Geoffrey Kirsch

Faulkner

Boy, Holmes' bad man is really getting a workout these days.

Political violence is bad. It usually begets more political violence.

Celebrating political violence is bad. It usually encourages more political violence, against various targets.

Campus shootings are bad. They make everyone on campus less safe.

It's bad that what I wrote here is controversial.

And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" might be a fruitful (no pun intended) transatlantic pairing?

Planning this panel for next year's @c19americanists.bsky.social conference in Cincinnati. Email/DM me with questions and/or proposals!

Too easy...

For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.

Nearly 250 years of a republic struggling to live up to the ideals of its founding documents only to arrive here.

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish?

O gentlemen, the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings.

“It is…a small college. And yet, there are those who love it”

“Kafka name-checked three words in” feels like the lawyer equivalent of noticing a small red dot appearing between your eyes

Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?

Planning this panel for next year's @c19americanists.bsky.social conference in Cincinnati. Email/DM me with questions and/or proposals!

Most foreigners at Harvard grasp American principles better than most senior officials in the Trump administration.

Trump Administration Halts Harvard’s Ability to Enroll International Students

This intolerable attack on Harvard’s independence and academic freedom is plainly government retaliation for Harvard’s speech standing up for itself and the rule of law. America must rally to the side of Harvard and its students in court, in Congress and in our communities.

"Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges."
―Billy Budd, Sailor

(Clip is from 2012.)

YouTube video by No Labels Justice David Souter Discusses Protecting Democracy

Souter was right about everything.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nQR...

The Interbellum Constitution A synthesis of legal, political, and social history to show how the post-founding generations were forced to rethink and substantially revise the U.S. consti...

it has taken me a minute to finish, but if you’re a 19th century american history/legal theory nerd you will love this book yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Apt pairing.

Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals

"Just a week after the authorities of Boston assembled to carry back a perfectly innocent man, and one whom they knew to be innocent, into slavery, the inhabitants of Concord caused the bells to be rung and the cannons to be fired, to celebrate their liberty +

In 1844, "Squire" Samuel Hoar was sent to South Carolina to protest the ongoing enslavement of free black sailors from Massachusetts there. He and his daughter fled Charleston under threats of violence.

Please stop making my research relevant...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_...

Historian here traitors are always trying to kill our republic. On this day Abraham Lincoln was murdered by a Confederate assassin. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Fight fiercely, Harvard.

HARVARD TAKES A STAND. Yes!!!!

“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”