Resharing as I’m rewriting some of this chapter, and because conspiracy and violence remain… top of mind and hand

repeat after me: people are more important than photographs of people.

“Behold the new Sun King, a wannabe emperor who views his powers as absolute — who governs by executive order, and has been recorded giggling in his gilded chamber with Salvadoran autocrat Nayib Bukele ... God save us from the king.” My latest in WaPo: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...

May I recommend my book if you want fires, oil spills, eugenics, earthquakes, mudslides, unfriendly neighbors, the mores of the wealthy, beautiful beaches and mountains, and a reference to HBO’s Succession AND the Duchess of Sussex in one tidy package on sale? press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

As someone who was (going) to participate in this program, this is heartbreaking news.

book/print history folks: what are your favorite texts on the environmental/material/political history of paper (specifically 20th century paper from trees)?

Material Intelligence has released a new issue on 🪶feathers🪶 — from feathered baskets and quills to beds and hats! (I wrote about sandpaper for their sand issue a few months ago :) www.materialintelligencemag.org

New from @amsterdamupress.bsky.social - Embodied Experiences of Making in Early Modern Europe: Bodies, Gender, & Material Culture Ed. @sarahabendall.bsky.social & @serenadyer.bsky.social aup.nl/en/book/9789... Read the intro (no paywall!) here: assets.ctfassets.net/4wrp2um278k7...

does anyone else feel there’s shift in how folks are discussing the archive? i’ve started noticing the use of archival “abundance” instead of absences and silences with frequency.

“Crafting Freedom: Race and Social Mobility among Free Artisans of Color in Cartagena and Charleston,” Atlantic Studies (2017). www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

ok trying this: pleased to share the first bit of my dissertation! “Insurgent tooling and the collective making of slave revolts”

hi all, i’m new here: my name is hampton, i’m working on a dissertation about artisanal knowledge and abolition, particularly in the United States. some of my writing can be found at my website: hamptondessmith.com