if it's safe for you to work in the USA then the Uni of Oklahoma is looking for a potential senior hire in #histSTM with a specialisation in women & science 🗃️ networks.h-net.org/jobs/70051/u...

"UK universities have shed more than 30,000 jobs in the past three years..." Why is every sector worthy of governmental concern except ours? Even pretend concern? www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/i-dont...

I am not trying to dunk here and also if library workers had been truly listened to in the last 10-15 years or so, the libraries being in danger would not be coming as a surprise to so many academics. Perhaps they would not be in as much danger, even.

I am heartbroken that Muhlenberg announced this week "the non-renewal of 13 faculty positions, as well as the elimination of 9 currently filled staff positions.” We are losing incredible faculty and staff with no clear justification for the criteria used. Students are rightly demanding transparency.

Are you a historian of medicine? A U.S. historian? An AmWest historian? Are you interested in possibly using my forthcoming book, Doctoring the West: Women Physicians & the Politics & Practice of Medicine in one of your courses? Can you let me know which course so I can fill out this marketing form?

It must be emphasized that we need powerful, robust ACADEMIC history IN universities to sustain history OUTSIDE universities. If we can’t employ people in higher ed to train future generations of public historians, we will not have future generations of public historians. 🗃️

Injuries receive less attention from health professionals and historians than acute and chronic diseases. My new article uses the history of home accident prevention to explain why public health failed to prioritize injury control and what made home accidents especially intractable. #HistSTM #STS

What can historical methods add to present-day public health research and practice? Check out my new article with PhD candidate Emily Kumpf on drunk driving prevention, behavioral health, and the Washington Regional Alcohol Program! #HistMed #HistSTM #InjuryStudies

Most histories of drunk driving focus on MADD and other victim advocacy groups. My latest article with PhD student Emily Kumpf looks at the alternative approach of the Washington Regional Alcohol Program and its model for public health efforts to control risky behavior.

A completely fair assessment, but it’s definitely “damned if we do, damned if we don’t.” If the humanities are cheap, then we “don’t need resources” to function. If we’re expensive, then we “don’t have the same ROI” as STEM. Our work matters on its own terms and should be funded as such.

A student who sets out to write a research paper will now encounter chatbots who will offer to do their work in their word document, in their learning management system, in their email, in their web browser, and in certain library database interfaces.

Academics are, on the whole, dedicated teachers, researchers, and community members who not only prop up regional economies but also care about knowledge and the public good. The demonization of faculty and grad students at all ranks is a travesty.

15 favorite movies (off-the-cuff, not in order): Amadeus Lost in Translation Grand Budapest Hotel Princess Bride Oldboy True Grit (Coen Bros.) Who Framed Roger Rabbit Adaptation. Ran Groundhog Day High Fidelity Finding Nemo Big Night Double Indemnity Evil Dead

I’m always skeptical about any study trying to compare the “objectivity” or “productivity” of different fields because (1) humanities researchers produce longer (and very meticulous) but fewer articles than their colleagues; (2) humanities books and articles are poorly indexed across databases 🧵

In my sophomore year of college, one of my grad student instructors wrote “Get thee to grad school!” on an essay for an English literature course. I had never really considered graduate school before that, and her nudge meant a lot to me.

Why do these children look so happy to be ingesting domestic poisons? I’ve found some fantastic material on children, product safety, and regulation for my talk at the Schyve conference next week.

New article by MancHSTM PhD Alumna Dr Michaela Clark, on: Surface Tensions: Race, Photography, and the Making of Universal Medical Knowledge in Segregationist South Africa. #HistMed #HistSTM muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

I’m struggling to find words for how callous, horrible, and unsettling this is.

Saying the work of government agencies should be more visible to the public: Good and Correct. Saying the Artemis II launch is the kind of visibility government work needs: Lmao, guy what are you even SAYING.

One of the biggest labor battles in the US is happening right now in Los Angeles, at USC, where our faculty-union campaign with majority support is being met by nasty, corporate-grade administrative resistance, and national press won't cover it.

Just confirming that Made by History will now be back up and running in the next few weeks with a new home and new partners at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Exciting! So, if you have pitches, now's the time to start sending them to [email protected] 🗃️ #MadebyHistory #HistoryMatters

Part of the reason that folks are more likely to cite women not being able to open bank accounts than laws permitting marital rape as proof of structural misogyny is that consumption is essential to US culture. We are more than buyers, and political equality cannot be achieved via markets alone.

