In honor of me reading all of these thesis proposals, what was *your* senior thesis about?

Tanti auguri to the eternal city! It's been 2,779 (?) years ab urbe condita in 753 BCE — which puts #America250 in amusing perspective. Rome’s impossibly precise founding date, April 21, was chosen many centuries after the fact to align with the Parilia, an existing pastoral festival 🐑

An unforgettable opossum is waiting on the other side of this link... #histsci #envhist

An unforgettable opossum is waiting on the other side of this link... #histsci #envhist

"Brushing off these practices as unscientific implies that 'true' science is, and always has been, unimpeachable. It denies us a chance to examine what flaws may fuel our own ways of thinking." A new mailbag from @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social

I’ve been out of the game for a while and lost track of people in the move to this place, so if you’re an adjunct/VAP/postdoc in history, can you reply and let me know what you work on? I am an editor at @contingent-mag.bsky.social and we are often looking for book reviewers etc.

In the 1850s, before it was denuded by archaeologists and the tourism industry, 420 species of flowers and plants grew on the Roman Colosseum — and every single one is catalogued in amateur botanist Richard Deakin's Flora of the Colosseum of Rome (1855): publicdomainreview.org/collection/r...

Seven years ago, we published our first piece, a gorgeous essay by @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social. Since then, we've published nearly 400 pieces and paid every single contributor for their work. Thanks to everyone who's donated to, read, and taught with our magazine over the years!

“Imagination is a vital tool that any writer must deploy to access aspects of the past.” Our latest, from Ben Nadler.

So pleased to have an essay in the latest issue of Configurations! It's called, "Stories of Arctic Crisis and Alaskan Mammoths: Neocolonial and Anticolonial Approaches to De-Extinction and Rewilding." muse.jhu.edu/issue/56326 #mammoth, #Alaska, #neocolonialism, #woodbison, #colossal

Gary Staab is making an alarmingly large bison family that will travel among a number of museums this March. Some stops are only 1 day, so mark your calendars. www.si.edu/newsdesk/rel...

#WyrdWednesday Sad times. Snakepit Operator, Highway 66, Sayre, Oklahoma. Photo by Steve Fitch, 1973. americanart.si.edu/artwork/snak...

"The 1927 expedition to Paris exposed the central contradiction of the early American Legion – an organization that sought to present itself as a benign custodian of memory and shared sacrifice in combat, yet one haunted by its history of vigilantism and exclusionary nationalism."

Self soothing by watching highlights from Yuki Kawamura's iconic debut on repeat. Shortest* player in franchise history, baby, let's gooo. www.youtube.com/watch?v=52uF... *Nate Robinson is shorter, I'd wager.

Every child who learned to read English in New England before 1800 would have been familiar with an image of John Rogers being burned at the stake. It was one of the main images reproduced in the New England Primer, and one of the first longer passages children learned to read independently.

This year, we are adding audio versions of many of your favorite articles, and donors to the magazine get early access through our private podcast feed! Donate today and you’ll get to hear all of our monster series authors over the next few weeks, beginning with Sam Moore.

Re: archivists 🧡

“Major historical dread meant something to me then, in that context, lifetimes ago, back in 2014 . . . It was an anticipatory dread of a history we had not yet lived.”

“[F]ull disclosure: as I write this during the first week of January 2021, in the midst of an insurrection a mile away at the US Capitol, my imagination is taxed, so I’m not 100% sure what we’re going to do. But we’ll figure it out.” Our latest, from Oline Eaton. Look for Part 2 on Friday.

Not at #AHA2026 but my heart is always in Chicago.

Seriously, I am shy, please come talk to me and save me from having to approach people cold.

Something new coming your way— audio versions of some of your favorite Contingent pieces read by the authors themselves!

My favorite neighbors: two cats with three eyes between them.

A call for 🦕🦖🦣 contributors! With Victor Monnin, I'm editing a collection about extinct animal parks—it's a field guide, of sorts, that turns a critical eye on places real, imagined, and yet to be. Find the full CFP for LANDS OF THE LOST here: tinyurl.com/dinoparks #PaleoSky #HistSci #EnvHist #STS

I wrote in @contingent-mag.bsky.social about how a chance encounter with monsters in the archives led to my two books on monsters, science, exploration, maps, and culture. 1/🧵 🧪💙📚 🗃 #ancient #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #18thCentury #politics #HAMH #archives #libraries #arthistory

Oh, 2025. Some notable firsts for me this year: first time applying for food stamps, first creative nonfiction pub... So here's my wish for the new year. May we, all of us, become fossils 🦖 *Fossil, as a figure of speech, is so often used pejoratively. I fundamentally disagree with that slander!

