one thing i keep thinking about is how there is simply no way to design a constitutional system that can resist authoritarian incursion if participants in that system do not actually care that much

None of this had to be this way.

list of banned keywords

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

Luigi Mangione in a white whale tie

Luigi Mangione’s white whale tie in close up

[everybody:] “Nate, please don’t try to make this about Moby-Dick. Not everything is about Moby-Dick!”

[vengeance-fueled antihero on obsessive doomed quest:]

Shoutout to the troll student who used direct quotes from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in their close reading essay of Dimmesdale's final scaffold scene.

I just wrapped up two upper-level sections of "The American Novel to 1865." The final quiz asked students what they'll take away from the course.

Student: "I can now say that I read Moby-Dick and didn't understand it."

I learned a little bit ago that my research won the 2024 Society of Early Americanists Essay Award. The competition is in memory of my late colleague, Sarah Schuetze, a friend and generous reader of the work when we were fellows in Philly years ago. #c18 #c19 #NativeAmericanHistory #VastEarlyAmerica

[every american institution:] yes?