This is the right take. Yes, the pressure to skim, rely on book reviews, and cite material we haven’t read has increased as our institutions demand more research. No, that doesn’t mean we can stop doing the reading or, worse, let AI review the literature for us.

Arson: “At an internal all-hands meeting on Friday, NSF leaders announced that they would dissolve the agency’s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate based on the budget request, according to two NSF staff members who shared information anonymously in order to speak freely”

This would be absolutely devastating. Public and private funders have already cut humanities, social science, and arts funding to the bone. These decisions can only be interpreted as indifference or active malice towards our disciplines.

I wonder if T.S. Eliot considered April the cruelest month because he spent so much time around academia… I am very tired this week.

Call for Proposals! I’m co-editing a collection on “The Extractive Midwest” with @brianleechphd.bsky.social, Jeff Schramm, and Sarah Mittlefehldt. We seek 300-500 word abstracts for book chapters between 6,000-8,000 words (not including notes). Send us your submissions before August 30, 2026!

“But after tens of billions of dollars of school spending…studies have found that digital tools have generally not improved students’ academic results or graduation rates. Some researchers &organizations like UNESCO even warn that overreliance on technology can distract students and impede learning”

U.S. higher education is imploding, but it’s heartening to see graduate worker, staff, and faculty unions fighting for—and winning—better conditions.

I am amazed that the stock market and some political analysts are still treating Trump as an oracle when he’s actually Pandora with worse hair and a shelf full of boxes.

Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone

If Kafka were alive today, the D.C. airports would be the first thing he would write about.

Yep. In fact, the real failing of students was when we stopped requiring them to regularly search a library catalogue for their reading and instead produced lists with hyperlinks that students simply had to click. As soon as they have to go off list, they’re lost.

Then there's Christy's, @safetyworkhstm.bsky.social and Iro Filippaki's agenda-setting article on injury studies! A truly interdisciplinary emergent field (and a powerful network, check them out!) that has the potential to disrupt some of the most established concepts in #medhums and #histmed

So excited to see this online! We hope folks find the essay useful and encourage anyone working on injuries to check out the Injury Studies Network website and / or to contact me to join the mailing list! injurystudies.org

Daylight has been saved, but at what cost?

for what it cost for our allies to shoot down three of our own planes by accident in a murderous illegal war we could have funded the NEH at 150% of its historic peak funding for a year

87% of NPs are primary health care providers. “Yet an obscure committee now promises to strip them of access to educational funds, putting the healthcare system, the nursing workforce, and patients at risk,” writes Cory Ellen Gatrall in this week’s ER essay. nursingclio.org/2026/02/23/p...

The Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine invites applications for research fellowships in their eponymous topics. For more details see: www.chstm.org/fellowships #histmed #histstm

Reposting with tags because I’m incompetent: #HistSTM #STS #HistMed #InjuryStudies #HistSci

Why are so many commercial toys made of plastic? My new essay for The Strong National Museum of Play shows how safety concerns have alternately fueled and slowed the spread of plastic toys since the 1950s. www.museumofplay.org/blog/problem...

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend my Grand Rounds talk today! You can access the recording downthread, but folks have to see this R.J. Matson cartoon poking fun at the toy trains pulled from the market for lead contamination during the “Year of the Recall” in 2007:

Stay tuned for an amazing political cartoon about an influx of imported toys that led U.S. media to refer to 2007 as “The Year of the Recall.”

Thinking about the impact of LLMs on the way I earn a living - writing - and I wonder what the long-term impact will be. On the one hand, LLMs do not seem capable of producing *good* writing, in the sense of original, engaging writing (they can manage clarity, though). But they can do *quantity.*

Once again, people who have no experience with history (or, for that matter, translation, “writing,” and archival work) insist that we’re replaceable. AI can compile information, but it’s terrible at two of the most important historical skills: contextual analysis and asking the right questions.

Well, let's give it a shot again and see what we get.

Ironically, this is also why LLMs are terrible for historical analysis. They tend to overgeneralize instead of carefully interpreting specific primary sources and pass off the claims of previous researchers as new insights.

“Job placement” jfc The commodification of a degree is now complete. Come to school for four more years to make sure you get a job, or your teachers will all get fired…

eighteen times the amount of money that was cut from the NEA last spring