What is striking here, of course, is that no one was apologizing for being white at any point, outside of some very unusual academic hothouse environments. What the experience as 'apologizing for being white' is actually just 'accommodating non-white people living as full citizens and equals.'

Pleasantly surprised to see TAKING AMERICA BACK positively cited by Suzanne Schneider in @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social!

My last thought on the latest round of DEI discourse: I supported the DEI turn in the 2010s because at the end of the day I don’t want people to face systemic barriers to access in education and employment, as a liberal universalist principle.

At the risk of hugging the third rail, the truth of the academic job market, at least in history or classics, is neither DEI or anti-DEI. It is that that 1) there are no jobs and 2) our hiring culture treats candidates like they 'spoil' after a few years. No one knows who is mediocre or not.

Anyway enough intervention in the discourse for me. I’m in Montréal on vacation and it’s time for the best goddamn deli in the goddamn world.

Lord, spare me from tenured faculty with strong views about the job market.

About halfway through THAT article and it’s… good? The data seems on first glance to be quite solid. (And even if Savage doesn’t get into the outright contraction of journalism and academia the hiring shifts in what‘s left seems pretty incontrovertible?)

I will say this: there’s an uncountable number of academics who for reasons outside of their control didn’t win the TT lottery. Very few of them become the public face for academic failure in the way I have. I gotta say, it’s not a great feeling!

And people say Twitter is toxic...

Okay, I am logging off for the rest of the day and not going to contribute to this discourse, because my wife, and this is a direct quote, says "if social media ruins my one goddamn vacation this year I will personally [expletive deleted]."

I haven't read the article yet (a friend texted me to let me know that I was referenced in it) but I gotta say, this whole "mediocre and inadequate white men can't handle their own mediocrity and inadequacy" framing is a real problem.

Going on vacation for the next two weeks and will only be checking DMs sporadically!

ultimately, no one even grieved Charlie Kirk. he was just another thing for the worst people on earth to get outraged over. and when the outrage of real events wasn't enough, they invented new ones. not even his wife saw his death as anything other than an opportunity.

Honored to be on the list of @bostonreview.bsky.social's most-read pieces of 2025, and in such august company! www.bostonreview.net/reading-list...

Part of the problem is that while Trump is obviously a racist, in the past his racism has generally coded as "believing crude ethnic stereotypes," not "subscribes to Nordicism."

The world is shit and getting worse, and we're all getting older and sliding inevitably towards death, but I'm sitting by the light of my Christmas tree sipping cognac and listening to Bill Evans. There are some good things left in the world.

"Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis"

While obviously horrid, not only do Trump's crude and xenophobic remarks not rise to DER STUERMER levels, they're not even close to the kinds of things Israeli leaders have been saying about the Palestinians.

Well, it snowed three inches overnight here in Charlottesville, which means by Southern law I cannot leave the house for at least 24 hours.

Is there a dignified winter headwear for men? I mean something that is practical in extreme cold but is more formal than a knit cap.

Really interesting conversation here on the sexualization of state violence and repression by the Trump administration. (I'd missed them using a Sabrina Carpenter song in a video glorifying cops arresting people.)

I mean, sure, but the *vast* majority of disability requests I get are simply "I need slightly more time to take tests" or "I need to use a computer/tablet to take notes."

Hanania apparently suffering buyers' remorse for holding my work up to ridicule only to spark multiple days of Twitter discourse about how my book is actually pretty good, all things considered.

Hey, if you liked the first four pages of my book -- or even if you hated them -- you should subscribe to @bostonreview.bsky.social, where I write a bimonthly column! New subscriptions are half off for Black Friday!

It's not necessarily a bad thing when some guy blasts the first four pages of your book to half a million people saying that it sucks and the overwhelming response is, "this is fine, actually."

Meanwhile on Twitter...

I knew DSJ didn't mean it this way but hoo boy a public conversation about why you haven't been more successful professionally is not easy to read.

Okay, Montreal friends/people who have been to Montreal: Claire and I are going there for a week before Christmas. Recommendations on things to see/do/eat/places to stay?

What's the best thing that's been written about the post-1945 Nazi taboo in Western politics?

This is what the midwest is like.

Walked into a bar in St. Paul my dad recommended and there’s six Catholic priests sitting at the window table drinking beer.

Meanwhile on Twitter.

The thing about this meme is that it's obvious the pope is crooning "My Way"

The Mamdani-Trump summit is fun but c’mon, it’s not the vindication of the left/right-populist or red/brown alliance stuff.

Reading Paul Fussell’s CLASS book from the early 1980s and it’s amusing, witty, and insightful but my God does this man need to just embrace Marxist analysis.

Currently revising an article which kept getting dinged by reviewers for using the em dash and I'm sorry if I didn't let fucking Richard Spencer ruin my clothing aesthetic I'm not going to let AI ruin my favorite punctuation mark

I'm sorry, Trump just openly called for the death of his political enemies? That seems bad.

Woke is back.

Whenever I read about Jill Lepore, I always think about @melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social's story about how she kept referring to her tenure-track position at Boston University as her "starter job" to her colleagues.

In a moment where elite depravity is on display for all to see -- between Nuzzi, Epstein, Summers, and Trump -- remember when the biggest story in the country was that this nice couple liked to go out for a fancy anniversary meal?

Surely Nuzzi has agency here?

Cuomo is a useful analogue here: a lot of the NY Democratic establishment--particularly labor--lined up to endorse him at the beginning of the mayor race because he's vindictive as hell and they were afraid of retaliation if he won. But once it became clear he was flopping, he hemorrhaged support!

👇👇👇

I imagine it's not kosher to respond to a book reviewer request with a quid pro quo, i.e. "Yes I will review this book if you assign someone to review mine."

Olivia Nuzzi/Larry Summers crossover when?

The vast body of research that Ken Burns relied upon to make his new documentary on the American Revolution would be practically impossible to be produced today, what with the defunding of humanistic scholarship, the collapse of stable academic jobs, the attack on public history & academic freedom.🗃️

If an attractive young woman a third my age didn't want to date me, then why did she ask me for feedback on an economics paper? by Larry Summers

This is why I don't Substack.

Interesting to see how the antisemitism of the groypers is in tension with their glorific of sexual assault in the Epstein saga.