Elise A. Mitchell

It is brutal, cruel, and utterly exhausting. And still, paralyzing despair is not a good option. There is always a worse outcome worth the prevention effort. Always.

The nature of the war mongering and state violence in the U.S. and involving the U.S. abroad proves the urgency of humanistic and social science knowledge. And yet the schools throw money at departments that can build weapons and can train those who will wield them and all there is is blood.

The college/university was after all against us by design for centuries. Perhaps this is the ultimate end. For better and for worse, it must be profoundly reimagined to maintain any legitimate form of knowledge production.

The gutting of gender and sexuality and all of ethnic studies is attendant and nonwestern area and race/ethnicity specialists across other humanistic and social science disciplines remain vulnerable as well. I don’t think it’s as simple as backlash. I think it was always an empty promise.

As many have said, and the historical record should reflect, in 2020, colleges and universities couldn’t get enough Black Studies. It took them less than a decade (barely half) to turncoat and gut those programs. Empty gestures and tokenism and plain BS barely describe…

"Noise Up the World" is an exhibition exploring the archive of novelist, essayist, philosopher, and scholar Sylvia Wyntervwith special attention to her major projects on Man, and the Autonomy of Human Cognition.

Reception
Mar 2, 2026

Invocation: Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs @alexispauline.bsky.social

It's so ironic how often bigots talked about being "unpersoned" because people did not want to socialize with them. You know what's really an "unpersoning"? Having no driver's license in a rural area. Losing the one ID you need to vote or pay taxes or open a bank account.

The Gay Harlem Renaissance | The New York Historical A thrilling exhibition invites visitors to immerse themselves in the richness of Black LGBTQ+ life in the 1920s and 1930s.

I visited this exhibition and recommend it to others. It closes on March 8. www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/...

Tomorrow!! I’m so excited!

In Conversation: candice iloh and Amber McBride We asked the two creators to discuss how they both landed on highlighting different aspects of Black culture for their debut picture books, their first time collaborating with illustrators, and their ...

My amazing partner is a children’s author with a lovely picture book coming out! Read about them in this convo!!!

www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

No Safe Harbor: Martin R. Delany's Figurative Emigrations — INSURRECT! “One need not look outside the United States for models of oppression and resistance. Instead, strategies for surviving fascist conditions have been developed and refined by Black people for centuries...

🔥HOT OFF THE PRESS🔥
"No Safe Harbor: Martin R. Delany's Figurative Emigrations"
by Michael Soriano
Please Share!
www.insurrecthistory.com/archives/no-...

Black Atlantic Worlds — Harvard University Press Landscapes are key to the Black Atlantic. The history of how Africans and their descendants populated and transformed nations, regions, and ecosystems has always been attentive to the multiple meaning...

It’s officially pub day for this incredible work! Thank you to Oscar de la Torre for making this possible!!
And thank you to CUNY DSI for research consults and permission to use your images in my work!!
www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978088...

See I’m showing my cards I didn’t know the Payne. I’m gonna look into it for next time.

Part of me wants like a firmly left of center general Black history reader. A bigger part of me hopes someone here throws egg on my face and tells me one already exists.

Yes I am that historian shouting into this abyss pretending it is Twitter c. 2010s asking for historical references. I’m retro af.

I teach this Black America Part II (post-Haitian Rev-21st cent) again next spring and the Civil War and Reconstruction and Civil Rights (we need something for between Kelley Race Rebels and Farmer’s work on Black Power) syllabi sections just need to be different.

So, maybe this is more a plea for like references? Or maybe this is really an observation of an emerging lacuna in Black history want for redress? Idk if you have recommendations do share, I’m open.

Maybe my ignorance of post 1800 history failed me. But I feel like the gravity of leftist and progressive historical scholarship has shifted (in albeit productive ways) but it leaves me wanting for generalist teaching materials.

I also still have to teach about the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement on a macro scale too (or maybe I don’t and I don’t know it?). I’m finding myself yearning for a general history of these - not a textbook - from a critical left (I’ll settle for progressive) perspective that is recent.

Leftist and progressive scholars have rightly reprioritized late 19th and 20th-cent history to think beyond the U.S. and highlight understudied individuals, events, and institutions or processes in the U.S. I love this but…

While I don’t want to advocate for a conservative approach to US history (especially as someone in a fraught relationship with that field) as an educator of Black history, I do find myself yearning for more fresh progressive/left takes on events we think we know…

I’m preparing to teach the convo Jim Downs hosted “Does the Civil War Matter?” tomorrow alongside other readings. It’s a crunch due to the snow day yesterday. I have thoughts…

I say all this as someone who has studied disability, been trained professionally to work with people with disabilities, and lived with multiple visible and less visible disabilities myself. A real apology is owed.

If your disability leads you to cause harm, you acknowledge and apologize for the harm because you’re still responsible for it. It seems very ableist to me to let someone off the hook from all responsibility just because of a disability.

Backlash mounts to Bafta N-word controversy as Jamie Foxx and Wendell Pierce criticise outburst Foxx calls Tourette syndrome activist John Davidson’s shouts at the film awards ceremony ‘unacceptable’, while Sinners’ production designer criticises Bafta’s ‘throwaway’ apology

Some of the discourse around this is kind of ableist. Look, people with disabilities that impact behavior are still responsible for their behaviors, even when those behaviors are involuntary or due to some diminished inhibition.

www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

Welp it looks like Mayor Parker is getting a second chance to prove if she can manage snow. I’m doubtful but let’s see what she does this time… idk maybe use the union this time 🤷🏾‍♀️

Penn Nursing hosts symposium on Revolutionary War medical care The Feb. 18 symposium was held at the McNeil center and featured 13 speakers from the Philadelphia area who shared their expertise on the evolving role of nurses and caretakers in United States histor...

Spoke at a a symposium at my alma mater this week and a student journalist wrote it up for the paper! She did great!

www.thedp.com/article/2026...

Our next seminar takes place 2nd March. We'll be discussing a WIP by Dr. Elise Mitchell (Swarthmore College (@bydreamphd.bsky.social). To receive the WIP in advance, please register by next Monday!

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/race-and-the...

Tomorrow!

gsws.sas.upenn.edu/events/2026/...

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