"Distinguishing between monsters and the real products of evolution is only easy in retrospect..." Keep up with @contingent-mag.bsky.social's "A Time of Monsters" series including Sam Moore excellent essay, "Aaahh!!! Fake Monsters." Read, share, and enjoy! contingentmagazine.org/2025/12/14/a...

And while we're here, I also wrote a piece for @contingent-mag.bsky.social that I'm very proud of on @realgdt.bsky.social's Frankenstein (2025) as a lens to think about how culture functions as a behemoth lovingly constructed by every artist and thinker who cares to create. Audio version out soon!

The latest piece in our December series, "A Time of Monsters," is ALIVE! Do extreme climate conditions and extreme human behavior go together? Does drought and famine help create "monsters?" Read this wonderful essay by first-time Contingent author, MK Foster. #skystorians #monsters

Just a reminder that we pay all of our contributors (and staff) and we are reader supported. If you like what we do and you'd like us to do more, you can donate here.

Apropos of the weekend's conversations, a thread of some of our pieces talking about archives and research practices, just from this past year. We start with frequent contributor @kmfranseen.bsky.social

The next piece in our special December series explores "the rise and hunt of monsters in monstrous seasons of prodigious, inescapable heat."

When I was studying historical linguistics, one of the most mind-blowing things was just how often we had primary texts to research an extinct language because someone found a book at a library that nobody knew was there. Many libraries are so old and so big that we don't know what's in them.

Just a reminder that we *are* open for pitches for our mailbag column where we explain the nuts and bolts of historical work.

Seems like it's worth posting this one again.

Since 2019, one of the proudest services I do for the profession is collaborate w. @rcolesworthy.bsky.social & Erin Bartram @contingent-mag.bsky.social to compile a (limited) list of pubs by contingent lit studies scholars. Here is our 2025 compilation. contingentmagazine.org/2025/12/16/2...

The next piece in our special December series explores "the rise and hunt of monsters in monstrous seasons of prodigious, inescapable heat."

I don't usually reskeet myself on here but earlier I babbled a bunch about the challenges of putting together the @contingent-mag.bsky.social list of lit crit this year and the capacious, shifting status of "NTT" and here we are. Also, here's the list! contingentmagazine.org/2025/12/16/2...

More contingent authors!

As always, we're happy to bring you a lit studies companion to our yearly history book/article lists. Assembled by @rcolesworthy.bsky.social and @hartmann-villalta.bsky.social

"The history of U.S. immigration policy has largely favored immigrants from Europe by employing national quotas for Europeans and immigration restrictions for the rest of the world’s population. Reforms in 1960s and 1990s immigration legislation, however, worked to reverse these inequities."

"While we will never be able to know the exact meaning this manuscript carried, I am heartened by the thought that queer monks may have used it to find community in their monstrous, Christ-like existence."

"While we will never be able to know the exact meaning this manuscript carried, I am heartened by the thought that queer monks may have used it to find community in their monstrous, Christ-like existence."

One thing that emerges clearly in 78 and counting episodes of @draftingthepast.bsky.social is that the process of creation--the friction, the time, the walks, the conversations with others, the walls hit and the solutions to go around--are essential parts of the creative process, not barriers to it.

"The skeleton of one esp. elaborate specimen, Cornelius Meyer’s dragon, was displayed in Rome in the 1690s. Meyer, a civil engineer, likely produced the skeleton to quell local rumors that a live dragon was still at large in the countryside, & in so doing, to keep his construction project on track."

If you're read my books you'll know that "monster" is a label with which people tell stories about real creatures and people who blur or transcend categories, but here's a delightful essay by Sam Moore, in @contingent-mag.bsky.social, about fake monsters: taxidermy hoaxes! #histsci #monsters 🗃

“In the faunal frenzy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even serious naturalists competed with fabulists like Barnum for the attention of the public.” Our latest piece in A Time Of Monsters, from Sam Moore.

“In the faunal frenzy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even serious naturalists competed with fabulists like Barnum for the attention of the public.” Our latest piece in A Time Of Monsters, from Sam Moore.

New monsters coming your way soon and we think this guy is going to be pretty interested.

"Contemporary depictions of Mary tend to be gentle in their holiness, but Christians centuries ago envisioned her as a powerful agent who fought for their salvation."

Curl up with our 2022 December series History & Mystery. contingentmagazine.org/series/histo...

A doodle of a transmasc Jesus in a 9th century book of monsters is the starting point for @ebermichael.bsky.social’s new piece in @contingent-mag.bsky.social. Don’t miss it.

Medieval trans Jesus

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

"I had never come across a Christ-figure quite like this." The latest in our series A Time Of Monsters, from @ebermichael.bsky.social

Huge thanks to @erinbartram.bsky.social for including me in this series, and for shepherding my first foray into non-academic writing. This was a blast to work on!

"I had never come across a Christ-figure quite like this." The latest in our series A Time Of Monsters, from @ebermichael.bsky.social

"Moskowitz’s frozen dinosaur steaks betray the fear that a fast-growing and poorly regulated food industry could become a black box that delivered monstrous products and, furthermore, alienated consumers from their food."

"Contemporary depictions of Mary tend to be gentle in their holiness, but Christians centuries ago envisioned her as a powerful agent who fought for their salvation."

Last call, friends! @hartmann-villalta.bsky.social and I are finishing up our annual list of lit studies publications—articles, books, book chapters—by NTT scholars for @contingent-mag.bsky.social. Please spread the word and send me your pubs by tomorrow/Tues 12/9! 🙏🫡

“While coprolites shed light on lost landscapes, speculative stories — when read in historical context — reveal popular attitudes to fast-changing foodscapes.”

“While coprolites shed light on lost landscapes, speculative stories — when read in historical context — reveal popular attitudes to fast-changing foodscapes.”

Our December series A Time of Monsters shifts into high gear this week, so here's some sophisticated analysis to consider before we dive in.

"By using his then-full legal control of the movies (until he sold the franchise to Disney in 2012), he was able to not only alter the story, but also how we remember it—by denying access to the unaltered original cuts, Lucas has left us without critical cultural documents in a modern format."

"By using his then-full legal control of the movies (until he sold the franchise to Disney in 2012), he was able to not only alter the story, but also how we remember it—by denying access to the unaltered original cuts, Lucas has left us without critical cultural documents in a modern format."

don’t miss the 2025 @contingent-mag.bsky.social book list! inclusive & welcoming as ever, Contingent curates a list where the hard part is not getting on it, but rather, the hard part is researching & writing a book while contingent contingentmagazine.org/2025/12/02/2...

The second of our yearly lists--this one features thirty-five articles and chapters authored by contingent historians in 2025.

The second of our yearly lists--this one features thirty-five articles and chapters authored by contingent historians in 2025.

"What most surprised me about my trip to Germany was how much more it spoke to the parts of myself that were nurtured outside of the academy than within it."

It's here! One of the best book lists of the year. The way I ordered this book so fast!

I just started working on the article/book chapter list and I found TWO books that I'd missed. Guess you'll just have to click through to find out what they were.

Things you can learn about using this list: orthonymity, florilegia, theriac, sissie houses, El Tajín, GRECE, the taṣvīr-i hümāyūn, Hospitallers, disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and Medieval Europe, and anti-Klan activists in interwar Missouri.

Our longest yearly book list ever! Thirty six books by contingent historians for you to read, gift, and request for purchase at your library!

Our longest yearly book list ever! Thirty six books by contingent historians for you to read, gift, and request for purchase at your library!

Del Toro's Frankenstein (2025) is an absolute gift for cultural analysts and really a wonderful one to help teach cultural reception studies.