween news for scholars of things that go bump in the night: Our new interdisciplinary series is here from @manchesterup.bsky.social! The series seeks proposals that examine the supernatural (broadly conceived) in innovative ways. Please get in touch if you have ideas or questions!

Them: “Professor Brock, are you doing anything scary for Halloween?” Me: “I’m sure I’ll read the news.” Happy Halloween 2025, everyone! 👻🎃😬🫣

so the news is that i have done the unthinkable and... started a podcast. "American Medieval" - because if we've never been fully modern, maybe it's because we've always been a little bit medieval. the trailer has now dropped! please have a listen --> patreon.com/americanmedieval

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

What to expect in Hell: an early sixteenth-century painting that's so striking that it's setting off all the content filters on here! Here are some details; essay in @smithsonianmag.bsky.social. #Monstertober #Spookyseason 🗃

If I were running the DNC, there would be Democratic Party sponsored food relief banks across the country right now that specifically welcomed anyone regardless of party affiliation. Along with the food, there could be voter registration and links to runforsomething.net

They don’t even pretend to care. This is the only story. You can’t open the government if the House refuses to show up.

i really resent the continued assertion that there’s so much anger on both sides, as if the causes of the anger are equally legitimate. we’re angry because masked maniacs are violently snatching our family and neighbors off the street, and they’re angry because we’re calling them out for it.

The post from the Reagan Foundation is just complete gibberish. The ad did not, in fact, misrepresent Reagan's views. But the idea that anyone needs the Reagan Foundation's goddamn permission to use the publicly broadcast official remarks of a former president and/or edit them for brevity is crazy

THIS.

2025 Frank Watson Book Prize in Scottish History! Catriona M.M. Macdonald, The Caledoniad: The Making of Scottish History. Edinburgh: John Donald, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd., 2024. ISBN: 9780859767200. Congratulations, Dr. Macdonald! 🏆🎉 Read the jury's citation: www.uoguelph.ca/arts/scottis...

I can't decide whose head in early modern England would explode the most watching this video.

📢Upcoming Book Event! 📗Kirk Discipline with Ryan Burns 📅Oct 29 ⏰12pm ET Join NACBS to celebrate Ryan Burns’ recent publication Kirk Discipline and Roman Catholicism in Early Modern Scotland. @mikkibrock.bsky.social will join Ryan Burns in discussion. RSVP here: www.nacbs.org/event-detail...

Congratulations to friend and colleague @mikkibrock.bsky.social on being shortlisted for Scotland's National Book Awards in the research category for Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (MUP, 2024)! www.thesaltires.org.uk

This lawsuit, which demands that the House of Representatives finally seat Rep. Adelita Grijalva, has, um, fairly major implications for our democracy's survival in 2026 and beyond. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

My latest from @hyperallergic.com is on Trump’s proposed triumphal arch—& why looking at the structure’s history symbolizing imperialism & subjugation + its reception (Napoleon, Hitler) is important. NB: the ecclesiastical architectural firm pitching this structure. hyperallergic.com/1050375/the-...

Take note of all these people turning out for protests in small towns in red states. Remember them the next time you’re inclined to write an area off because “they voted for this.”

Something maybe worth noting is that all the frog costumes and signs and good-natured memeing came about because a wide spectrum of Americans saw someone in direct, brave confrontation with ICE—getting pepperballed and standing their ground—and thought “that’s awesome. That person is a hero”

NEW: “Bands of masked men apprehending people in broad daylight in the streets and hauling them off. Disappearing people to a third country,” a former DHS official said. “We’re at an inflection point in history right now and it’s frightening.”

Samuel Alito preparing to raise absolutely the craziest flag you've ever seen at his Long Beach Island compound.

last i checked these young republicans were like 25 years old. but this is a classic case of infantilization to diminish the significance of the offense. www.yahoo.com/news/article...

you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you

#Folklore This podcast is essential listening. @odavies9.bsky.social & @cerihoulbrook.bsky.social discuss their social splendid new book Folklore: A Journey through the Past and Present with that @icysedgwick.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f...

History faculty at Columbia & Barnard decrying the harassment of @mark-bray.bsky.social: "This is the first case in recent memory of a historian who has fled the country after receiving death threats on account of the history that they teach."

“Who was president in 2020?” remains one of the most pertinent questions in American politics—absurd, yes, but here we are—and that extends to “who was president January 1 - 19, 2021?”

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

A master class from MIT in responding to authoritarian overreach: Your “premise … is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone. … America’s leadership in science & innovation depends on independent thinking & open competition for excellence.

"start writing and hope for the best": this has always been more or less my entire "writing process." I figure out what I want to say as I go along. I am always fascinated to learn that some people actually have an organized method of doing things. happy writing to anyone else at it this morning!

'When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist,' the Norwegian Nobel Committee said as it announced Maria Corina Machado as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

NEW: I spoke to clergy and faith leaders who've joined protests at the Chicago-area ICE facility. Three say they've been shot with pepper balls, sometimes while praying. All say ICE is also violating their religious freedom, and one is arguing it in court. religionnews.com/2025/10/07/i...

You can joke about Pam Bondi’s ridiculous unprofessionalism all you want, but I’m deeply shocked by it: She acts as if she fears absolutely no consequences, convinced that there will be no more political power transfers. — This should shake everyone to their core.

One of the best things about teaching is the opportunity to revisit works that have shaped your thinking as a historian. This one, I’m reminded, is such a compelling tour de force. I can’t wait to discuss it with my students.

If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.

If a federal judge, appointed by Trump, can call him “simply untethered to facts,” our White House press corps can as well. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

apparently you become a combatant as soon as they shoot at you

If universities agree to this—if they capitulate even further—then something that *actually* makes America great will crumble into unrecognizable fragments. Academic freedom is not a bargaining chip; it’s the whole ballgame. This is not a “compact.” It’s extortion. It’s an ending.