Friends!!! You know how obsessed I have become with Common Sense. Tom Paine published that pamphlet 250 years ago this January. I published an essay about it TODAY, in the New York Times. Common Sense remains relevant as ever. I hope you enjoy it. Gift article ⬇️⬇️⬇️

This piece is getting picked up again, so I share it in honor of World AIDS Day: floridaphoenix.com/2025/12/01/h...

Humbled and thrilled about this upcoming roundtable on *Provoking Religion* at AAR Boston! Can't wait to see and hear from Siobhan Kelly, Wendy Mallette, Drake Konow, Kris J. Trujillo, William Stell, and Sam Catilin -- the provocations start on Monday, 12:30 PM in Hynes Convention Center!

As of twenty-nine minutes ago, I get to publicly share that "Disability Works" won the South Atlantic MLA Book Award!

Thrilled that my Theatre Journal essay on guide dogs and rehabilitation performance cultures is the subject of the first segment on the latest episode of On TAP! Many thanks for the hosts for taking the time to read and discuss this weird essay. www.ontappod.com

This podcast series by Lynne Gerber and her team about a San Francisco church facing the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s is simply stunning. Check it out!

Playtime With Truvy in Four Acts

It would seem that I missed an email and Disability Works ALSO won the Book of the Year Award for the National Communication Association’s GLBTQ Communication Studies Division!!!!

Over the moon to share that Disability Works received the National Communication Association’s Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies!

How have I only now discovered TJ's Chile Crackers. Wow.

Hundreds of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families participated in a Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome on Saturday (Sept. 6), celebrating a new level of acceptance in the Catholic Church after long feeling shunned and crediting Pope Francis with the change.

Grateful to have Review # 6 of "Disability Works" out in H-Disability! networks.h-net.org/group/review...

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Notre Dame is running a search for the next Annenberg Chair in American Studies and Journalism (associate or full). Candidates will be expected to direct and teach courses for the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy. Applications due by Oct 15! apply.interfolio.com/170389

Why do you appreciate unions? I’ll start: Weekends off Paid vacations Work breaks Sick leave Paid holidays No child labor Safer working conditions Health care and retirement benefits

Pritzker: To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story.

The gradual inclusion of truth about the experience of slavery in American museums has been one of the most deeply researched and considered and consequential developments in public history over the last half century. Enraging we have to defend it in this way.

Author Q&A: Judith Weisenfeld on Black Religion in the Madhouse open.substack.com/pub/usreligi...

Shelburday

“We need to talk about Truvy.”

A decade ago today, Shelby bravely battled a tree branch at Amory park in Brookline

Very grateful to chat about *Provoking Religion* with Clayton Jarrard for the New Books Network! Now available on their site as well as Spotify and Apple podcasts. newbooksnetwork.com/provoking-re...

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception." www.mellon.org/voices/human...

These two...

Good read.

Today in floral drag... Blackberry lily, which is actually Iris domestica (so I have learned!)

Happy to share that "Disability Works" has been shortlisted for the Theatre and Performance Research Association's David Bradby Monograph Prize. Congrats to this stellar group of finalists!

"Polling reveals that a majority of religious people believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases."

New from me in JAAR - “Review Essay: Critical Secularism Studies in These Times” academic.oup.com/jaar/article...

Review #4 of Disability Works is out in Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy! "a thoughtful, nuanced, and deeply archival analysis of the intersecting histories of labor, theatre, and disability...Every scholar concerned with even loosely connected topics should have a copy on their bookshelf."

My partner is forcing me to listen to dance remixes of "I've Written a Letter to Daddy." How did it come to this?

ND American Studies is hiring! We have two searches this year:

“Disability Works” turns 1 today! I’d like to celebrate by making sure it finds its way into the hands of even more readers. You can help by: 1) Requesting your library purchase a copy (link in bio) 2) Let me know if you assign it (I can zoom in!) #disability #academicsky #historysky #booksky

These poppies were from a few weeks ago but I still think about them.

Now that we have a real garden, I feel compelled to post flower pics. Blueskiers, beware.

You might not know this, but the 13th anniversary is the Hoosier anniversary! Ever glad that @pmckelveyphd.bsky.social trained from Providence to Boston those many years ago to meet me at a bookstore.

Moving from Janet Malcolm's book on Gertude and Alice to Steven Hahn's Illiberal America causing mental whiplash

Transcription error or Totally Normal voicemail from my mother ?

Today at Half Price Books

Still one of my all-time favorite moments in Truvy history

Today marks the 10 year publication anniversary for *After the Wrath of God* but HOWWWWWWWWW. (The paperback edition, linked here, is way cheaper, btw...) global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Quick announcement -- super thrilled to join NYU Press as a series editor for the North American Religions book series! I'm honored and humbled to join this series that Laura, Tracy, and David founded and have made so strong, publishing amazing books by *so many* scholars I admire.

👀

ten years ago today! #freedomtomarryyoursighthounds #one🚬onewhippetonelove

What are we even doing

Happy to have had the opportunity to write a short piece for Theatre Journal's online edition to supplement my guide dog essay! You get a quick redux of the article as well as some details on how I came to write this! www.jhuptheatre.org/theatre-jour...

A long shot, but anyone I know in possession of copies of "On The Beam," the newsletter of The Actors' Fund's AIDS Initiative? AF's papers at NYU only include one issue, from the late 90s.

Cover is amazing.

Yay! Congrats to P and so happy to see this out in the world!