The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue”

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

Thoreau fandom. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/r...

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

How do historians tell a story of a fascinating person who left few personal papers? In a new Commonplace piece, David Stowe explains how/why his historical novel might be the right approach for the life of William Billings, the first significant US composer. 🗃️ commonplace.online/article/writ...

Highly recommend Unabridged, by @stefanfatsis.bsky.social. Especially in an environment of unchecked doublespeak, it’s good to read about people who have devoted their lives to the principle that words and their definitions matter.

D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh, and Peter Schmidt advocate for “defeating the forces that frack human beings” with Simone Weil’s "theory of attention rooted in love, care and commitment, an ethics of attention that cannot be sold or stolen.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/o...

New issue of Fandom | Cultures | Research ⬇️⬇️⬇️ #FanStudies journals.uni-marburg.de/fcr

Are you finalizing a syllabus and looking for short, accessible articles to assign on some aspect of American history before 1900? Did you know that Commonplace has a subject tags page that allows you to easily browse our 25 year back catalog? Check it out here: 🗃️ commonplace.online/article/subj...

All the lists are published, and New Year's Day is the perfect time to walk back through our 2025 Year In Review to discover which albums you may have missed over the last three hundred and some-odd days. Happy New Year!

Excellent essay, by @bilgeebiri.bsky.social, on Terrence Malick’s enduring influence. yalereview.org/article/bilg...

Joseph Epstein echoes my (apparently antiquated) love for the printed dictionary in “You Can Look It Up: A Threnody for the Dictionary.” www.commentary.org/articles/jos...

Glued to the news. It is awful to see Providence’s East side become an active crime scene. I’m saddened by the casualties and, with the shooter still at large, worried about Brown University colleagues and students still sheltering in place.

Thinking about how much time I spent as a child watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968), Sesame Street (1969), and The Electric Company (1971). Mr. Rogers was most important for me, although Sesame’s groovy "Pinball Counting Song” always got my full attention. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODJ-...

Brilliantly provocative essay from Christian Wiman: “I aim to call into question some of our most settled ideas, and lay a little depth charge under some of the dualisms that define and derange us.” harpers.org/archive/2025...

Yours truly speaking about the super cool previously unreleased Artistics and Talking Heads demos which are available today at your local independent record store.

Impossible how good reading is. You mean I just point my face at the paper for a bit and it does a whole update on my brain?

Announcing the latest issue of Participations! (Feel free to share :) ). This issue, we feature articles on BookTok, K-Drama, Cinephiliac memory, inclusivity in Harry Potter fanfic and work on audiences in Ghana and Flanders! :) www.participations.org

Jesse Green, "Black Musical Theater, 200 Years and Running.” [See also: Marvin McAllister, *White People Do Not Know How to Behave at Entertainments Designed for Ladies and Gentlemen of Colour*, UNC Press, 2003]. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Arrived in the mail today. Time for rereading.

The Booker Prize 2025 shortlist: thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

My article on how the performing arts can be incorporated as a method for public humanities has just been published in the online, open-access journal, Public Humanities. Free to download. #publichumanities #AcademicSky #PerformingArts #HigherEd #theatre #arts www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Just got an email that they're doing a 2025 reprint of The Past, Present and Future of Fan-Fiction, which now is also free to download! Essays by a lot of good people: mdpi.com/books/reprin... #mdpi via @MDPI

New essay on early 20th-century Gilbert and Sullivan fandom, by James Brooks Kuykendall, in the latest Transformative Works and Cultures (Vol. 46): doi.org/10.3983/twc....

Quick note: Sheryl Kaskowitz’s *A Chance to Harmonize* came out in paperback today. Great read about the controversial music programs of the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration and, especially, the women--Margaret Valiant and Sidney Robertson--who shaped them. bookshop.org/p/books/a-ch...

Bruce Springsteen to release fabled electric version of 1982 album Nebraska. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/s...

Feeling old: I actually have to explain, on the first day of class, that the brain is the most important and enduring “education tool."

psst: new Pop Conference call. Repost please. www.popconference.org

Washington Black on Disney+ is an outstanding watch; I hope it encourages people to read Esi Edugyan's novel, as well. #WashingtonBlack #EsiEdugyan

My History of Listening seminar this Fall will open with David Toop: "Because sound vanishes into air and past time, the history of listening must be constructed from the narratives of myth and fiction, 'silent’ arts such as painting, the resonance of architecture, auditory artefacts and nature."

