Annual summer socials break! 👋

Hey this is tomorrow and you don’t need prediction markets to know it’s going to be stupendous. Info w Registration link: jcblibrary.org/events/chris...

You've finished the manuscript. Now what? Join our AHA Online webinar on July 28 at 12 p.m. ET exploring the nuts and bolts of book publishing, from acquisitions and contracts to marketing. With Mike Baccam, Levi Stahl, and Elizabeth Townsend Gard. Register now.

Congratulations to Lauren Duval the second winner (not finalist!) for The SHEAR Book Prize for The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence. (@uncpress.bsky.social)

So many high points in those @shearites.bsky.social awards! Super congrats to @caycarbs.bsky.social for her brilliant essay on materials and archives of household.

Megan I am at a conference right now and honestly at its best it’s …

Are you unable to attend the tonight's (6:15pm) SHEAR Presidential Address? Well, President Carolyn Eastman’s address on “What They Talked About When They Talked About Demagogues in the Early American Republic,” will be livestreamed to our YouTube channel. Link here: www.youtube.com/live/0izEG4S...

Vast, I tell you.

I'm delighted & proud that this article, based on my Historical Research Lecture 2025, is now published in its final form in the @ihr.bsky.social journal Historical Research. It's the 'Editor's Choice' (thanks, @saracharles.bsky.social!), so open access for 6 months. academic.oup.com/histres/arti...

What a(nother) great event! One slide 3 minutes. 😀 Ten (More) Things to Know about the American Revolution @ #SHEAR2026, following Ten Things in Providence in 2025. Co-sponsored by HSP, ITPS, & @jcblibrary.bsky.social (logo not appearing!) w super thanks to presenters & @noraslonimsky.bsky.social!

There is a massive amount of research and literature on needed reforms to universities that nobody at The Atlantic, New York Times, New Yorker, or in the "thought industry" want to talk about or even pretend exists. Wonder why! www.press.jhu.edu/books/series...

Today is World Emoji Day! Did you know that Alice Thornton used an early form of emoji in her writing? She often used a ❤ instead of writing the word heart. In the image, see seven lines up on the right: 'Oh that our soules, my mind & ♥' Image: Book of Remembrances, 109. Photo by Derek Beattie. 📜

Join us Tuesday, July 21 for the next installment of The Revolution Is News! Christopher Bonner (University of Maryland) will discuss the Memory of the American Revolution in Black Politics. Details at jcblibrary.org!

The history itself has not gone anywhere. The administration is simply betting that if visitors are not asked to confront it, most never will. Proving that bet wrong is now the work in front of all of us. #America250 #publichistory 🗃️ open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

We are living through the most deranged syllabus development era for Gender 101.

And again and ever after apparently.

📢 Once more for the people in the back: - Most [more than 95%] of archives have not been digitized. - Most of humanity's knowledge and memory is *not* reachable by LLMs. - Believing that AI can provid you with comprehensive, definitive, "intelligent" results is folly.

Now that postdocs have become the next step in a faculty career, here's your guide. Coming soon from @hopkinspress.bsky.social www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/... #Postdoc #Faculty #AcademicSky

Here is the American Historical Association's statement, identifying three specific provisions that undermine our disciplinary work: www.historians.org/news/aha-sub...

Scholarly folks who have ever received federal funding: today is the deadline for public comment on proposed revisions that will decimate our national research capacity and replace expertise with political whim. Please consider throwing in your 2¢. See below for some useful links and encouragement.

Just submitted my comment; hope others do the same! Today's the last day, procrastinators!!!

Get out if your list doesn't include _Gaudy Night_. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/b...

Today is the last day for public comments! 🚨

Here it is, my 284th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ + blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

For folks asking why bother commenting because the OMB won't care: comments help build cases for the courts by explicitly laying out harms. That's why it's really important to have your comments be as specific as possible. Also, contact your senators and reps! They actually do care about this.

90% of (my) writing is shuffling the notes around.

