Had a blast writing this piece for @cliocontemporary.bsky.social!

It’s November, and like Mariah it’s time for my 248th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week to be defrosted. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

Check out Clio’s latest from our very own @oaverettephillips.bsky.social with fantastic advice for PhD students. Check it out!

I was very excited to write this advice piece with tips on how to take, and pass, your comprehensive exams. I received some good advice leading up to my exam on how to tackle comps and that—as well as my own lived experience—is passed on in this piece.

Our "Comps Series," continues with @oaverettephillips.bsky.social giving advice on taking your oral and written exams: "The written and oral portions of your comprehensive exams may seem daunting, but try to remember that when you get to this step you are ready."

JD Vance claims that diversity weakens unions, as people end up distrusting each other and not organizing. Let me tell you two menswear stories related to this claim. 🧵

Here it is, my 247th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

Great advice from @mingsga.bsky.social on using comps to craft your dissertation prospectus!

@cliocontemporary.bsky.social “Comps Series” continues with a helpful piece by @mingsga.bsky.social. Be sure to charge this series with grad students currently or planning to dive into comps or prospectus defenses.

"When you’re getting ready to draft your dissertation prospectus, your comprehensive exams can be a helpful tool." In the next piece in our "Comps Series," @mingsga.bsky.social gives advice on using comps to create your dissertation prospectus.

In the second piece of our "Comps Series" @keanuheydari.bsky.social gives advice on how to read and remember for comps: "Read with precision, take structured notes, test your memory, and lean on community—the process is as much formation as it is evaluation."

From @keanuheydari.bsky.social : “The comprehensive exam is a strange hybrid: part intellectual calisthenics, part memory sport, part existential reckoning.” This is so useful for current and prospective graduate students. 🗃️

@keanuheydari.bsky.social has written a GREAT piece on how to read—and remember what you read—for comps

In the second piece of our "Comps Series" @keanuheydari.bsky.social gives advice on how to read and remember for comps: "Read with precision, take structured notes, test your memory, and lean on community—the process is as much formation as it is evaluation."

Again, your mostly non-profit mostly uni press humanities publishers are not the thing making a wreckage of scholarly publishing. Paying for their work is a good thing, and we should keep doing that.

In the first piece of our "Comps Series" Summer Perritt explains just what comps are: "'Comps,' can be confusing and intimidating for graduate students, the first step to conquering Comps, and the fear they elicit, is to understand what they are, what they are designed to test, and how they work."

Let this help demystify this rite of grad school passage. We called it quals at UF, and whew, it was one of the toughest periods of my professional life.

🗃️ If you or someone you know is preparing for Comps, be sure to check out this ongoing series @cliocontemporary.bsky.social is putting together.

I've been wanting to bring together a number of advice pieces on comps since I started at @cliocontemporary.bsky.social. Summer kicks off the series with a very helpful explainer that demystifies the entire process.

In the first piece of our "Comps Series" Summer Perritt explains just what comps are: "'Comps,' can be confusing and intimidating for graduate students, the first step to conquering Comps, and the fear they elicit, is to understand what they are, what they are designed to test, and how they work."

Here it is, my 246th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more in comments, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

It's live now! Please visit our Pitchables page at this link and if you have a site, magazine, podcast, or other platform for scholars to pitch their public work to, please let me know in comments or via email at bwandread@gmail! blackwhiteandread.com/pitchables/

I'm pretty sure mentors tried to tell me many of these things, but seeing them written here makes them so real. Also, King captures something I had not thought of: how my undergrad at an enormous R1 shapes my perception of "what professors do," even now in mid career at a SLAC. #academicsky 🗃️

Add this to your Proseminars and Historians' Craft syllabi. #academicsky 🗃️

Second piece to help undergrads think through grad school admissions. This one is focused on thinking about the variables of PhD programs.

