I‘m delivering a response to Teresa Bejan’s lecture on equality next week. The talk, entitled “First Among Equals: Redeeming Equality as a Political Ideal,” is part of the Adams symposium & previews her new book. I‘m looking forward to engaging her at UNC: humanities.unc.edu/event/the-ni...

I've always considered Rooney an intelligent reader/inheritor of 18c fiction, but this opinion strikes me as confused: "The novel is not a historically radical form. How do we go about trying to encode some sort of political radicalism in a form that seems to resist it in its generic tendency?"

Anyone else sense, in this new AI world, a turn from digital humanities to essential, irreducible value of what we do in humanities?

A lot of anger about treatment of U.S. women’s hockey team, understandably. The best thing right now is to go watch women’s sport. Go to a college, high school, or little league Game. Just show your support in person. It’s fun and it matters.

Brilliant piece, and a public service to put these foul and upsetting pieces together.

What has kept me up is that if Chomsky couldn‘t withstand the allure of wealth & power, who will be able to?

It’s been an open secret about Chomsky & Epstein for awhile (WSJ reported two years ago), but I think many people will *finally* have to stop making exceptions for Chomsky now: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Really painful to bear witness to the pile up of layoffs being announced on X right now. Devastating loss of book section and global reporting at a moment when we couldn’t need it more…

My partner met Catherine O'Hara a few times backstage. One thing he noted about her was that she remembered everybody's name, including his, long after meeting. She was warm and excited to meet people even when the cameras were far away. RIP, to a Canadian Goddess.

"ICE...is also using cellphone and social media tools to monitor people’s online activity and potentially hack into phones. And agents are tapping into a database...that combines government and commercial data to identify real-time locations for individuals they are pursuing..."

I wrote for the New York Times about how state violence that was hidden in the borderlands has burst into view in Minneapolis. The solution cannot be simply to send it back there www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/o...

Everyone read this and share it - Reece is the guy that literally wrote THE book on the history of the Border Patrol. I've been screaming that everyone needs to talk to him and read his book NOBODY IS PROTECTED for years. HAVE HIM ON YOUR SHOW.

"The Revolution to Come brilliantly reveals the genealogy of the modern concept of revolution. After it, the study of revolution will never look the same again," says @davidrarmitage.bsky.social for @historytoday.com. Read the full review of Dan Edelstein's new book here:

I wore my Roots sweatpants to the gym this morning and met four Canadians.

I thought this book was done and settled, but the wonderful Jeaninne DeLombard, whose work I admire, has taken the time to review it for Novel. She really gets the stakes of my book, esp. its interdisciplinary lens and her words are helpful as I write my new book. read.dukeupress.edu/novel/articl...

My 1990s semester is complete

Swoon! Jarvis Cocker is going to be a Booker prize judge next year…

The life and times of a uniquely American testament. The Jefferson Bible by @petermanseau.bsky.social is now available in #paperback! Check out a free sample and save 30% with code PUP30 : press.princeton.edu/books/paperb... #ThomasJefferson #History

Thank you, Rebecca. There is no finer gift than that having one’s work read with critical attention. Can’t wait to read this -

The Denmark way… www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/w...

Why don’t lit fields use the workshop model like law and history? I get so much more, and I think the audience does as well, from the workshop experience than from talking for 45 minutes and taking 10 minutes of random questions. Just had a fantastic experience at Duke Law and want to replicate.

I’m actually of the mindset that I wish Hollywood et al would find some new muses.

My new project is on the history of a concept rather than the law per se, but nonetheless delighted (nervous, too) to workshop some of it with a very legal crowd.

lol, I guess folks i follow on here haven‘t read much in this way. Fair enough!

You can get pumpkin beverages, pecan beverages, protein cold foam beverages (???), but no black tea…

Thank you, Minnesota Law, for hosting me during my (very unlikely) founding father era. I came to talk about my new book and ended up in great conversations with brilliant history and law students. Also: a basement coffee bar and a rare legal books library…Peak academic midlife crisis fantasy!

The refugee caps have been very low for a long time. What is happening here is of a more ideological nature. The humanitarian world post-1967 is over: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Reading request! If you could recommend one text that explored the history of an idea/concept in a riveting and surprising way what would it be? Please re-skeet if you can. I know this is a niche ask.

Wonderful to see my colleague (and occasional bus stop companion) as a finalist for the poetry section of National Book Award!!! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/b...

Saw that thing about how much critics read and how they can do it upside down, anywhere and then saw this, which is really truly where our game is heading: www.thetimes.com/uk/education...

And just like that we return the word "refugee" to its original meaning: White European Protestant www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/u...

This is correct. Klein is wrong. Liberal & left parties in the US & Europe have not been reacted by defending immigration. This is an area they are willing to let go. The leader of the social democrat party in Denmark, for ex, has called on European leaders to veer right on immigration for years…

My institution had 43 faculty H-1B visas approved in 2024. "To maintain the current level of hiring of foreign talent under new Trump administration policies, the institution must pay an H-1B fee equivalent to 2.85% of its annual federally funded research and development expenditures."

Awful news: someone appears to have shot up the Dallas ICE Field Office. The shooter is dead of a self-inflicted gunshot and three other people are "critically wounded." www.wfaa.com/article/news...

Oh my GOD. This is the first official confirmation that the new H-1B entry ban does not apply to people with current visas (despite the text not containing ANY exception for people with current visas), and it’s not even something on an official website, it’s a passive aggressive tweet!

To recap, Trump signed a proclamation saying that after midnight tonight, no one with an H-1B visa may enter the US unless they have paid $100,000. However, anonymous White House officials are saying it doesn't apply to people with current H-1B visas — yet there is NO official guidance! None!

The Trump Administration has announced measures to gut longstanding pathways based on exceptional ability, national interest, & merit in favor of pay-to-play immigration. @urbanviewradio.bsky.social This sends a signal to the world’s top talent that the U.S. is closing its doors. bit.ly/4nz1XBE

I have started just outright blocking people who respond to “that’s illegal” with nihilism. It is not helpful, it is not useful, it is not productive.

@nickmark.bsky.social apnews.com/article/h1b-...

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion. Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

Microsoft is apparently commenting - bsky.app/profile/rive...

i don’t think people on bluesky understand the severity of this situation. i woke up to literally hundreds of texts from friends and family thinking about either moving back home to india or applying to other countries for jobs. this includes me.

Deleted the below posts out of an abundance of caution. Despite the words of the Proclamation, an unnamed White House official told New York Times that they intend to apply the $100,000 only to new applicants only. If that is correct, the implications are not as urgent.

We are still learning what this means, but it is massive. I was hired at my 1st position on an H1B visa. There is no way my university could have paid 100k & I seriously doubt other universities can. So research is going to be severely impacted by this move. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

I can’t be the only one who is deeply, deeply unsettled about the rise of internet crowd sharing to expose and shame bad actors caught on camera, whether they be wife cheaters, hat grabbers, or ball-wanters? The internet is cheating us…