“When Democrats push back [on Trump and the Republicans’ anti-democracy manipulations], the most Republicans can do is continue what they’re already doing. Appeasement never dissuades them from that. If anything, it encourages them.”

Grades are ready to submit and I can say goodbye to Spring Term of 2026.

Did this drop in traffic coincide with Victor Orban's defeat in Hungary, by any chance?

Looking for a new opportunity? If you are interested in putting your name forward to serve on RSVP’s Board of Directors or for Vice President, please reach out to President @pritijoshi.bsky.social (president [at] rs4vp.org) for more information and duties (and take note of the "NB" below!).

Bear carcasses for everyone!

Regime retaliates against its scientist critics. Yes, it can happen here www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

In every academic book there is a secret second book hiding in the footnotes. Sometimes it is the first draft that had migrated there to escape the revisions. Sometimes it is the author's tortured secret rebuttal of their own claims, and sometimes it is the incipient form of the their next book.

They didn't love Jekyll and Hyde, but my class on disability and the nineteenth-century novel sure are writing about it.

· #AcademicSky · #EduSky · Why NI students are put off going to uni in the Republic of Ireland There still seems to be a hard border when it comes to Northern Irish students studying in the Republic of Ireland, with some saying the admissions process is a major hurdle.

"the greatest danger that faces higher education... is this transactional tendency ... an exchange that ultimately is economic and not what education should be, which is transformational." Excellent interview with Ken Burns, Hampshire College alum. #AcademicSky www.chronicle.com/podcast/coll...

Avoiding grading by submitting book orders for Fall of 2026. I can't go on; I'll go on.

Great news to share, we have finally managed to put the Atlas of Scottish History back online! Open access : books.socantscot.org/digital-book...

Just watched. This is very very good. Loved the immigration content as well.

Happy to have our work mentioned in this important piece about the gender gap in Resistance 2.0 by @saulausterlitz.bsky.social! The piece digs into the very notable lack of men in the streets and in the organizations that are coordinating resistance www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

How many abysmally unpopular decisions can these ghouls offer in one term www.nytimes.com/live/2026/05...

For a quick blog outlining the article Bob Shoemaker and I have out in Social History on mapping 18th c. crime see socialhistoryblog.com/mapping-the-...

If you can believe it, it's #ModWrite Monday once again! Share what you are working on using the hashtag ☔

Over at “One First,” I wrote about how the redistricting chaos we’re seeing in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia is something #SCOTUS *chose,* and how it belies both the entire purpose of the “Purcell principle” and the Court’s claim that it’s staying out of the political process:

This week, writing looks a lot like (minimal) comments on final essays.

Museo del Westside, a new museum in San Antonio's Westside neighborhood, preserves the area’s Mexican American and working-class heritage.

Roe V. Wade

An 18-year-old student from Ireland has been named as the European winner of a global environmental sustainability competition

· #AcademicSky · If students rely on AI summaries as starting points – or substitutes for enquiry – they risk bypassing the processes higher education is designed to cultivate: comparison, evaluation and critical analysis. Cayce Myers offers solutions via @timeshighered.bsky.social.

It took me a very long time to put together the extent to which Disney relied on Tchaikovsky for this one

Check this out: www.thenation.com/article/cult...

NEW: ChatGPT advised the FSU shooter that a mass shooting would get more attention from media if it involved several children, according to a new lawsuit against OpenAI www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

"But AI can transcribe quickly for me!" The lack of time for transcription in the archives is not natural, it is created. The time to transcribe, which is also time to read and think about material, has been taken from us by those with the power to fund our work. Now they want it without funding it.

Anyway it's interesting to think about the funding pressures and ethical tipping points along the line of "photograph everything in the archive and transcribe at home" to "have AI transcribe everything in the archive" to "have AI help me write this article."

AI writing reminds me of Tennyson’s description of the beautiful Maud in the titular poem: Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null/ Dead perfection; no more Insightful readers feel that emptiness even if they can’t articulate it. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

I really wish people aspiring to write understood what a competitive advantage being able to write without AI will be in the coming years.

Most Definitely ♥️

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p... This is great and super interesting listen This man is not just obviously gifted at metaphor rhetoric and humor but has tremendous vision and intelligence I truly believe he could unite us as a nation in 2028 and my humble prayer is that he runs for president

"Those Images," written by W.B. Yeats and first published in the collection "New Poems" in 1938. Want to support the mission of the International Yeats Society? Consider becoming a member today! internationalyeatssociety.org/members/ #Poetry #Yeats #IrishLiterature #SupportTheArts

Adolescence makes history as Irish nominees lose out at Baftas

“You only work this hard to DEvalue something if it's valuable--and a threat”

Have I been pitched "what if reading rooms are monetized into gig-labor for grad students to snap pictures for global scholars to whom they have no relation?" and been met by dead innovator stares when the response was less than enthusiastic?

Some strong arguments made here by @jamellebouie.net regarding the Virginia redistricting situation

The amount of late work this semester has been exponentially higher than previous semesters. I mean like daily discussion posts turned in two weeks late.

Retractions never get proportional attention. This one should.

An assignment that was due three months ago was just submitted with no explanation.

Ill be very clear: the National Archives of India used AI to digitize their materials, and the transcriptions are a nightmare. And because the index is based off the AI transcriptions, so much of it is just...unusable. But sure, I guess, carefully managed AI tools, etc etc.

"This will transform historical research!" Cool but it's already being transformed out of existence by the same forces pushing these transformative technologies. Forgive us if we're skeptical of a moment that's telling us "This will help you do your work--which we despise--faster and better."

The US did NOT contact airline passengers who flew with people known to have been infected with hantavirus. Cool cool.

Isak Wacklin, portrait of Mrs Heckford (1757), Ateneum, Helsinki #c18 #c18th #18thc

Why Bowen Matters www.eventbrite.ie/e/why-bowen-...

When I see historians using gAI to read, think or write (mercifully few in my circles), I admit to feeling a great deal of contempt. How can you be so uncritical that you do not see the labor implications of gAI for our already-wounded profession? Or who owns/runs these tech companies?

Accommodating a two-tiered system of equally-qualified academic workers led to the devaluing of workers in both tiers. If you're doing this and you think it's not going to bite you (and your whole field) in the ass in the same way, you've got another thing coming.

Not sure if it was a malapropism but I think @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social referred to Trump’s edifice complex and I howled.

Two quick questions about the MN redistricting outrage de jour: 1) because of the concentration of the DFL vote in the Cities, how many more seats would we realistically actually get; 2) why are we surprised that Klobuchar is moderate