This is so cool! Can’t wait to hear more about how it goes.

This was only half of the reading list, but thankfully they can all be put away today because I passed my major field prelim exam this morning! 🥳

Blog post about my summer research trip: history.illinois.edu/news/2025-09... WARNING: I love a good a pun

Come see @dalemize.bsky.social’s and my new exhibit!!!

Found a needle in a haystack plane ticket for WHA (MUCH cheaper than any other tickets I was finding). I’m taking that as a good omen that my first prelim exam will go swimmingly in a few weeks.

“…unburdened by the structures of modern environmental law, imprisoned workers helped turn an unbroken wilderness into a beehive of economic activity…” - @cjeffersonhall.bsky.social I loved this work, found it intriguing, and it is a timely read. I would highly recommend!

“…wilderness reveals itself to be not some primeval character of nature but rather an artifact of modernity, a concept employed by conservationists to naturalize the transformations taking place in rural America during the last nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” - Karl Jacoby

“Ever since John D. Rockefeller began to finance the massive restoration of Williamsburg during the 1920s and 1930s, ‘the world of American historic preservation has not been the same.’” - Arnold Alanen and Robert Melnick

“It is not surprising that those whose economic and social interests depended on the continuing use of chemicals have a significant stake in asserting the uncertainty of the irrelevance of any connections between environment and health.” -Linda Nash

“The most crucial lesson of big box history is that these cinderblock-and-parking-lot edifices are a product of choice rather than fate and that the entrepreneurship that created them will also surely destroy the current system for on deemed more efficient.” -Shane Hamilton

“Making manure, more than any other single practice represented the intention and wherewithal of any farmer to remain on land presently cultivated.” -Steven Stoll

Researches beef cattle all week, reads about dairy cattle on Saturday 😎 “What eaters put on the plate or pour in the glass embeds them within social and economic relationships, engages them in political contexts, and ties them to ecological processes.” - @kdsh.bsky.social

This one felt timely. Just in case anyone needs a 1960s refresher on inflation.

I’m a little jealous that this 9 year old could draw better than I can at 25

First day of two weeks at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie! Already have found amazing materials in the first few hours! Can’t wait to continue exploring!

#5 “Their sense of place was utopian and each group framed its vision in light of its own narrow vision of the past, often in blatantly self-serving terms…” - Matthew Klingle

Check out this article written about an exhibit I curated at the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures here in Urbana-Champaign! ipmnewsroom.org/rainbow-refl...

#4 “Quitobaquito, then, is a lasagna of landscapes, one layered atop another.” - Jared Orsi

Had a great time presenting at Ag History in St. Paul this week! Already looking forward to next year!

#3 Complicated feelings about this one; though I enjoyed Mabel O. Wilson’s chapter titled “Race, Reason, and the Architecture of Jefferson’s Virginia Statehouse.” “Her experience was shaped far more by the landscape of slavery than by the architecture of democracy.” - Louis P. Nelson

Prelim Book #2 of the summer: “The realization that mahogany supplies were finite encouraged a ‘wild west’ mentality throughout the circum-Caribbean as people hastened to seize a one-time bounty.” - Jennifer Anderson

In an effort to give me some motivation as I read for prelims I’m going to try and remember to post books as I finish them with an accompanying favorite quote: “With each successive act of settling in an underdeveloped forest, homeowners destroy some portion of what they desire.” - Lincoln Bramwell

Spent this week in the mountains sharing my current project and hearing about the work that my colleagues are doing too. The hikes were amazing, and so were the conversations. I came away excited to work on reading for prelims and beginning to write this summer!

ASEH 2025 Pittsburgh edition was a great time! Got some great feedback on a side project I’ve been working on, and walked away with new ideas too. Excited to see everyone next year in Kansas City!

The Western History Association's Graduate Student Caucus is seeking self nominations for several positions. (The WHAGSC doesn't have a Bluesky account yet...but we're working on it! Please spread this message widely!) Email a head-shot and a 250 word bio to [email protected]

Check out @dalemize.bsky.social's review of Philippe Elsworthy's "Through a Changing Landscape: Photographing Place and Community in Waterloo Region," published in 2022 by @wlupress.bsky.social; review now available @hnetreviews.bsky.social #envhist #envhum #landscape www.h-net.org/reviews/show...

Excited that both roundtables I was asked to take part in were accepted for the Western History Association conference in October! See you all in Albuquerque!

This summer I have been working with The Land Connection to highlight local farms and the moves they are taking toward sustainable agriculture. Read more below: news.illinois.edu/view/6367/53... www.thelandconnection.org/blog/field-n... www.thelandconnection.org/blog/field-n...

Recently I was selected as one of five humanities PhD students who will participate in UIUC’s Humanities Without Walls summer program! Check out more about the program and awardees here: www.humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu/news/announc...