This reminds me of a really great passage from Barnes' interview in the NYT this week:

Rhae Lynn Barnes for Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment A groundbreaking history, decades in the making, that chronicles how blackface dominated American society culturally, financially, and racially for nearly two centuries. Never before has the distur…

I have two events in DC this week! 🌸 (1/2) @liveright.bsky.social @peoplesbooktakoma.com peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/darkol...

When Racism Is a Crime: Brazil Puts a Tourist on Trial for Word and Gesture

As someone who's been taunted by people making monkey noises in Argentina, I find this to be a deeply satisfying turn of events. But also fascinating for multiple reasons including the framing of Brazil as the only one of the two countries that "suffered from the issue of slavery."

Juana Inés de la Cruz: life of the week

On the BBC @historyextra.bsky.social podcast, historian of Mexico Paul Gillingham discusses the life and work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. open.spotify.com/episode/37Vj...

The 2026 Holberg Prize is awarded to Australian-British scholar Lyndal Roper of the University of Oxford for her ground-breaking research into early modern European history.

holbergprize.org/laureates/ho...

Perry: Why I no longer shop at Target — and am not going back (yet) Though some have called for the boycott's end, the retailer's stance on ICE, Pride and DEI have us unwilling to come back, contributing columnist David M. Perry writes.

I wrote about falling out of the habit of shopping at Target.

www.startribune.com/national-tar...

Ooh this would be an interesting article! Especially given the current (deeply gender-based) attacks on higher ed. A strange confluence of Hollywood and Washington narratives...

So Old, So Young: A Novel A Novel

I am down to the final 9 pages of this and am dragging it out because I don't want it to end! It's meticulously crafted: told across 20 years and 5 gatherings, from the vantage points of 5 friends. Will I ever read another novel as good? (I always ask this, the answer is always yes, but still!)

Eligibility: 'Historians who have previously published at least one scholarly monograph on vast early America and are interested in honing their writerly voices for their next project.'

We recognize that people working on 2nd and 3rd books, for various reasons, tend to have more space to branch out in these ways. But certainly the goal is to be ever more inclusive as we progress in this path.

It absolutely is! We don't have an employment requirement, just a publishing one. DM me with any questions!

New Nonfiction to Read This Spring Memoirs from Liza Minnelli and Arsenio Hall; essays from David Sedaris and Jesmyn Ward; plus histories, true crime, biographies and more.

Here are 26 nonfiction books we’re excited about this spring.

Whyteface: A Novel A pointed satire about a Nigerian on vacation in Europe, into the heart of whitenessFour years ago, a young man named Furo Wariboko woke up one morning in Lagos to find that he had transformed into a white man. Except for his ass. Now well established with a good job, going by Frank Whyte and living in a nicely appointed house in the capital city of Abuja, he is ready to set off on a real vacation—his first trip outside Nigeria.As Frank travels to Amsterdam, Oslo, and Milan, he finds himself, for the first time in years . . . blending in. His skin is not in the least remarkable. In Amsterdam he befriends his well-meaning but occasionally misguided Airbnb host. There he also meets a Nigerian expat living in America whom he is both delighted to see but who vexes him for reasons he can’t initially identify. In Oslo, he intervenes when a charismatic Kenyan writer is the victim of a racist taxi driver. In Milan he comes upon a woman who might be a distant relative who has survived a treacherous journey of migration. He quickly realizes that he feels most Nigerian when he is outside of Nigeria, and he begins to wonder what it might take to be treated, simply, as human.Hilarious, sharp-witted, and moving, each in turn and often all at once, A. Igoni Barrett’s Whyteface confronts the absurdities of Europe and the West’s ideas about the global south—both its xenophobic fear as well as its supposedly beneficent charity. It is a heady and absorbing new novel by the writer Teju Cole called “a major talent.”

OK, I recognize the following sentence is going look odd, but I cannot get over the year we're having for books and it's Friday night and we've got to live our truth so...

Holy crap there's a sequel to Blackass coming out called Whyteface!

The Historian's Writerly Craft: A Summer Intensive Grounded in Discipline and Artistry - OIEAHC APPLY NOW for this 12-week intensive workshop designed for historians who want to improve their artistic craft.

#skystorians! If you work on vast early America and want to develop your writerly and storytelling chops in community with other historians, please consider applying to the inaugural Craft Intensive sponsored by @oieahc.bsky.social (led by myself and Scott Heerman). For more details, visit:

What an incredible title and gorgeous cover. I cannot wait!

My book has a cover! IN LATIN AMERICA YOU COULD BE FREE: AN AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY tells the story of the place and promise of Latin America in the political imagination of African Americans and of their movements to the region in the antebellum period.

Out on Basic Books, November 11, 2026! 🥳

Martha S. Jones (2013 ACLS Fellow) and Kate Masur (2020 Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellow) have submitted a historians’ amicus brief in Trump v. Barbara.

Learn more about scholars working to increase public understanding and inform policymakers on birthright citizenship: bit.ly/4pz9XEk

Full text from @theguardian.com here:

Whether it's Trump planning to use secret police to suppress the Democratic vote in the 2026 election or Zohran Mamdani planning to open up a couple city-run grocery stores in Manhattan, both men are threatening the integrity of our democracy.

definitely seems like you're safer from any kind of punishment for being in the Epstein Files than for, say, just to pick two examples totally at random, attending a college protest for Gaza or tweeting that you weren't very sad Charlie Kirk died

But it's also staggering that it's not a standalone story in the mainstream press, considering the particulars of LeFrak's foundation work, her involvement at Barnard, and the school's educational mission. #epsteinfiles

It's part of both a specific story and a larger one:

Over 70 faculty members sign open letter demanding the College address Francine LeFrak’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein The letter called on Barnard College to investigate and address trustee and prominent donor Francine LeFrak’s connection to the convicted sex offender.

Every day I wake up hoping more outlets will cover this: Barnard trustee Francine LeFrak, whose name is on a prominent campus center, invited Jeffrey Epstein to Rwanda where she runs a foundation focused on women and girls, and had a friend solicit an invitation for her to visit his island.

Elimination of a cause in NYC at an institution founded for creative and progressive education...
@aaup.org
@higheredlabor.bsky.social

In the middle of a once-in-a-generation attack on academia and the humanities by the right in the US, as people are losing funding and jobs, and we don't even know if our disciplines will make it out alive, Tyler Austin Harper decides that it was time to attack the Mellon Foundation.

All of which raises an interesting question: are historians losing ground to historical fiction? Not only in terms of market share and media attention, but also in terms of the bigger picture of who is shaping the public's understanding of the past?

#history #historicalfiction

I also had a fun conversation with @infinite-women.com about her, for a whole episode of the podcast: