I know Otani had a decent game last night, but you should have seen my game last week in my seminar class; nothing like it in history. Threw a shutout (all questions asked were strikeouts, students whiffed on all responses), hit two homers (guest lecturer spoke, then let class out early).

Congratulations and happy Pub Day to @ktgerbs.bsky.social "Archival Irruptions" tells a new history of Obeah, an Afro-Caribbean religion that was criminalized in 1760 after the largest slave revolt in the 18th century British Empire www.dukeupress.edu/archival-irr...

A reflection on history and freedom. "Histories can be revised; rights revoked." time.com/7325167/supr... Please read and share! Thanks to Allie Lopez and Made By History for working with me on this.

On October 21, 1850, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution condemning the new Fugitive Slave Law as “cruel and unjust” and directing the city's police “not to render any assistance for the arrest of fugitive slaves.” www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1430.h...

www.american-religion.org/back-pages/r... Old Man Yells at Cloud . . . err, Senior Scholar reflects on his first book.

All Faculty/Staff email today: "Are you tasked with planning how your organization/department will get back to doing business as normal after an emergency?" Why yes! But we're not in the "after" part yet, we're still in Year One of the ongoing emergency. Can I get back to you in 3 years pls?

Stolen from facebook: image conveying my contribution and level of engagement this year so far in Chairs and Directors meetings.

The NFL game in Sao Paolo hasn't even started yet but I'm calling it: just move the entire league to Brazil, this is so much better than our boring-ass broadcasts. Saxophone-bass jazz-tinged Star-Spangled Banner almost managed to revive that dead corpse of a tune. Sidebar commentators hilarious.

So actually RFK Jr destroying the public health system in America was in fact on my bingo card for 2025 #shockedshocked

That "the professors are the enemy" guy opines on history.

Hilarious entry in daily spam messages digest: [email protected] Subject: [EXTERNAL] Your opinion on the courts needed Oh yeah, Mr. Hillsdale President, I have opinions.

Is Stephen Douglas behind this?

Barbara Fields and I wrote this five years ago to the day. You can decide whether we were right and if it still holds up. I think so, of course. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

This must be what getting trapped in quicksand feels like.

Most UVa thing ever. Forty years ago, made me want to be a historian even more. Wahoowa, Hoorahray!

Today's comedic relief: Ben Sasse in the Wall Street Journal weighs in on the meaning of Stephen Colbert's cancellation and what that means for late night TV and The Future of What Holds Our Civilization Together. For those who awoke this morning wondering what his take on this was.

Terrific thread, with wonderful specific detail, about why historiography matters.

Photo from a Project 2025 forum that a colleague and I did last night at a downtown church (one of 4 this month, this happened to be our week on stage). Colleague talked theology, I talked history. Just two academic nerds talking, yet, by the end people were getting rowdy (in a good way)

Related to my last post, Russell Vought's other role in the admin: member of the "Presidential Prayer Team." Click on "prayer updates," next to last one basically calls for prayers to overturn birthright citizenship to "ensure national security." www.presidentialprayerteam.org

Gosh darn it, Russell Vought just flat-out lied in his effort to secure votes to eliminate PEPFAR, goodness me just shocked shocked the Wheaton grad and deeply religious man would stoop to such measures! WWJD? www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/h...

Good news: get to give a talk on History and Project 2025 at a local church Wednesday; first in this series last week was packed, with 100 people turned away for lack of space Bad news: guy last week said exactly what I had lined up to say (and killed it!), so gotta think of something else now. Hmm

In the last year, the Times has given Rufo the opportunity to opine 29 times on higher ed, transgender health care, national intelligence, student mental health, plagiarism, twitter's political dynamics, George Floyd, school vouchers, DEI, Donald Trump Jr, JD Vance, Project 2025, and Bari Weiss.

