With Bardot's passing, the only named individuals in Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire that are still alive are Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, and Bernie Goetz. The last one standing will claim The Prize.

Kurt Lash has a new draft using AIs to attribute authorship and transcribe a letter found among Andrew Johnson's papers; he argues that the letter is relevant to interpreting the 14th Amendment and the 1866 Civil Rights Act. I have two issues with this. 1/5 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

During Jim Crow, safety at hotels, restaurants, and gas stations was not guaranteed. Travel was inherently dangerous for Black Americans. Every route was planned with care. Trace the routes on the Green Book website: greenbookproject.osu.edu #GreenBookProject #CommunityMap #EconSky

ICYMI - just before Christmas our new special issue of @jitp.bsky.social on Minimalist Digital Humanities Pedagogy dropped. Tons of fantastic work in here that is worth checking out.

We had congressional hearings when parents just suspected heavy metal was leading some kids to suicide.

"That's *Doctor* Sir Mix-A-Lot, thank you very much."

will also add - yes, this is my personal crusade - that turning podcasts into videos implicitly asks women to once again make more effort than men, as the bar for "camera-ready" for one gender is obviously higher than for the other

We don't do fundraising pushes very often, but that's because we're fortunate enough to have a loyal group of monthly givers. Almost everything you read this year was paid for by 161 people. If you like what we do and want to see more, become a supporter today.

Hi, hello! My book _Impressive Politics: Print before the Press in Late Medieval England_ is forthcoming from University of Pennsylvania Press. I think about print all the time but in ways you might not expect. sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

Good article, but I think we could add that many of the current government officials & influencers spreading political point-scoring falsehoods during crisis events HAVE BECOME gov officials & influencers BECAUSE of their bullshit-spreading talents. System effects of rotten attention dynamics.

Make a Bond movie academic Dr. It’s Complicated

Big "yes" to this, which I sketched in my last book. Pleonexia (insatiable greed) is relentless for its victims. The Book of Ecclesiastes offer a lovely metaphor for this -- "chasing the wind" (trying to grasp something that can never be attained).

One of my Xmas gifts: a Larry Doby coin from the US Mint, with the iconic photo of him and Steve Gromek on the back.

To be clear, the student by her own admission forgot an assignment to react to a specific reading til the last second, didn't want to delay going out, dashed something off in 20 min without reading the piece to comment on(!), no citations and not answering the assigned question. Teacher fired

Historians: What are your favorite recent books about historiography? I read Lynn Hunt and E. H. Carr in grad school, but I admit I haven’t been keeping up since I graduated.

Quote with your favorite pic of your from 2025 A man and his baguette, for sure.

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

This cohort will focus on one of our themes for 2026: religions and freedom in the early Americas. Not (only) for folks whose own research is square in that area. Full details to come, and feel free to reach out to me (after the new year). W/in our capacity, we're determined to try new things. 3//

As early as next week we'll be advertising a new model, two positions as 3 yr Research Associates focused on collaborative research. Expectations for scholarly + public outputs, w teamwork to coordinate & design those paths. Salary + benefits. 2/

Last post for the year to say that @jcblibrary.bsky.social we've been thinking hard about how to support scholars and scholarship amidst the multi-dimensional crises for humanities research. We remain committed to our traditional fellowships (indeed in the wake of NEH revocation we expanded), but 1/

I was doing PhD research at the Briscoe Center for Am History at UT-Austin in 1995. One day a bunch of documents from the Gov Ann Richards Papers was out on a table being processed, and I was curious because I had worked for her before starting my program. It was the contents of my own file cabinet.

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

My book has a (preliminary) page @pennpress.bsky.social ! Contested Currents: Rivers and the Remaking of New England will be published in October 2026. www.pennpress.org/978151283015...

I wrote this essay because I wanted as many people as possible to understand that what Paine did in Common Sense was recognize the urgency of his historical moment, and that he matched that moment with words. That is why it resonates now. What words will we find for our moment?

