(1/2) Dear all, I’m considering starting some sort of subscription newsletter (likely with one of Substack’s competitors, maybe ghost.org?) to write more often for a broader audience as a cultural historian, sharing reading notes and readings lists along with word of new books, exhibits, music, &c.

Taking a break from social media for a bit in order to better focus on my own work. Two quotes for now, and take care out there! “Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.” ~ Alasdair Gray “The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.” ~ Virginia Woolf

Beobachtung von Karl Schlögel: "Und ich bin überhaupt der Auffassung, dass die Erfahrung des Scheiternkönnens und des Verstumenmüssenkönnens eine zentrale und wesentliche Erfahrung aller Arbeit von Historikern ist.“

A private library full of #backwardsbooks. You see St Augustine in his study, lifting a burning heart up towards a heavenly light, and his books are all nicely shelved fore-edge outwards. #bookhistory #booksky

In celebration of Mamdani's first day in office, the map from our 2016 NYC atlas celebrating Queens as the most linguistically diverse place on earth. (800 languages spoken in NYC, according to NY's Endangered Language Institute, which collaborated with us on this map.

Emily Doucet, Inventing Nadar: A History of Photographic Firsts - @dukepress.bsky.social, April 2026 www.dukeupress.edu/inventing-na...

Antoine Compagnon, 1966, année mirifique (Gallimard, 2026 ; #skystorians) : www.gallimard.fr/catalogue/19...

‘Is the Met kouros indelibly – for all its composure – another Actaeon? Do we men and women not always look at his kind of manliness with an admiration subtended by pity and rage?’ T.J. Clark visits and revisits a male statue in the Met: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Jean Grondin, Les tournants herméneutiques de Paul Ricœur (Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies, Vol 14, No 1 [2023], pp. 9-24) : ricoeur.pitt.edu/ojs/ricoeur/...

Beatrice Loayza (@bealoayza.bsky.social), Sisters of Sacrilege (@criterion.bsky.social; h/t @jrdwrrn.bsky.social): www.criterion.com/current/post...

Jonas Nickel, Pour en finir avec le culte de la victimisation (En attendant Nadeau ; #skystorians) : www.en-attendant-nadeau.fr/2025/12/27/p...

New, from me: The NYT reporter who specializes in profiles of beleaguered right-wingers on campus went to New College...and found out that things were going ok! So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...

Gorgeous work from a book designer I had always wondered about; delighted to see this contribution to graphic design and #bookhistory! Tanya George, Sylvie Vodáková’s Book Covers for Květy Poezie (@letterformarchive.org; #skystorians): letterformarchive.org/news/sylvie-...

Gorgeous article: Kobby Ankomah Graham (@kobbygraham.bsky.social), Seydou Keïta’s Revelatory Portraits of Malian Life (Aperture, #photography) aperture.org/editorial/se...

Let the depth of techbros' weirdness vis-à-vis politics & history never be underestimated .... Demis Hassabis, a primary architect of AI technologies today as well as the joint winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, directed and conceived this game in 2003: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...

Fantastic piece (gift-link): Nina Siegal with visuals by Desiré Van Den Berg (@bergdotjpeg.bsky.social), The Nazi Plunder of Church Bells Changed the Sound of Europe (New York Times; #skystorians) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/a...

A great writer on a great photographer: Rebecca Solnit (@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social), Richard Misrach on the Eerie Grandeur of Global Trade (Aperture; #photography) aperture.org/editorial/ri...

Claude Lévi-Strauss and Roger Caillois – Race, Games and a Ceremonial Sword progressivegeographies.com/2025/12/28/c...

"With astonishing speed, the administration has toppled the most cherished pillars of a free society." A must-read from @radleybalko.bsky.social , even if you've been following Trump's use of immigration enforcement to terrorize communities. newrepublic.com/article/2042...

Anne-Laure Pineau (@annelaurepineau.bsky.social), How the French fell in love with family-driven memoirs and autofiction (@theguardian.com): www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Un'intervista affascinante, ricca di intuizioni aforistiche .... Alessandra Lanza, Parola di Andrea Branzi (Abitare, 3 Marzo 2017; #skystorians): www.abitare.it/it/ricerca/r...

L’éducation politique d’un sociologue : Gisèle Sapiro ( @giselesapiro.bsky.social) s'entretient avec Michael Burawoy (FR/EN, 2 avril 2021 ; @politikaio.bsky.social, @cessp.ehess.fr, @ehess.fr) www.politika.io/fr/entretien...

On autosociobiography and social mobility: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @mikesavagelse.bsky.social @samfriedman.bsky.social

„Wenn man es so weit kommen lässt, dass das Land wirklich gespalten ist, wie in den USA, dann kriegt man halt irgendwann gar nichts mehr auf die Kette." In den Nebenbemerkungen über die Welt hinter der Dorfgrenze kommt die ganze Dummheit der Analyse heraus. taz.de/Juli-Zeh-ueb...

