All academic books (and academics) would be at the very least slightly better if they knew what a step and repeat is as well!

A book with a green cover in front of university of Chicago wrapping paper

Exactly a year ago I made my book walk in front of a step and repeat out of my press’s wrapping paper for its debut on Earth Day, the first of which in 1970 was one of the main reasons I wrote the book in the first place.

Two efforts to help Hampshire workers facing job loss:

General emergency relief fund: www.helphampshireworkers.com

Fundraiser for staff of Hampshire's Early Learning Center, which will also close: www.gofundme.com/f/elc-staff-...

Looking at the faded ink at the top, there's a pretty good chance that I printed that one out lol

AI Is Not Inevitable 17April2026AI Is Not InevitableA Talk with Britt Paris Rutgers Associate Professor and chair of the AAUP committee on AI4:00pmiSchool Building Room 4045614 E. Daniel St. RSVP Here Review Meeting Ag…

Really proud of this event the Campus Faculty Association has brought to campus - and there is a virtual option!!!

Who Gets Guggenheims? - Public Books Unfortunately, 100 years of data show that those whom such fellowships might represent the greatest departure from their everyday experience—that is, those not at elite institutions—are least likely t...

Woohoo, here's my essay with my fav co-author on 30,000 fellowship wins across the Guggenheim, Stanford CASBS, NAEd, National Humanities Center, RSF visiting scholar, and Harvard Radcliffe.

Spoiler: it's the people working at prestigious universities

www.publicbooks.org/who-gets-gug...

Corridor of a full Amtrak train

Amtrak Midwest appreciation post. Only recommendation is that there needs to be at least three times as many a day. If I got additional wishes it would be faster and one could get to St Louis from Champaign without going to Chicago first.

I love students

Urban History Book Reviews

📚 @parhee.bsky.social on Aidan Beatty's Private Property and the Fear of Social Chaos
🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096...

📚 Dominic Davies on Gregor Hens's The City and the World
🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096...

📚 @drjonwinder.bsky.social on Kate Ferris and Huw Halstead's Miniatures
🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096...

These excellent essays about the increasing impossibility of making a living through writing should be read in conjunction with Josh Kline's account of the distorting effects of real estate speculation on American art direct.mit.edu/octo/article...

on strike for a fair contract

all solidarity to the striking faculty at University of Illinois Springfield

(202) 224-3121 is the capitol switchboard for connecting to any senate or house office; even if you've never called; even though the lot of them are useless. no abominable war crimes, no war, no.

It’s not strange. Grown Americans in positions of power & authority called the police on to campuses, and threatened the future work and livelihood of 20 year olds because they dared to stand against the mass bombing of women and children.

And they will never forget it.

Worth re-sharing for #envhist and #envhum folks! We’re excited to feature new research into extraction in the Midwest, past and present.

Landscape Architecture and the School of Architecture at Illinois is hiring a Teaching Assistant/Associate Professor for 2026-7 to teach 1 design studio and 1 other course each term. And you get a great union! Details and application here:

illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

One of my students told me they were doing David Harvey and bell hooks in the same class this week.

The Western History Dissertation Workshop was one of the very best things I did in grad school. Very much recommend applying!

Just in time for the reopening of the Santa Barbara Channel for oil drilling I have a piece out on difficult social questions when it comes to oil drilling exceptional places and what, if anything, is the future of environmentalism.

Landscape Architecture and the School of Architecture at Illinois is hiring a Teaching Assistant/Associate Professor for 2026-7 to teach 1 design studio and 1 other course each term. And you get a great union! Details and application here:

illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Thanks so much!

Just in time for the reopening of the Santa Barbara Channel for oil drilling I have a piece out on difficult social questions when it comes to oil drilling exceptional places and what, if anything, is the future of environmentalism.

Does an Oil Spill Matter If It’s Not Somewhere Beautiful? | Essay How a 1969 Disaster in Santa Barbara, and the Coalitions That Formed in Its Wake, Shaped Environmentalism

Trump has oil flowing through Santa Barbara’s coastal pipeline for the first time in over a decade, despite California officials' objections. @parhee.bsky.social takes us back to the 1969 Santa Barbara spill that shaped the environmental movement. zps.la/4uGyUAv

A "research" university that eliminates or "re-envisions" majors based on supposedly low enrollment should have to relinquish its title of "research" university

appalling mismanagement of public resources

"chop from the top" means no gazillionaire salaries for upper admin, who should be educators, and it means no $15M fees to grifter consultants and oafing marketers

IHR Internships IHR Internships support new researchers to develop their skills and broaden their experience within and beyond the historical research community.

Interested in environmental history? The IHR is offering a summer 2026 internship with the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH). Apply by 15 April 2026, 11:59 pm BST. More details at: buff.ly/Vzpz6G3.

Inside Issue 8.3: A Q&A on the relationship between historical scholarship and the energy humanities. @imreszeman.bsky.social and @calebwellum.bsky.social facilitated a conversation with Cara Daggett, Bob Johnson, and Jennifer Wenzel on the state of the field.

Link below!

As a historian of the American West, I winced to hear Trump blatantly ignored all our scholarship in his SOTU, prattling on about an "unforgiving wilderness" and "empty" landscapes-- without the slightest acknowledgment of the Indigenous and Mexican presence on these same lands.

These are “low enrollment” majors but the classes are regularly at capacity. They changed the funding structure a few years ago here, switching the allocation from course enrollments to majors then blamed these departments for a structural, top-down change. This is entirely a political choice.

aesthetics of an antiaesthetic age In collaboration with the new Chicago branch of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, InterCcECT welcomes you to a moderated discussion on immoderate SLOP. From the bulldozing of the White Ho…

chicago!

the Inter Chicago Circle for Experimental Critical Theory partners with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research (chicago edition) for a special event this saturday:

Slop Machine: Anna Kornbluh and Kate Wagner on the Aesthetics of Contemporary Fascism

interccect.com/2026/02/16/a...

Tastes “like nothing but also bad” is a true motto for our times.