"My sources broke categories: they were monstrous. Studying them meant integrating methods from several disciplines — and being marginalized by the more conservative practitioners in all of them." The final piece in our monsters series, from @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social

We don't do fundraising pushes very often, but that's because we're fortunate enough to have a loyal group of monthly givers. Almost everything you read this year was paid for by 161 people. If you like what we do and want to see more, become a supporter today.

Thank you for writing this! The choice of Khaleesi continues to rankle, too, especially for a white wolf as a namesake of white lady savior trope for animals that, so de-extinctioners say, they foresee on lands stolen from Indigenous peoples, hopping right over them to some undefined Ice Age time.

Colossal named its first "de-extinct" dire wolves for the fratricidal founder of a now fallen empire and the twin he did in. These names... they've been gnawing at me! So, I wrote about lupine Romulus and Remus and snow-white mythmaking for @g-ehr.bsky.social. g-ehr.com/essay/cry-wo... #Paleosky

The next piece in our special December series explores "the rise and hunt of monsters in monstrous seasons of prodigious, inescapable heat."

Colossal named its first "de-extinct" dire wolves for the fratricidal founder of a now fallen empire and the twin he did in. These names... they've been gnawing at me! So, I wrote about lupine Romulus and Remus and snow-white mythmaking for @g-ehr.bsky.social. g-ehr.com/essay/cry-wo... #Paleosky

Earlier this year, in a season of anxious unemployment, I wrote about Chicago's pride and prehistoric joy—SUE the T. rex. It's an essay about fossils and faith; minerals and humble miracles; the conditions that enable transubstantiation. #FossilFriday @therumpus.net therumpus.net/2025/12/05/t...

“In the faunal frenzy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even serious naturalists competed with fabulists like Barnum for the attention of the public.” Our latest piece in A Time Of Monsters, from Sam Moore.

Earlier this year, in a season of anxious unemployment, I wrote about Chicago's pride and prehistoric joy—SUE the T. rex. It's an essay about fossils and faith; minerals and humble miracles; the conditions that enable transubstantiation. #FossilFriday @therumpus.net therumpus.net/2025/12/05/t...

"I had never come across a Christ-figure quite like this." The latest in our series A Time Of Monsters, from @ebermichael.bsky.social

"Moskowitz’s frozen dinosaur steaks betray the fear that a fast-growing and poorly regulated food industry could become a black box that delivered monstrous products and, furthermore, alienated consumers from their food."

“I brought this horrid creature into the world, and now I must take him out!” Winfrey said

Watching Wake Up Dead Man, I was fixating on this groundskeeper in upstate NY who religiously watches & records Cubs games. A clue perhaps? A statement on faith?! Turns out—per his convo w/ @gregoryellwood.bsky.social—that @rianjohnson.bsky.social is simply committed to temporal authenticity!

“While coprolites shed light on lost landscapes, speculative stories — when read in historical context — reveal popular attitudes to fast-changing foodscapes.”

The second of our yearly lists--this one features thirty-five articles and chapters authored by contingent historians in 2025.

So many incredible contingent scholars doing outrageously interesting work amidst *these* professional and global circumstances. Have a gander!

So many incredible contingent scholars doing outrageously interesting work amidst *these* professional and global circumstances. Have a gander!

"Have the creators of each new iteration followed Mary Shelley’s Promethean lead, nurturing a beloved creation, or have they followed Victor’s, embracing their ambition above their creation’s well-being?" The first in our series A Time Of Monsters, from @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social

*everybody who has paid off or is still paying off their bachelor's degree in classics* OK THANKS CHRIS I'VE GOT THIS IT'S GENITIVE OF SUUM GENUS, "HIS/HER/ITS OWN KIND," GENITIVE OF ATTRIBUTE, YOU GOT ANY MORE QUESTIONS LIKE THIS YOU CALL ME UP OK I'M RIGHT OVER HERE

We'll be looking to elect some new board members before the end of the year! Keep an eye out for a post later this week with information about how to nominate yourself.

“For cadets, earnest participation in these discussions does more than just prove that they did the reading.” Nick Hurley on his year teaching at USMA.

I was just reading about the new documentary, The Marbles, and I thought it was time to repost this. It's an old post in which I ask whether some arguments developed for reuniting the Parthenon Marbles work for natural history specimens, like fossils... www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2023...