"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." -- James Baldwin

"My team of specialized historians had failed to decipher a difficult text, but an AI tool was willing to confidently pretend to know what an indecipherable word meant" What a breakthrough!

My origin story Probably the first "real" history book I read was a Pulitzer Prize winner that more than a generation worth of history heads SHOULD admit to having been influenced by...

Make a Bond Movie Academic: Dr. No: A Longitudinal Study of Attrition in U.S. Doctoral Programs, 1995-2025

1) any pick beside The Princess Bride would be inconceivable 2) spinach and artichoke lasagna #HATM

And welcome to Historians At The Movies! Tonight we are revisiting Rob Reiner's classic THE PRINCESS BRIDE available on Disney+ at 8pm eastern. #HATM 1/

Encouraging undergraduates to *start* with AI, robs them of the skills they need to begin learning how to be a history detective. And when you move up to the graduate level, AI doesn't have access to actual archives. And it cannot produce new knowledge. *YOU* have to do that.

Not only this, but for teaching purposes, you have to *already know the thing* to properly verify LLM outputs. It takes expertise and discernment, which means students by definition cannot do it. This is my problem with “teach them AI skills” position—there are no AI skills without actual skills

A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle

I can't imagine a body representing professional historians recommending this, but here we are... It's completely unacceptable. Here are just a few reasons why.

I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite

The note-taking literature is big (and not my specialty) but here's a recent meta-analysis from Educational Psychology Review (2024) 36:78 doi.org/10.1007/s106... Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student Achievement: A Meta‑Analysis Abraham E. Flanigan et al.

The academic jobs crisis can only be remedied through organizing and building power. The path of white grievance is not only racist and wrongheaded; it’s counterproductive, as it emboldens the reactionary forces that seek to demolish higher education altogether.

Freiburg is a wonderful town and the university is home to some wonderful people. If you're inclined to apply, definitely do! #skystorians

We have only done a few movies twice on Historians At The Movies, but I think Rob Reiner’s work should be on that list. Join us on Disney+ this Sunday, December 21 at 8pm eastern for THE PRINCESS BRIDE. Keep #HATM growing by sharing and we’ll see you soon!

Fascinating to see the European Defense Community debate of the early 50s come full circle #skystorians

—I’ve been asked to baptise the King of Spain’s daughter —Infanta? —No, holy water as usual. Weird thing to ask honestly

One argument I used to make to my students about why it was important to learn history (and historical thinking) is that someone was always going to be trying to tell you things were natural or had always been this way and that you needed to be able to see that as an exercise of power.

Page proofs! #skystorians @lsupress.bsky.social

Rachid Bouchareb Unveils ‘Reggane,’ Algeria-Set Drama on France’s Nuclear Tests: ‘What Interests Me Is to Bring That to Light’ (EXCLUSIVE) Oscar-nominated Franco-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb (“Days of Glory”) is preparing his next feature, “Reggane,” a fiction film set … #media #news #variety

 Robert Shields Mevissen: The Danube Empire An Environmental History of Habsburg State Building and Civic Engagement. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025. ISBN 9780822967798. More: upittpress.org/books...

Remember when I said I wished some French historian would write something smart about Andor? @rpanchasi.bsky.social and I made it happen, and the smart French historian is none other than @tgpeterson.bsky.social! Check out our chat to find out why Mon Mothma is the Chuck Schumer of Star Wars 😂

Dagmar Herzog sits down with @hahauenstein.bsky.social to discuss her new book on the AfD's fascist body. youtu.be/Gka7322oSN0?...

The entire project of advanced education is about believing it's worthwhile to do the hard work of learning to understand difficult things and express your understanding in your own words. Bringing GenAI into the process is wholly destructive.

for my next trick, I'm going to make an entire generation's intelligence... artificial! *scattered applause*

If you've noticed that ChatGPT is improving, it's probably because I've spent so much time grading its work.

We're delighted to announce that vol. 51 (2025) of the Journal of the Western Society for French History is now live! We're open access, so no paywalls or other impediments to your full reading enjoyment. Here's the link to the full table of contents: journals.publishing.umich.edu/wsfh/issue/3...

A book from the 19th century that depicts the Rhine Valley by creating an impression of three-dimensionality and spatial distance. @MasayukiTsuda2 #globalmuseum #books #travel #19thcentury

"Teaching argument is portable and scalable, but the care it both fosters and depends on requires material support in increasingly short supply—a faculty member’s time, a small enough class, the resources that increasingly distinguish private education from public, elite from nonelite."

In a video the college I work for put out for Thanksgiving, they asked students what they were thankful for. One listed me among three "funky" professors he was thankful to be able to learn from. I'm certified funky! Never thought I'd see the day.

This is a great resource. I'm really enjoying seeing other faculty's ideas for AI-resistant or AI-proof writing assignments, and I hope to see the selection grow as we strategize together to promote real learning against the tide of technological bullshit. against-a-i.com/assignment-i...

Am 27. November 1945 starb Georg Scholz, den die französische Verwaltung kurz zuvor zum Bürgermeister von Waldkirch ernannt hatte. 1933 war er von den Nazis entlassen worden und nach Waldkirch gezogen. 1937 waren einige seiner Werke als "entartet" beschlagnahmt worden. 🧵

To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.” www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

Ken Burns' American Revolution on @pbs.org is pretty ok but ALSO Joseph Ellis, one of the historians featured in the documentary, was suspended without pay from Mount Holyoke College from 2001 to 2005 for stealing valor. He falsely told students he'd fought in Vietnam. The more you know! #HATM

In Germany, historians are wrapping up a 20-year project to investigate the Nazi involvement of postwar West Germany government officials. Samuel Miner writes about what the project did and what future work could include in #AHAPerspectives. 🗃️

Anyhoo, here's a paper about "the centrality of housing concerns in facilitating the Holocaust and the complicity of individuals in the exclusion of Jews for economic, ideological, and geographic reasons." journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Our Spring 2026 catalog is live, and all books are now available for pre-order! Check out our upcoming offerings here: https://bit.ly/lsuspring26

My book has a webpage and a release date (April 20, 2026). And if you preorder now, it's 40 percent off. It's all happening! @lsupress.bsky.social lsupress.org/978080718678...

6 November 1939 | Sonderaktion Krakau, a German pacification action in Krakow targeting the Polish academic community. 183 people were arrested, mainly professors and lecturers of the Jagiellonian University. Most were imprisoned in KL Sachsenhausen. At least 20 of them perished.

What happens when nationalist history meets the horrors of empire? For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, I reviewed a new exhibition on British counterinsurgency at the Imperial War Museum jacobin.com/2025/11/brit...

My book, From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955, is now available for preorder from LSU Press. A very exciting moment at the end of more than a decade of thinking, writing, and editing! lsupress.org/978080718678...

Another tenure-track history job in my neighborhood - this time at SUNY Alfred State College for a US history generalist.

Tenure-track job in general European history down the street from me at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, NY. A beautiful location with great archival collections (esp. medieval manuscripts), great history colleagues, and a reasonable cost of living. www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/deta...

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works and let me know if you have any questions! 🤗

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Ok, so let's talk a little bit about how the Romans understand magic and why they think putting phallus-shaped objects (fascina, sing. fascinum) are witch-craft related and how that connects to our word 'fascinate.' 1/

"EdTech has been leading this charge since long before the AI craze...clawing shared governance back can help ensure that universities aren’t converted into profit centers for private equity firms." every day is a good day to be burstingly proud of @jraden.bsky.social defector.com/higher-eds-r...