In our second guide @cliocontemporary.bsky.social editor Sarah King provides advice to students considering PhD programs: "Embarking on a PhD in history can be incredibly rewarding, but before you apply, it's best to have a clear-eyed view of academia as a whole..."

Great guide for undergrads to help think through if a Masters, PhD—or grad school as a whole—is right for them

In the first of two guides @cliocontemporary.bsky.social editor Sarah King provides advice to help "students figure out what about grad school appeals to them, what degrees they actually need to do the things they love, and whether they're in the right place to start grad school now."

Historians - I'm looking for an article or essay that demonstrates how to tell the history of Black individuals/communities in the American West when you have a fragmented and sparse source base. Suggestions?

New online: The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) collection is now available on LSE Digital Library! We’ve digitised and published the GLF Diaries and the GLF newspaper Come Together. Further series from the archives will be added as digitisation continues. 1/2 digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/...

Relevant today, as always.

10/6/1841, the first African American convention in Maine was held in Portland. Throughout antebellum and continuing for 30 years past the Civil War, these political gatherings offered opportunities for free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans to organize and strategize for racial justice.

Here it is, my 244th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more in comments below, share as widely as possible, & thanks, all! 🗃️ blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

+ featuring contributions from @leannareneehieber.bsky.social @urbanhistorya.bsky.social @historyworkshop.org.uk @literaryhub.bsky.social @cliocontemporary.bsky.social @jakeromm.bsky.social & @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social @pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social @inverting-vision.bsky.social +

“They asked for a sword, and we said, ‘Well, we do have swords, but we can’t give them away because they’re museum artifacts,’” said Todd Arrington, forced to resign as head of Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library.”

#academicsky 🗃️ For when you need something smart to read to distract you from the news.

‪ Today is the 50th anniversary of the "Thrilla in Manila" fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Suzuko Morikawa shows their face-off to be a "crucible cultural conflict" that extended beyond the ring and captured the tensions of the mid-1970s. 🗃️ clioandthecontemporary.com/2025/10/01/t...

Actual history teachers: um, no

"Being respectful of our history" means not lying about it. There are not, actually, "a lot of questions" about this grisly massacre You should put your "confidence and trust" in the nonpartisan scholars who have studied this extensively instead of a right-wing Fox & Friends propagandist

Here it is, my 243rd #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share widely, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

We are so excited to hear our partners, Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian, on PBS today. The #SaveOurSigns crew & DRP steering comm were active in helping them gear up their project! We love supporting citizen preservation efforts. Have an idea? Come chat with us!

Announcing a good ol’ fashioned Teach-In in Washington, DC on Sunday, October 26th. We’ll convene for a series of lectures, stories, and conversations to celebrate and stand up for the work of history and museums. Shoutout to @natedimeo.bsky.social for bringing this idea to us. See you in DC!

Pete Hegseth: history is settled Historians: aww, bless his heart.

My latest column for the Chronicle of Higher Ed is now live. It's an argument for including AI-critical voices in campus conversations and policymaking workgroups, and I'm proud to get this dissenting piece into the mainstream genAI/higher ed discourse. Please read and share if you're so inclined 🙂

From Nashville for one more Family Weekend, here’s my 242nd #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ americanstudier.substack.com/p/scholarsun...

This. I told a student group that I declined their debate invitation but that I would love to read something together and have a conversation. The response: crickets. Let's stop debating and try to talk with each other instead.

I think this comparison is largely right. Yes, it’s a replay of McCarthyism’s ugliest aspects but that was fueled by a widespread sense that the country faced dire external dangers while this is about a deeply unpopular president’s grudges.

This is the biggest attack on free speech since the McCarthy era but it also has significantly less popular consensus behind it than the second Red Scare. It's being done on behalf of a minority faction led by the most unpopular president in modern history. Organizing against this can win.

This week’s blog posts need a lot more love. The histories & issues of censorship in America have never been more relevant. Please share widely! @kevinmkruse.bsky.social 🗃️