Wow. Last used ~1934, inherent contempt would in effect bring Bondi to trial in the House & by majority vote empower the House to put her in jail. Far more effective than other options (criminal referral to her own DOJ or endless civil litigation), it'd be a huge bipartsan stand against the Admin.

yeah, I think this is also an important thing to keep in mind: what do most people in a given profession LIKE about their jobs? What do they NOT like? you will not get a good sales response if you focus on replacing the stuff most people actually LIKE doing, instead of the stuff they hate doing

Fully agree with 'only cite stuff you've actually read' re: AI in academia, but it needs to be paired with 'give folk proper time to read & reflect'. The pressure to read/write/produce can drive shortcuts. Primarily thinking students here, but also academics, who need proper (paid) research leave.

A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle

My 14-yo-son has recreated the climax of Back to the Future in gingerbread and I thought you should know.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025... What shut down the Harvard Salient? A racial slur used casually in a group chat of members; an unpublished issue featuring a call for mass executions, and drafts of a September article that included two images of swastikas & a Nazi slogan in the subtitle

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

Amazing how many of these papers are about “ethical use of AI in education.” It’s harsh, I know, but I do think if you incorporate a hallucinated reference it should be incredibly damning for you. There should be professional penalties.

I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite

Terrifying headline if you don’t realize they are sports teams.

John has written a phenomenal book on George Washington and his relationship to slavery. I learned so much. I hope it’s widely assigned in schools and widely read by everyone.

Attacks on feminism are similar to attacks on vaccines. We begin to take for granted a world where women have rights and most children live to see adulthood, and then, over time, we begin to forget, neglect, and (now) reject the movements and innovations that brought us here.

Most of the jobs for which I've ever been a finalist ended up going to another white man. In the few cases where someone other than a white man got the job, those scholars are spectacularly talented and absolutely deserved the position. Get over yourselves.

Intrigued that Boston South Station is installing automated ticket gates. This is something that's become standard in Europe (at least from what I can tell), but I have a feeling there's a subset of people who will throw a fit on the grounds of {insert petty grievance}.

Poor @erinbartram.bsky.social is worried abt the black box thumbnail but it feels representative of how challenging it was for @hartmann-villalta.bsky.social & I to compile the list this year. Kudos to the authors! Pls read, cite, teach, buy, & share their work—& know there is much more out there!

In response to SSRN's removal of Professor Edwards's "The Originalist Case for the President's Power to Pardon State Offenses," I have posted "A Response to SSRN's Removal of Jerry Edwards's 'The Originalist Case for the President's Power to Pardon State Offenses'" papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Friends!!! You know how obsessed I have become with Common Sense. Tom Paine published that pamphlet 250 years ago this January. I published an essay about it TODAY, in the New York Times. Common Sense remains relevant as ever. I hope you enjoy it. Gift article ⬇️⬇️⬇️

I am reminded of Lincoln's famous letter to Joshua Speed in 1855 quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/li...

we went to Massachusetts @katytelling.bsky.social @katejewell.bsky.social @jmadelman.bsky.social

Today is the 252nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, which makes it the perfect day to talk about ... coffee! Join us on @bfworld.bsky.social as we talk with Michelle McDonald about the vital fuel of #VastEarlyAmerica. benfranklinsworld.com/429

The collateral damage of people upset (often with good reasons) about generative AI is their digital humanities colleagues. It’s outpacing 2010 levels of vitriol, by a lot. The irony is we’re the best allies — we understand how the tech works and can translate between the doom and the hype. +

I don't know, Aaron. I think we need to take this seriously. In fact, after surveying hundreds of years of history in the past few days, I've written an article assessing the originalist case here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

My humanities dept was relevant. Majors were up. Courses were 100% enrolled. Revenue positive, GE serving, etc etc. We were still eliminated. The problem is ideological administrative destruction. Couldn’t write a report, a self study, or a spreadsheet against that.

one of the great, pernicious myths perpetrated about higher ed—which media, higher ed administrators, politicians, and a number of faculty are complicit in spreading—is that humanities departments close due to some combination of cratering student demand and unjustifiable cost. It’s not true

i have said this before but if you are actually interested in influencing people beyond a narrow circle of too-online journalists you will be making direct to camera videos on tiktok, instagram and youtube. if you primarily post on text-based social media then you're just dicking around.

Just sent this to a reporter. It’s a real shame.