a few years after my book comes out I’m going to release an “extended” edition with suggestive phrasings about its being “raw” and “uncensored” and it’ll just be all the stuff that got edited out to fit the word limit

Another dissertation chapter drafted and sent to my advisor! One more to go! Too mentally spent to think of a joke!

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...

Up on First View! "The Specter of Waste: Incarcerated Bodies, “Healthy” Labor, and the Production of Recreational Forests" by Anaïs Lefèvre. The piece examines how, after WWII, as they faced prison riots and rising concerns about juvenile delinquency, many states set up penal forestry camps.

I see there is no “major problems in american intellectual history” textbook as part of the “major problems” series I take it that means we’ve solved them all?

My article on the 1st gen of Japanese Am voters is finally out! It explores how young JAs responded to anti-Asian racism as they proudly asserted their voting rights as citizens, & shows how the WW2 incarceration suppressed their diverse political culture. Check it out: doi.org/10.1525/phr....

This is a subject I have been brooding about for some time. I am grateful to the Washington Monthly for posting this piece. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/27/i...

researching what I research I constantly have moments of “eww does the Bible really say that?” and every time it does indeed say that

as an electric bassist completing a phd in history I feel like this book was written for me

doing historiography again

War. Peace. Food. Drinks. People. Labor. Politics. And more! Check out the Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast, been around for a few years, doing some amazing stuff & now with new hosts! @shgape.bsky.social @oah.org @shafrhistorians.bsky.social @historians.org 🗃️ shows.acast.com/gildedageand...

dissertation chapter is 16,666 words which in addition to being too long is too on the nose

my dad introduced me to the three stooges and I was so obsessed that in fifth grade I did an entire research project on them and drew a timeline covering their lives and careers from the birth of the horwitz brothers until curly joe died. I got this poster when I was baptized at age 8

Congratulations to @chanheeheo.bsky.social on successfully defending her dissertation, “Thy Kin-dom Come: Imagining the First Christian Nation in the East,” today! 🎉

I was thrilled to review Sam Tanenhaus's epic "Buckley" for The Unpopulist. substack.com/home/post/p-...

It was a pleasure speaking with @palumboliu.bsky.social for his podcast "Speaking out of Place." Check it out here! speakingoutofplace.com/2025/05/25/g...

Bedridden with a torn meniscus so I thought I’d take the opportunity to finally read EH Carr’s What Is History? and I think this is the first book I’ve read cover to cover since starting grad school

the fake oath was made famous in 1913 following a congressional campaign in which Thomas butler (father of another conspiracy theorist smedley butler who claimed there was a plot of fascist businessmen trying to oust FDR) claimed his Catholic opponent was in league with the KoC who swore on the oath

a favorite document among American nativists in the 1910s and 1920s was a bogus oath supposedly taken by Knights of Columbus promising to mutilate and murder Protestants including women and infants while swearing sole allegiance to the pope and stockpiling weapons for the future crusade so lol

Over at @jacobinmag.bsky.social Cal Turner and Sara Van Horn interviewed me about my book. jacobin.com/2025/05/karl...

greetings fellow historian what tropological devices have you emplotted today

me trying not to swear around my kids after I stub my toe on the bookshelf:

I know we’re not supposed to be presentist or whatever but how am I supposed to finish this chapter on the klan knowing that a hundred years later we’d have an American Pope

Happening tmrw!

Out in paperback today! www.amazon.com/Against-Cons...

whoa I just looked this up on Wikipedia and it’s true there’s this thing called Christianity and some people are getting into it

uh oh *flips to Book of Revelation* whew ok we’re still a good five heads and ten horns short of the end of the world

For anyone interested in my research on religion and the American right in the early twentieth century, here is an interview I did with my department: history.stanford.edu/news/religio...

I’ve been asked to explain why I feel the need to have Cecil B DeMille’s The Ten Commandments playing in the background during Easter and idk isn’t this a normal Easter tradition? Is it just a Mormon thing? A Jewish-convert-to-Mormonism thing? Is it just my family?

So delighted for my brilliant advisee @chanheeheo.bsky.social and the fantastic group of postdocs starting at the @ctrrelpol-washu.bsky.social this fall! rap.wustl.edu/news/jpostdo...

Catholics and Mormons finding common cause over rightwing issues huh someone should write a dissertation about the history of how that became possible

whenever I get discouraged by the nagging “who cares?” question while writing my dissertation, I think of this quote by the late great Leo Ribuffo, here listing some items for scholars of the American right to keep in mind when accused of being just as strange as the “weird little guys” they study

need an app to track the imminence of the apocalypse like other apps track the weather or Santa, like is the seventh vial being poured out next Saturday or should I push my kids birthday party back a weekend

slightly jealous of intellectual historians who do the discourse of intellectuals approach, they can just say “as WEB DuBois said” or “as Hannah Arendt wrote” meanwhile I have to introduce everyone and given what I write about their credentials are less than pleasant

Martin Luther:

Join an @iehs.bsky.social @ihrc-umn.bsky.social joint event on the Page Act of 1875 on 4/22! Panelists include @profbrooks.bsky.social, @migrantherstory.bsky.social, @bethlewwilliams.bsky.social, & @evapayne.bsky.social. Discussion is moderated by Naoko Wake.

stanforddaily.com/2025/03/17/i... Are universities worth fighting for? An emphatic “yes” from professors Jessica Riskin and Priya Satia @priyasatia.bsky.social in the Department of History at Stanford

I’m hopeful I’ll have more stable access to medical infrastructure in the future—but in the meantime I could use some help. My venmo is @calvinjburke & cashapp is $burkejcalvin Please take care of yourselves first though!! Thank y’all so much🥺💞

13yo has suggested there should be a Magic School Bus but for history she proposed it be called Tragic School Bus

6yo just asked “what is Catholic Church about” and I feel both overqualified and underprepared to answer this question properly

The ASCH forum on Heathen, from the Jan 2024 conference, is live on Church History. Open access! @kecarte.bsky.social’s intro: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh’s response: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @mbaysa.bsky.social’s response: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It’s true I did say this And this was a terrific conference put together by the great folks at the George L. Mosse Center, it was an honor to meet and learn from so many amazing scholars working on the history of fascism

I wrote up a report about the #Mosse60 conference in Rome, which brought together a killer group of scholars to assess the state of the field on fascism. Check it out here: mosseprogram.wisc.edu/2025/02/14/6...

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my favorite workshops in academia are the ones that give you books as a participation trophy

in desperation he reached out to his many group chats

she’s been with us from the beginning

being a historian of American religion is scrolling through bluesky thinking thoughts like “man ellen g white would be so pissed”