Louis the Pious:

You all care way too much about a local race in Chicago.* Please get involved near where you live in real life and touch grass *this doesn’t apply if you actually live in the district

oh brother, another bad post from political influencer beltway brian. i am furious at beltway brian all of the time. i share screencaps of beltway brian's posts with people who have no idea who he is. i hate all of beltway brian's posts and i read all of them every single day, including weekends

Public discourse on this subject has utterly failed to direct citizens' attention to the actual problem, which is that a commercial industry is assaulting education. So every week we get another thoughtless op-ed on blue books or the death of the college essay, etc etc.

As someone who grew up in a town of 600 people in the Appalachians and just returned from a delightful trip there to visit people I love dearly, I think serious discussion about limiting criminal penalties for drunk driving is without exception the province of stupid assholes

So much defense of AI discourse is just recycled “name every gun” vibes

A very happy holidays to our 1 hater who has recently (apparently) gone around to give the pod 1 star on all the platforms

Like economics

Not trying to be controversial but I hate that thing everyone likes for no reason and I’m going to put that on this cantankerous social media site

faves in 2025: "Mighty Red" by Louise Erdrich "This is Happiness" by Niall Williams "Glorious Exploits" by Ferdia Lennon "Rose/House" by Arkady Martine "Round House" by Louise Erdrich "God of the Woods" by Liz Moore and... "Oathbreakers" by me & @lollardfish.bsky.social

Welcome aboard MOBY-DICK WEEK at @flaminghydra.com, debuting with @benehrenreich.bsky.social reading aloud. flaminghydra.com/issue-470/

It’s also responsible to grapple with the article Sonja wrote in which she in no way suggests what is being ascribed to her

What the fuck is he talking about with this Aquinas shit?

I don’t deserve this on Christmas

This is in reference to the unjust firing of Melissa McCool, but it’s true of every right-wing harassment campaign Universities and elite media need to be aware of this

Oh hell yes

Ok, since this has come up four times in the last three days: REPUTABLE LITERARY AGENTS WILL NOT CHARGE YOU MONEY. IF A LITERARY AGENT WANTS TO CHARGE YOU FOR AN "EXPEDITED ACCESS PACKAGE" THIS IS A SCAM.

Since the Enlightenment we what, now?!

I don’t deserve this on Christmas

Anyway. They spent the last decade telling us STEM degrees were the future and the Humanities were worthless then they spent hundreds of billions of dollars to build a glitchy Humanities robot.

My dad’s Christmas gift from me: thanks, @chriskempshall.bsky.social @lollardfish.bsky.social @profgabriele.com @mikeduncan.bsky.social !

@lollardfish.bsky.social @profgabriele.com The best Christmas since 800 CE

No one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.

I hope @abigailspanberger.com looks at the VT BoV and some of the actions of current board members!

I was gifted a digital copy of "The Bright Ages" by @mekka.mekka-tech.com and I have not stopped talking about it. My wife got me physical copies for Christmas (in the hopes of shutting me up 🥰)! Love the work of @profgabriele.com and @lollardfish.bsky.social

i hope it has a happy ending

Love that there’s now an online civil war between historians about what “real” history is because some racist professor and his groyper pals on X posted a dumb thing and then everyone here decided to fight one another while the professional burns

It is EXHAUSTING not only being made responsible for coming up with new kinds of assignments for our students; it's also tedious reading op-eds that suggest the core problem is a crisis in teaching. But, as Chris and I lay out here, this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning.

LFG

This might be the least necessary for Chreaster Catholics article ever

👀 👀 👀 (Chatting with Matt was great and I’m excited to talk dirtbag medievalism on @americanmedieval.bsky.social but this is a daunting list to be a part of!)

By far my favorite new podcast!

No it didn't, that isn't true.

so one more post and then i'm offline for a bit. i'm very proud that, towards the end of 2025, I began working with @multitude.productions and released my podcast @americanmedieval.bsky.social i hope you'll listen and if you do, will learn that Americans have always thought about the medieval

Some news:

faves in 2025: "Mighty Red" by Louise Erdrich "This is Happiness" by Niall Williams "Glorious Exploits" by Ferdia Lennon "Rose/House" by Arkady Martine "Round House" by Louise Erdrich "God of the Woods" by Liz Moore and... "Oathbreakers" by me & @lollardfish.bsky.social

so the latest issue of the journal of the Medieval Academy is out and its all short essays on the "future of medieval studies." there's some really neat stuff there (haven't read all of it yet) www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/spc/2026...

ah i see they're now reinventing MeetUp

We could teach more of all the kinds of history if we weren’t systematically defunding the humanities and the public universities

this is canon

there's a certain kind of male historian who came into history in the 50s/60s through military history, saw full classes, and imagines that's why classes aren't full now. they are either being stupid, ignorant, or wicked. or, like N. ferguson, all three.

historians are far too deferential to scholars from other disciplines rampaging into the field without having done the reading

just a few that have changed how i do my own work Trouillot's "Silencing the Past" White's "The Practical Past" Orsi "History and Presence" Adorno "Polemics of Possession" Boym "Future of Nostalgia" Walsham "Reformation of the Landscape"

All the kids are doing heroin, so it only makes sense that teachers do it too

I have seen BREWSTER’S MILLIONS. I could do it. Put me in coach.

Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe by @profgabriele.com and @lollardfish.bsky.social Wow, what a book. A fascinating period in history, and it felt like reading a real life Game of Thrones

Florian Mazel et Yann Potin (dir.) - Marc Bloch L'histoire en résistance À paraître en mars aux éditions du Seuil

This deserves every bit of praise

What do cops, you know, do?

Man it's just gonna be Uvaldes till the end of time, ain't it?