Took a break from reading an inspiring book about Frances Perkins, to read Jason Zengerle's new piece about Stephen Miller, and can't stop thinking about the role of savvy infighters and presidential "readers," for good and for evil, in effecting social change. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...

Seeking relief from this awful political week, stumbled on this story by Otessa Mossefgh (a writer totally new to me for some reason) and cannot stop thinking about it. Chilling/astonishing/hilarious/gutting all at once. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Congrats to the party of limited government.

Annual re-up of my take on the Fourth of July - more to come www.gilderlehrman.org/history-reso...

That bill is so bad that God had to call Jimmy Swaggart home to cry over it with him.

Historian of Reconstruction here the Supreme Court is behaving like its predecessor in the late 19th century when it gutted the Reconstruction constitution and federal civil rights laws. It refused to implement the 14th amendment against Trump and now he has a blank check to upend our constitution.

I used to be the TJ McConnell of noonball. Just sayin'. Now I'm wondering who will feed me when I'm 64 (in a month).

For no reason at all googled June 14 birthdays. A few notables: 1) an old orange man, you know who 2) Boy George 3) Che Guevara

Bonfire of the Humanities keeps raging

Hmm, a foreign flag, un-American activity, and violence, you say?

I mean, that's what I did nearly every summer in the 60s/70s in rural Oklahoma, so . . . good idea or no, you be the judge of that.

Where are the calls in the media for McMahon to resign? As with Noem’s getting habeas corpus exactly backward, it is a disgrace that Cabinet members either profess ignorance in the service of authoritarianism, or are truly ignorant about matters essential to their positions.

Wait, which one of these two is the ketamine addict? So hard to tell.

Lee: Would say it would be “illegal DEI” for a lesson plan on the Tulsa race massacre? McMahon: I’d have to get back to you Lee: Do you know what the Tulsa race massacre is? McMahon: I’d like to look into it more and get back to you on it.

More of this, please.

I’ve told the story many times. Now @katemasur.bsky.social and I have filed it in federal court: Free Black Americans were first to recognize BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP in the US. When denied it, they fought to secure it. They show us what the 14th Amendment meant and what it meant to live without it.

I don’t want to read about a former President’s mental decline because a journalist got a book deal. I want to read a report about the current President’s mental decline by a journalist brave enough to speak out now.

I'm instituting a new basketball rule: if you miss your free throw, you don't get to low-five all your teammates. Period. Make your damn FTs first.

Loving watching graybeard Draymond Green come in and teach some Twolves youngsters a lesson in Game 1 sans Curry. Respect, one aging (history) warrior to another aging bball Warrior.

Trump Proposes Elimination of NEA and NEH www.americantheatre.org/2025/05/02/t...

The details of the Massacre of the NEH are every bit as appalling as you might expect, down to the two bros who did the deed. Everything indeed has a history: www.historians.org/wp-content/u...

Just donated to the AHA Advocacy Fund to help this effort below, in conjunction with the ACLS, the MLA, and others.

Old dude who lives nearby and has for years flown his Trump flag in the front yard of his house, visible for blocks, now has an additional "DOGE" flag flying as well. SMDH.

Yes it is insulting, to say the least (said as a NEH reviewer and awardee): ‘NEH has also taken programmatic steps to ensure that all future awards will, among other things, be merit-based…’

For the Monday morning crowd: a 🧵on how to appeal your NEH grant termination. Please share with NEH grantees. I also summarized in a shareable google doc, available here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

So they could have just resurrected this instead of cutting grants and firing 80% of the staff? 👀🤯

💥 "The delegation demands to know 'why you are crippling an agency that punches so far above its weight and is essential to enabling access to libraries, museums, archives, historic sites & more for #Massachusetts residents.'" #NEH non-paywall: archive.is/Pqfsy www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/22/a...

Missing grant money? Found it! It looks like the remaining grant funds for FY2025 have been reallocated here. We have nothing good to say about this. www.neh.gov/news/neh-ann...