The cross sector impact of snotty disregard for expertise because it’s not your own. The wave of analysis is only starting to build.

Public conversation about the OMB proposal has focused on science, but make no mistake: this is about ALL research and humanities are just as vulnerable. I'm back @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social w historian & @historians.org exec director Sarah Weicksel. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/07/10/t...

Excellent Scholarly Kitchen post today from @kawulf.bsky.social detailing how the proposed #OMB regulations impact the #Humanities. So important to remember this is a fight for all disciplines!!! #DefendResearch scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/07/10/t... #Academia #Science

Surfing the writing wave of "I love this" to "ugh, banality" to "I can do this!" to "what was I thinking obviously I wasn't." Repeat! Matching words to ideas to refine the ideas that need the right words is the best. Also the worst!

Still time to make a comment. I wrote as loved one of a person with chronic illness, an historian, and administrator focused on undergraduate research in all disciplines. I picked a few areas for focus of my comments. Public conversation has also not captured the language of the rule change.

Great contribution to @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social posts on #OMB proposal by @kawulf.bsky.social & Sarah Weicksel of @historians.org - a timely reminder that it’s “always also about the #humanities” scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/07/10/t...

Public conversation about the OMB proposal has focused on science, but make no mistake: this is about ALL research and humanities are just as vulnerable. I'm back @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social w historian & @historians.org exec director Sarah Weicksel. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/07/10/t...

This article doesn't mention what happens to collected DNA samples if the person is not convicted; this is a significant omission. Treating felony arrest as presumption of guilt and collecting DNA automatically is a slippery slope to a serious rights violation. What about innocent individuals?

Good news, but the fact that this is only happening now, nearly three years after the cyber attack shows 1) what a huge job BL staff have had rebuilding services, 2) that the BL is underfunded, and 3) the impact this has had on academic research, especially in the humanities.

Anthea Hartig, Rob Parkinson, Virginia Scharff, and me talking about the Declaration of Independence on Ben Franklin's World :) Episode 446: The Declaration of Independence at 250 - Ben Franklin's World share.google/h0HReuh0ed64...

Louder for the people in the cheap seats: If you did not have to naturalize because you were born on US soil, you are a birthright citizen. Yes, you. Not only people of color gain citizenship that way. Most Americans here did too.

Here’s the main takeaway: while historians have worked to deliver evidence-based full histories for the semiquin, this report is among other things just sloppy. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/a...

"It is unpatriotic not to tell the truth...whether about the president or anyone else.” T Roosevelt, quoted here in Erica Green's 250 piece. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/05/u...

Trump's War on the Museum of American History Continues #CivilWarMemory #America250 #publichistory 🗃️ open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

A broadside assault on truth that must be taken seriously. This administration wants to replace independent scholarship and curation with propaganda and Prager U. drivel. The Kennedy Center was bad enough. This is worse.

Loved writing this for the latest American Historical Review "76 Objects" issue. Why a family Bible? Because like all wars, the experience and politics of the American Revolution was foundationally about family. Mine + other essays are open! academic-oup-com.brown.idm.oclc.org/ahr/article/...

This afternoon at 2 on @gliamericanhistory.bsky.social Book Breaks! Genealogy at the foundation. Or, why nepo babies are a baked in phenom. Join us: marketing.gilderlehrman.org/l/941553/202...

“It’s the ambiguity of language,” Grasso told me. “They can use these broad terms that are themselves contested to help spin their argument in the direction that they want.” The Christian founding narrative is false and slippery. (Not suprisingly) Chris nails it. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

🙏 @kawulf.bsky.social “History is like medicine – you should be careful where you get it.”

this is an excellent rule of thumb!

A quick 4 for the 4th. karinwulf.com/trove/four-f...

This is always so moving, no matter how many times you watch/ listen. Also fascinated by the intensity of descendant emphasis this year. In the last years we have seen much more attention to descendant communities at sites of enslavement, but for the semiquin many others. Complex #lineage stuff.

I don't speak for the library exactly but.