Surely I'm not the only #skystorian out there screenshot'ing the NYT on the assumption that many of us and our colleagues will one day professionally write about its role legitimizing Trump in the teeth of vehement denials and gaslighting from the newspaper's C-suite? Unbelievable stuff regardless.

Rémi Brague - La profondeur du présent (rencontre animée par Charles-Henri d'Andigné à la librairie La Procure ; @editionshermann.bsky.social ; #skystorians) : youtu.be/lDrUaYUPPes

Gift-link access (with me keeping silent on certain demographics like old German 68ers, &c.): www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/w...

Lovely feature on one of my favorite photographers, René Groebli, by Christian House for the @theguardian.com #photography: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Noted economist and expert on public policy Marilynne Robinson .... (As the Bourdieusian in me notes the precise manipulation of various orders of symbolic capital.) Just laughable; on the order of the NYRB paying Charles Simic for political commentary back when I was an undergrad, &c.

So I have the cover story in next month's TNR. I interviewed the heads of police groups; immigration defense attorneys, ex-judges and ex-prosecutors; former DOJ and DHS officials, and the former head of Border Patrol. They're all horrified at what we've seen, and they all fear what's coming.

Algerian parliamentary bill 'lists the “crimes of French colonisation”, which include nuclear tests, extrajudicial killings, “physical and psychological torture” and the “systematic plundering of resources” and declares French colonization (1830-1962) a crime. 🗃 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Joyeuses fêtes, frohe Feiertage, buone feste, krásné svatky, and happy holidays to everyone!

False colonnades, optical illusions, incomprehensible objects: why were artists, architects and thinkers in 17th-century Rome so drawn to distorted and deceptive shapes? William Aslet reads ‘The Deformation’ by Susanna Berger

"The ‘rubble films’ were intended to help make sure none of that could ever happen again, and in that, they are among the many intriguing failures of twentieth century culture." - Owen Hatherley thequietus.com/culture/film...

Foucault’s Christmas - "a Christmas day without writing, that was impossible! ... a day when, as he said, 'nothing has happened for several thousand years' " progressivegeographies.com/2024/12/25/f...

I've posted the full video and an analysis of Bari Weiss's memo.— www.unpopularfront.news/p/60-minutes...

Feel like the holidays really draw out the "First time ever in the post office, follow my journey!" / "Can someone help me use my credit card?" / "Why do I keep stepping on your foot in line???" / "So that's how overhead luggage bins work ...!"-crowd.

Is "decline" really Europe's problem. Or is Europe the more agreeable downleg of a K-shaped OECD? Latest chartbook just dropped. adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...

I've long thought that Marilynne Robinson was effectively a grifter but, man, this is intense: $200 for the lower-tier privilege of attending four Zoom sessions where you can't even ask a question. www.eventbrite.com/e/marilynne-...

[𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐎 𝐕𝐔𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑...] Dans le cadre de "Couper, coller,imprimer", la visite mettra l’accent sur les apports soviétiques au photomontage, depuis sa théorisation par les constructivistes et les partisans de l’art de production à sa pratique diversifiée, des polémiques et ses évolutions dans les années 30.

I’m sorry but ‘heritage American’ makes you sound like a tomato

do leaders of the top investigative newsroom in the country not understand what makes their journalism valuable??????

Julian Lucas (@jcljules.bsky.social) on Bénédicte Savoy for the @newyorker.com ( #skystorians): www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

I wrote about the conservative quest to restore the "true" Constitution, the Antebellum Constitution, shorn of the egalitarian nonsense in the Reconstruction Amendments, a document that replaces equality with a society of dominators and the dominated. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

If this is already the normal procedure everywhere, i.e. a google scholar import, universities’ library catalogues will be useless tomorrow.

Gift link: Arthur Lubow on Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 at the Philadelphia Art Museum until 16 Feb. (NYT). www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/a...

Riccardo Panattoni, La potenza dello sguardo. Sulla fotografia di Luigi Ghirri (Le Parole e le Cose; Marsilio Editore, 2025): www.leparoleelecose.it/la-potenza-d...

'Though completely eclipsed by Don Quixote, Cristalián de España, which was first published in 1545, has a unique claim to fame. Its 800 pages, bristling with swords, sorcerers, dragons and damsels, make up the earliest known work by a female Spanish novelist.' 1/2

The year's last @bearmarketbrief.bsky.social is here! Read about the EU's solution to Ukraine's financing needs, the Central Bank's rate cutting, Putin's marathon presser and assorted regional news. The Brief will be back in 2026, so please subscribe! bearmarketbrief.substack.com/p/perma-froz...