New online essay from *Popular Music,* with open access: Chris Anderton and Paul Goodge, "Alone in the Crowd? Live Music Audiences and Individual Experience.” www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

My 12th Newport Jazz Festival this past weekend. Loved: Tyshawn Sorey Trio’s masterclass in composed improv; the surprising beauty of Fleck, Sanchez, and Castañeda's banjo/drums/harp combo; and Parlor Greens’ ferocious grooves. Long live the trio. #NewportJazzFestival

Favorite line from Richard Russo’s new book of essays, Life and Art: “Becoming educated, for my mother, was not unlike entering the witness protection program."

The Walkman was released this week in 1979, a few years later multiple US states tried to criminalize using a Walkman… newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-forgot...

My first (and only) major public book signing was in 1998 at Boston’s Tower Records, during a listening party for Springsteen’s *Tracks.* Needless to say, I will be completely immersed in *Tracks II* for the next couple of months. #Springsteen #TracksII #TrampsLikeUs

New special issue from JPMS!! This was one of the last things that @ehphd.bsky.social, @ericdharvey.com and I started before finishing our terms. Congratulations to Alisha Lola Jones, @burrata.bsky.social, Matthew Jones for their work with Georgina Born and @anthroposound.bsky.social on this!!

On this episode of In Conversation, James Campbell is joined by Mark V. Campbell and Murray Forman, co-editors of Hip Hop Archives. Watch the full In Conversation here 👉ow.ly/FSP050VZajw

We're pleased to announce the publication of issue 21.1, spanning Frisian identity in Aotearoa/NZ, Canadianness & the Barenaked Ladies, Turkish quality drama, seagoing spectators, transnational identities, conspiracies & a special section on Girl Audiences in the 'Girlscape'! www.participations.org

Please check out the new History of Fandom website, part of a transnational initiative to foster greater connection between researchers and projects focused on fandom’s past. More updates soon! #fanstudies #historicalfandom #historyoffandom #fanhistoryinitiative www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/nor...

After a substantial amount of work, I am pleased to announce new Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction entries for the #fandom sense of _alternate universe_, & for its shortened form _AU_. 1977 & 1993 respectively. Feedback welcome! sfdictionary.com/view/3027/al... sfdictionary.com/view/2164/au

At the end of my “First Rock Record” class, today, a group of students left the room still engaged in an intense debate about Elvis’s place in rock history. Since the course’s focus is learning how to make a convincing argument, I couldn’t have been prouder.

In 1862 on this day Henry David Thoreau died. Among noted 19th c. eco-authors, Thoreau paid thorough and systematic attention to sound-worlds, especially natural sounds. Thoreau expressed a proto-theory of ambient sound a hundred years ahead of his time. www.academia.edu/19157724/Tho...

New at University of Iowa Press ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Theatre Fandom: Engaged Audiences in the Twenty-first Century Editor(s) Kirsty Sedgman, Francesca Coppa & Matt Hills uipress.uiowa.edu/books/theatr...

“WE WANT THE FUNK!,” a syncopated voyage through the history of funk music, spans from gospel, soul, highlife, and early jazz roots, to its rise and impact on new wave and hip-hop, as funk music has been transcendent for creators and listeners alike Full Documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrgV...

The new issue of JPMS is live! Check out articles on Donald Byrd, Daddy Yankee, & Polish music revues, field notes on Mozambican music and politics, + book reviews: Kyra Gaunt on @markanthonyneal.bsky.social; Sophie Ogilvie-Hanson on @nickseaver.website, and more. online.ucpress.edu/jpms/issue/3...

Nice to see some humor for audience studies scholars. I’d love to see a claque sketch, next.

"People tell me I get over-excited, as if excitement were rationed…Well, bollocks to that.” Looking forward to *William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love,* Philip Hoare's new book on William Blake and Blakeans. literaryreview.co.uk/and-did-thos...

Big congratulations to Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta! The ideas of *Together, Somehow* really helped anchor discussion in my recent Music in Daily Life course.